American Shadows

In the 1950s the United States launched a witch hunt, and it's not at all what you think.

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What would you do when faced with a life-or-death situation? Alferd Packer had to answer this question for himself, and do something that is -- for many -- unthinkable. 

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The story of a man who loved his mother. Too much.

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When the bicycle was invented it did more than simply change people's lives, leisure and mobility. It ignited a controversy over traditional gender roles. One woman set out to change all that.

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The fight for equal rights was long and slow until one day a fight broke out with police, culminating in a riot. What happened next is history.

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Prussian immigrant Louis Wagner came to America hoping to make a better life for himself. Working as a fisherman in the Isle of Shoals it seemed he was living the dream, until he found himself down on his luck.

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The Gilded Age was a time of opulence and opportunism, an age that turned businessmen into household names. But it also created some of the biggest rivalries in the rush to unearth the past.

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Thomas Neill Cream wanted nothing more than to leave the family shipping business to become a medical doctor. Having graduated with honors, his future seemed promising -- until the bodies began to appear. 

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Spirits were high that summer’s day as everyone boarded the General Slocum. The passengers were looking forward to their annual picnic just up river… but as fate would have it, they’d never arrive

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In 1918, the US Government created a plan to track, detain, and imprison women for the STIs brought home from soldiers.

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