American Shadows

An inoculation for smallpox should have been something to celebrate. Instead, it caused outrage and violence.

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Life on British Prison Ships during the Revolutionary War, and the horrifying tale of a man who spent time aboard the most notorious of them all: the HMS Jersey. 

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The story about how stolen corpses played a crucial role in the development of Western medicine -- and how one man made a living at the center of the trade.

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A life insurance scheme involving murder, fraud, and a whole lot of alcohol. But some things just don't go the way they're planned.

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How one woman found God, murder, and the Anti Christ -- multiple times! -- in 1850s Connecticut.

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One man's quest to control the weather in Southern California -- with disastrous results that would change a city forever. Weather control has always been a vestige of the gods -- or so we've always thought. But there way one man at the turn of the century who convinced people otherwise -- with disastrous results. 

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It was a long time before President Abraham Lincoln would finally rest in peace -- his corpse would first have to survive counterfitters and grave-robbers.

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Political intrigue and murder in the aftermath of an American invasion of Canada in 1866.

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The darker side of American horse racing, and the shadows cast by some of the tragedies along the way.

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One man's obsession with lonely hearts ads of a century ago, and his abuse of the false trust they engendered.

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