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Clip: Season 30 | 9m 32s
The Circus, Part 2: Chapter 1
Aired: 10/09/18
Video has closed captioning.Corporate sponsorship for American Experience is provided by Liberty Mutual Insurance and Consumer Cellular. Major funding by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Harry Houdini's Impulse to Escape
Harry Houdini's impulse to escape dangerous situations attracted thousands of spectators.
Genetic Screening: Controlling Heredity
The ability to prevent suffering through genetic screenings sparks difficult questions.
The shocking history of the early 20th-century campaign to breed a “better” American race.
Besides inventing Corn Flakes, John Kellogg helped promote the American Eugenics movement.
P.G. Lowery and the Spread of African-American Music
P.G. Lowery’s all-black band gained early twentieth century fame through the circus.
Revisit the heyday of America’s traveling circus and meet the showmen who created it.
The sale of Jumbo, the African elephant to P.T. Barnum causes an uproar in England.
The Circus | Coming October 2018
"The Circus" explores the history of this distinctly popular American entertainment.
Explore the early days of this popular, influential and distinctly American form of entert
The Eugenics Crusade tells the story of the campaign to breed a “better” American race,
Revisit the heyday of America’s traveling circus and meet the showmen who created it.
Explore the early days of this popular, influential and distinctly American entertainment.
Honolulu's tranquility was shattered when a Navy wife made a drastic allegation of rape.
The fateful narrative of James Earl Ray who shot Dr. Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968.
The mostly-forgotten 1920 bombing in the nation’s financial center that left 38 dead.
Story of a Wall Street tycoon who helped alter course of history in World War II.
