Since the dawn of recorded history, China has offered a fertile spiritual climate for a wide range of religions and belief systems, producing Confucianism and Taoism while nurturing ancestor worship, Mahayana Buddhism, and, in a smaller proportion, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. In this program, Hans Kung seeks to understand the religions of China-officially a religion-free zone during China's period of strict Communist rule-as well as the holistically...

Peanut, Butter, and Crackers set off on a camping trip. But when Butter and Peanut leave the safety of the camper to explore the forest, they end up more lost than they ever planned and Crackers has no choice but to go look for them. Can Crackers find his family before it's too late?

In North America and western Europe there is a growing interest in the spiritual practices and ideas of the world's native peoples. In this program, Hans Kung first travels to Australia to investigate the beliefs of today's Aborigines through ceremonies involving body painting, music, and dance. He then journeys to Africa, the cradle of humankind, to gain insights into tribal culture through modern rites that include torchlight processions, dance,...

How well do we understand the neurology of learning? Why does the brain's ability to learn diminish as we age? Can science find a way to extend brain "fitness," even for the very old? This program addresses those questions as it describes important medical experiments and studies. Topics include the central role of nerve cell connections in learning and cognitive development; cerebral plasticity, or the breakdown of unused connections; and growing...

Someone is systematically killing the top competitors in the Iditarod, Alaska's famous 1100-mile dogsled race. As the "mushers" thread their way along the trail, Sergeant Alex Jensen races to find the murderer.

Seaman, the Newfoundland dog belonging to Meriwether Lewis, keeps an account of their adventures during the journey to the Pacific.

The story of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison whose investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy became an obsession.

The 1930s exodus of "Okies" dispossessed by repeated droughts and failed crop prices was a relatively brief interlude in the history of migrant agricultural labor. Yet it attracted wide attention through the publication of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and the images of Farm Security Administration photographers such as Dorothea Lange and Arthur Rothstein. Ironically, their work risked sublimating the subjects—real

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In 1847, Caleb "Mac" McDougall, a young Bostonian, seeks adventure on the Oregon Trail. As he passes through Missouri, he rescues Jenny Calhoun, a lonely girl in trouble. To join a wagon train bound for Oregon, Mac and Jenny pose as a married couple. On the arduous six-month trek, they confront raging rivers, rugged mountains, and untrustworthy companions. Together, Mac and Jenny face the best and worst in themselves and in each other, while discovering...