Episode Guide
1. California, North Carolina, Kansas, New Hampshire, West Virginia
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and subsequent major tremors along the San Andreas Fault prompted California scientists to explore ways to predict the next “big one. “England’s first attempt to colonize the New World in 1585 at Roanoke ended in the mysterious disappearance of the entire expedition. Pro- and anti-slavery factions battled for statehood in 1850s Kansas, propelling America toward the Civil War. The first act of open rebellion in America’s Revolutionary War took place at Fort William and Mary when the British stronghold was raided for weapons and munitions. When Virginia joined the Confederacy in 1861, Union loyalists in the western portion of the state rebelled, forming their own state government, but not without a struggle.
2. Texas, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Iowa, Delaware
Another history lesson filled with surprising facts, figures and stories from five American states. Texas hit the jackpot in 1901 with the discovery of oil at Spindletop Well in Beaumont. Puritans came to Massachusetts to escape religious persecution, but their own zeal to convert Native Americans led to one of the bloodiest wars in US history. Arkansas, 1957–nine African American high school students attempted to enroll at Little Rock’s Central High School and made Civil Rights history. During the Iowa Caucuses farmers rub elbows with would-be presidents. Finally, Delaware patriot Caesar Rodney rode into history in 1776 when he raced 80 miles on horseback to break the deadlocked vote for American independence.
3. New York, Louisiana, Oregon, New Mexico, Vermont
Travel back to the origins of New York City at New Amsterdam, the 16th century Dutch merchant colony. Discover how French Acadians fled Canada in 1873 to settle in Louisiana, developing the “Cajun” subculture. The Oregon Trail opened in 1843, bringing half a million settlers to the west. Visit Los Alamos Laboratories in New Mexico’s remote high desert, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, and where today research continues to advance science. Finally, learn how two friends from Vermont opened an ice cream shop in 1977 and would go on to become America’s most famous entrepreneurs.
4. New Jersey, Arizona, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Alaska
Crossing the icy Delaware River on Christmas night, 1776, allowed George Washington to surprise the British at Trenton, a critical American victory in the Revolutionary War. One of the world’s most recognizable natural landmarks, the Grand Canyon, defies the imaginations of the five million people who visit there annually. Pioneer Daniel Boone blazed the Wilderness Trail through Kentucky in 1775 and tamed the wild frontier. The opening of “The Unassigned Lands” in Oklahoma resulted in 50,000 settlers racing across the prairie to grab a stake and claim ownership of a homestead. The discovery of oil in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in 1975 called for an ingenious feat of engineering to transport fuel across 800 miles of icy wilderness.
5. Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Hawaii, South Carolina, Montana
Ground Hog Day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, dates back to 1886 and an ancient European holiday called Candlemass Day. Garrison Keeler and his A Prairie Home Companion radio program export a comic, down-home image of Minnesota to a weekly worldwide audience of over four million listeners. Hawaii is the only state that was once a kingdom and had its throne toppled in 1893 by a handful of meddling foreigners with the aid of the U.S. Navy. Following the world’s first submarine attack in 1864, the Confederate sub The Hunley sank mysteriously in Charleston Harbor, but was discovered and raised 131 years later. Montana has long been the world’s best source for dinosaur fossils and a recent discovery is shedding new light.
6. Florida, Indiana, Washington, Utah, Rhode Island
Hurricanes, lightening and alligator-filled swamps made Florida an unwelcome candidate for statehood, yet it continues to draw more and more people annually. In 1900, Indianapolis, not Detroit, was the center of the auto industry, and endurance tests there resulted in the establishment of the Indy 500 in 1911. On May 18, 1980, America’s most economically destructive volcanic erupts at Mt. St. Helens and rocks Washington State. Escaping religious persecution, Brigham Young leads twelve thousand Mormons on an exodus into the Utah desert in search of paradise. Roger Williams fled Massachusetts in the 16th century and founded a colony of religious tolerance in Rhode Island.
7. Illinois, Connecticut, Nevada, Mississippi, Wyoming
The Cahokia civilization thrived in the region known today as Illinois, from 700 to 1400 AD, but when the culture mysteriously disappeared, it left behind pyramids that rivaled those of ancient Egypt. Changing with the times, Connecticut’s shipbuilders shifted from sails to steam to diesel power, culminating in the construction of the first nuclear submarine. The 1859 discovery of the Comstock Lode, world’s largest silver deposit, prompted the Federal government to offer statehood to Nevada, a region it had previously written off as worthless desert. Work chants, gospel and traditional folk music were combined in the Mississippi Delta to create an original American art form–the Blues. The first frontiersmen to report the wonders of Yellowstone, Wyoming, were thought to be either crazy or lying.
8. Virginia, Ohio, Idaho, Alabama, North Dakota
Virginia was not only the home of the first permanent British colony; it was the birthplace of eight presidents of the United States. “The Gravity Grand Prix” has been an annual event in Akron, Ohio, since the 1930s and today draws 500 young entrants from around the nation. The discovery of gold, then lead, copper, zinc and silver, has made Idaho one of the richest mineral producing states in the nation. Poor hill farmers in Winston County rarely owned slaves and when Alabama seceded from the Union in 1861, Winston County tried to secede from Alabama. Teddy Roosevelt, America’s first conservation president, learned valuable lessons about preserving nature while on his North Dakota ranch.
9. Michigan, Tennessee, Maine, Missouri, South Dakota
Michigan’s logging industry helped build fortunes, but over-harvesting also threatened the environment. Davy Crocket, the coonskin-capped congressman from Tennessee, became more legend than reality thanks to 19th century political campaigns. Originally disdained as a food fit only for servants, lobsters are now a delicacy fueling Maine’s fishing industries. Riverboat traffic and trailheads to Santa Fe and Oregon made Missouri the “Gateway to the West.” The discovery of gold in the Black Hills in 1874 created a rush of prospectors who displaced Indians from sacred land that they’d been promised for eternity.
10. Georgia, Colorado, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Maryland/DC
Stone Mountain, Georgia, a monument to three heroes of the Confederacy, dwarfs Mt. Rushmore. The Denver Mint in Colorado, which produces the most coins in the world, started out during Colorado’s gold and silver boom of the 1860s as a private bank. Wisconsin’s Great Lakes are littered with sunken ships, but the cold, fresh waters keep aging vessels intact. One hundred, sixty acres of free land made available by The Homestead Act of 1862 drew settlers to Nebraska’s plains. Maryland soil helped found the District of Columbia, but the District’s Federal status denies it any state’s rights of its own.
