10 That Changed America

It’s a whirlwind tour of 10 streets that change the way we get around. 10 Streets that Changed America begins and ends on Broadway in New York. We’ll trace the street’s 400-year evolution: from Native American road, to Dutch trading route, to the home of America’s earliest public transit, to an electrically-lighted theater district known as the “Great White Way." At the end of program we’ll see how Broadway has become the poster child for the “complete streets” movement, in which automobiles take a back seat to more sustainable forms of transit.

It’s a whirlwind tour of 10 wholly-original American monuments, and the historical moments that inspired them. We’ll visit little-known locations like the Robert Gould Shaw and Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial, a sculptural masterpiece dedicated to one of the first African-American units to serve in the Civil War; and we’ll explore the surprising stories behind American favorites like the Statue of Liberty, which was devised as a propaganda piece by French republican politicians.

It’s a whirlwind tour of 10 engineering feats that made our civilization possible. 10 Modern Marvels that Changed America is a show about engineers who’ve scoffed at the laws of nature. They’ve defied the naysayers — and sometimes even gravity — by undertaking amazing feats of engineering. Each story in this episode includes a fun physics lesson and a tale of human folly.