Summary: "In 1915, African American newspaper editor and civil rights activist William Monroe Trotter waged a battle against D.W. Griffith's notoriously Ku Klux Klan-friendly blockbuster The Birth of a Nation, which unleashed a fight still raging today about race relations and representation, and the power and influence of Hollywood. Birth of a Movement features commentary from Spike Lee, Reginald...

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2017

Copies Available at Woodmere

Summary: Challenges one of America's most cherished assumptions, the belief that slavery in the U.S. ended with Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, by telling the harrowing story of how, in the South, a new system of involuntary servitude took its place with shocking force.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: PBS Distribution 2012

Copies Available at Woodmere

Summary: Examines entertainer Sammy Davis Jr.'s journey to create his own identity, as a black man who embraced Judaism, through the shifting tides of civil rights and racial progress; a veteran of increasingly outdated show business traditions, he strove to stay relevant, even as he found himself bracketed by the bigotry of white America and the distaste of black America. Features new interviews with...

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: PBS 2019

Copies Available at Woodmere

Summary: Music has been a constant in human history, an intermingling of voice and instrument that for all its local variation and increasing sophistication nevertheless endured in more or less the same form for centuries. Then came recording--and music was forever transformed. Soundbreaking, an eight-part event television series, traces this ongoing sonic revolution, and explores the nexus of...

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2016

Copies Available at Woodmere

Summary: Contemporary art reflects the ideas of our time, and artists are the creative role models grappling with today's most timely questions. What is the nature of reality? How do we respond to a world in flux? Why do some historical events shape the way we think today, and why have some been forgotten? Explore these ideas and many more in Season Six of Art in the Twenty-First Century. Spotlights...

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: PBS Distribution 2012

Copies Available at Woodmere

Summary: Documents the difference in various styles of twenty-first-century art through interviews, commentary, and behind-the-scenes footage.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: PBS Distribution 2012

Copies Available at Woodmere

Summary: Discover how the 1900 outbreak of bubonic plague set off fear and anti-Asian sentiment in San Francisco.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2022

Copies Available at Woodmere

Summary: Examines the life and legacy of African American poet, memoirist, and civil rights worker Maya Angelou, from her upbringing in the Depression-era South to her work with Malcolm X in Ghana to the recitation of her inaugural poem for President Bill Clinton. Includes Angelou's own words woven together with archival photographs and videos as well as interviews with Angelou's friends and family.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2017

Copies Available at Peninsula

Summary: In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The shocking incident made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the...

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2021

Copies Available at Woodmere

Summary: It's long been known that German soldiers used methamphetamine called Pervitin in the Second World War. But have tales of Nazis on speed obscured the other side of the story: the massive use of stimulants by British and American troops? Did total war unleash the world's first pharmacological arms race? Historian James Holland quests to dig deeper and unearth the truth behind the war.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2019

Copies Available at Woodmere

Summary: Enter stories of the most unlikely cross-species relationships imaginable: a chimp bottle-feeding tiger cub, a giant tortoise snuggling with a baby hippo, a black crow parenting a meerkat. Look at these remarkable relationships first hand, and through caregivers, biologists, and animal behaviorists. Explore what they suggest about the nature of animal emotions.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: PBS Distribution 2013

Copies Available at Woodmere

Summary: New research has shown that crows are among the most intelligent animals in the world, able to use tools as only elephants and chimpanzees do, able to recognize each other's voices and 250 distinct calls. Crow experts from around the world sing their praises, and present us with captivating new footage of crows as we have never seen them before.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: PBS Distribution 2010

Copies Available at Woodmere

Artist Not Provided

Summary: Provides a look at domestic and wild rabbits and hares, exploring their differences, their methods of survival in different landscapes and against predators, and efforts to prevent the extinction of various species.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: Public Broadcasting Service 2020

Copies Available at Woodmere

Summary: If oceans continue to warm at the current pace, coral reefs could be wiped out by century's end. But scientists from around the globe are rushing to help corals adapt to changing climate through assisted evolution. Follow scientists as they attempt to crossbreed heat-resistant corals, and even transplant corals' algae, in a race to save the coral reefs from extinction.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2021

Copies Available at Woodmere

Summary: Dr. Lucy Worsley explores the royal wardrobes of our kings and queens over the last 400 years, from Elizabeth I to the present Queen Elizabeth II, explaining how the royal wardrobe is a carefully orchestrated piece of theater managed by the royals themselves to control the right image and project the right message to their subjects. Royal fashion is, and always has been, as much about politics...

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2015

Copies Available at Woodmere

Summary: An epic three-part series that charts the rise and fall of the Boleyn family. This story of love, sex, betrayal and obsession is told from the unique perspective of the Boleyn family.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2022

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Summary: How did the Earth transform from a hot ball of molten rock and metal into the planet that we call home? How did our continents and oceans grow? Where did our great mountain ranges come from? The geological processes that have shaped our world have also influenced the way humans have populated the planet. From the Great Lakes to Iceland, the San Andreas Fault to Krakatoa, this series reveals the...

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: Arts and Entertainment Network 2009

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Summary: Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson brings together celebrities, scientists, comedians, and more to explore a variety of cosmic topics, colliding pop culture with science in a way that late-night television has never seen before. Topics range from popular science fiction, space travel, extraterrestrial life and the Big Bang, to the future of Earth and the environment.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: National Geographic 2016

Copies Available at Woodmere

Summary: Profiles twelve contemporary artists from three urban centers: Berlin, Johannesburg, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: PBS 2018

Copies Available at Woodmere

Summary: Examines the origin and geological evolution of the earth, focusing on the various cataclysmic transformations that occurred through time.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: History Channel 2008

Copies Available at Woodmere