Chronicling the 16-year struggle (1925-41) to fashion Mount Rushmore in South Dakota's Black Hills, and profiling sculptor Gutzon Borglum, its creator. Borglum was 60 when plans for Rushmore were announced and he died not long after the final busts were completed. In between, money was often scarce and the granite from which the likenesses were hewn was crumbly. But Borglum wouldn't be denied, and he had foresight: He planned for 300,000 years' worth of weather erosion.

Charting the race between the Union Pacific and Central Pacific to construct a transcontinental railroad to link the U.S. It ended May 10, 1869, in Promontory Point, Utah. The construction was "the engineering marvel of the 19th century -- and a flat-out swindle,” says narrator Michael Murphy. It was also "the technological manifestation of Manifest Destiny,” says historian Wendell Huffman, one of the program's commentators. And it sealed the fate of the Plains Indians. When the final spike was in place, Murphy says, "America could take its place as the first nation in the world."

The story of the gambling mecca is told via news clips and reminiscences. Part 1 of 2

News clips and reminiscences tell the story of the gambling mecca, from a dusty railroad town to a leading tourist attraction. Part 2 of 2

A striking profile of the outlaw (1847-82) is told through reenactments, comments from historians and archival photographs. The hour traces James' life from age 16 to his death at 34 (he was shot in the back), and includes his years as a Southern guerrilla fighter, bandit and killer.

A vibrant retelling of the mania that followed the discovery of gold in San Francisco in 1848. "Next to the Civil War in the 19th century," says historian J.S. Holliday, "no other event had a greater impact." The focus is on five real-life adventurers, including a down-on-his-luck Chilean aristocrat; a New York blacksmith who leaves his family in hopes of striking it rich; and a determined Missouri woman.

An illiterate mountain man, Kit Carson was fluent in Spanish and five Indian languages; he twice married Native American women, yet led a brutal war against the Navajo. When the West was a mystery to most Americans, Carson mastered it, and his expertise made him not only famous, but also sought after. Eventually, by helping to spur a migration that would change the West forever, he unwittingly became an agent in the destruction of the life he loved.

Wyatt Earp has been portrayed in countless movies and television shows by some of Hollywood's greatest actors, including Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, and more recently, Kevin Costner, but these popular fictions often belie the complexities and flaws of a man whose life is a lens on politics, justice and economic opportunity in the American frontier.

From PBS and American Experience - In the summer of 1868, paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh boarded a Union Pacific train for a sightseeing excursion through the heart of the newly opened American West. While most passengers simply saw magnificent landscapes, Marsh soon realized he was traveling through the greatest dinosaur burial ground of all time.

In 1914, the Panama Canal connected the world’s two largest oceans. American ingenuity and innovation had succeeded where the French had failed disastrously, but the U.S. paid a price for victory.

In the 1950s and early '60s, a small band of high-altitude pioneers exposed themselves to the extreme forces of the space age long before NASA's acclaimed Mercury 7 would make headlines. Though largely forgotten today, balloonists were the first to venture into the frozen near-vacuum on the edge of our world, exploring the very limits of human physiology and human ingenuity in this lethal realm.

Meet Nikola Tesla, the genius engineer and tireless inventor whose technology revolutionized the electrical age of the 20th century. Although eclipsed in fame by Edison and Marconi, it was Tesla's vision that paved the way for today's wireless world.

The dramatic story of the country's first subway.