Curated Video
The History and Recipe of Potato Chips
Potato chips are very thinnly sliced potatoes that are deep fried in oil. Learn how the potato chip was invented and about various packaging techniques. Then try making potato chips!
Curated Video
How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football
It’s America’s national sport – but when football almost came to a crashing halt following the deaths of 19 players in 1905, US President Theodore Roosevelt made a decisive play.
Curated Video
The Negro League Baseball: Shattering Segregation
Like much of American in the early 19th century, sports were segregated. But with the newly established Negro Baseball League, African American baseball players overcame racial segregation to claim the national pastime as their own.
Curated Video
Museum of Artifacts That Made America: Helen Keller's Watch
Deafblind pioneer Helen Keller campaigned for a better America – with the help of a remarkable watch that she didn’t have to see to read.
Curated Video
Fighting for LGBTQ Rights: Is the United States Really United?
The 10th Amendment to the Constitution allows each state to set its own laws. That's meant that in Colorado, LGBTQIA+ rights have often been repressed. Meet the students at William J. Palmer High School who took their school district to...
NASA
NASA | Return to Venus: Part II
Watch "Return to Venus - Part I" at:From Galileo and the Heliocentric model of the Solar System to James Hansen and climate research, observations of the planet Venus throughout history have given us the perspective we need to understand...
Curated Video
The Camera: How The Camera Exposed The Reality of The Civil War
The camera changed how many Americans saw the Civil War – and exposed millions to the horrors of conflict for the very first time.
Curated Video
The Windshield Wiper: A Female Innovation
The first mass-produced car in America was basically a lawnmower with leather trim, but it was a start, right? This is the story of Mary Anderson and the Windshield Wiper - an invention that happened by a stroke of fate!
Curated Video
Sacagawea: Intrepid Indigenous Explorer
Native American interpreter Sacagawea was the only woman on Lewis and Clark’s expedition into the West. She played a vital role, but was subsequently forgotten.
Curated Video
Jovita Idar: Voice of the People
Imagine throwing shade at a politician online and police showed up to arrest you! It would be un-American, right? In this video, we'll explain the story of Jovita Idar, a Mexican-American journalist who refused to be silenced!
Curated Video
Barbara Jordan: Statement on the Articles of Impeachment
In 1974, US House Representative for Texas, Barbara Jordan delivered an impassioned speech on the power and meaning of the U.S. Constitution. Delivered on primetime television to critical acclaim during the coverage of the infamous...
Curated Video
Claudette Colvin: The Original Rosa Parks
You know the story of David and Goliath, right? Well, America has its own version. Only our hero is 15-year-old African-American, school girl Claudette Colvin and in 1955, she took on the State of Alabama for real. The original Rosa Parks!
Curated Video
María Ruiz de Burton: Chicano Activist Writer
Latina author María Ruiz de Burton raised the plight of Mexicans in America with two satirical and revealing books at a time when female authors were few and far between.
Curated Video
Hedy Lamarr: Mother of WiFi
Did you know? The amazing technology behind Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS was the brainchild of Hollywood actor turned visionary inventor Hedy Lamarr - the Mother of Wi-Fi.
Brainwaves Video Anthology
Khalil Gibran Muhammad - 'Let America Be America Again' by Langston Hughes
Khalil Gibran Muhammad is professor of History, Race and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and the Suzanne Young Murray Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies. He is the former Director of the Schomburg Center...
Curated Video
Tennis for Two: America's First Video Game
It was pretty basic – but also revolutionary! Find out how American physicist William Higinbotham created Tennis For Two and discover its links to the mysterious Manhattan Project.
Curated Video
DJ Kool Herc's Turntables: Hip Hop Extraordinaire
In 1970s New York, 16-year-old Jamaican immigrant Clive Campbell (aka DJ Kool Herc) used his trusty turntables to loop funk records and bring the beat. In the process he helped create one of America's true art forms: hip hop.
Curated Video
Marian Anderson: The Opera Singer Who Challenged Segregation
When Black singer Marian Anderson was barred from performing in Washington by the Daughters of the Revolution – her Lincoln Memorial performance made her an icon of the Civil Rights Movement.
Curated Video
Barbara Jordan: The Black Texan Politician who Broke the Glass Ceiling
At a time when women and people of colour were all but excluded from the US government, one woman stormed the corridors of power and made them her own. This is the story of Barbara Jordan, the African American from the South who defied...
Curated Video
Jim Thorpe: Native American Olympic Hero
Football, baseball, basketball player – he was one of America's most talented sportsmen and the first Native American to achieve Olympic Gold glory! So why don't we see Jim Thorpe's name up in lights?
Curated Video
John Rollin Ridge: the Native American Novelist Like No Other
We've had some great American Novelists? You've read some of them in school, right? But one writer you've probably never heard of is John Rollin Ridge, aka Yellow Bird: the first Native American to ever publish a novel about a fictitious...
Curated Video
Stephen H Long: The Man Who Mapped the West
Stephen H. Long mapped much of the unexplored American West – but he made one big mistake that set Western migration back decades.
Curated Video
Ellen Ochoa: The First Female Hispanic Astronaut
In 1993, Ellen Ochoa wrote her name in the stars – as the first Hispanic woman to enter orbit. She continues to inspire generations of aspiring astronauts today.