Season 2 1995 - 2005

Discover how innovation and determination can lead to world-changing inventions as Alexander Graham Bell and his partner, Thomas Watson, turn a project to improve the telegraph system into the dream of the telephone! His speech lessons with deaf children give Bell the passion to pursue this discovery. As he watches one small boy struggle to learn to speak, he’s inspired to create a device that amplifies sound to make it possible for the deaf to hear. The result was the development of the first telephone.

To this day Harriet Tubman is still remembered as “The Moses of her people” for good reason. From 1849 to 1860, in 17 dangerous missions to the Confederate South, she helped more than 300 slaves escape to freedom in the North.

Harriet’s selflessness and disregard for personal safety, along with her deep faith in God, enabled her to help family members and many others to escape the chains of slavery. She continues to inspire countless Americans more than a century after her death.

If people were meant to fly, they’d be given wings. That’s what the world told the brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright—but they refused to believe it. This is the thrilling story of two American bicycle repairmen that ignored all those who said it couldn’t be done and risked everything, including their very lives, to become the first to manage powered flight.

Return to the days of the Wright Brothers and see how their perseverance changed our world.

A childhood fever leaves the very bright Helen Keller deaf and blind, cutting her off from human communication. This turns her into an angry, untamed child who often explodes into fits of savage fury. It falls on the spirited shoulders of 21-year-old Anne Sullivan to break into Helen’s dark and silent world and end her awful isolation.

This dramatic and deeply moving story captures all the humor, pain and ultimate triumph of Anne’s quest to help Helen overcome incredible obstacles and find her freedom.

Only rarely do genius and humility live side-by-side in the same person. Yet who could dispute that Leonardo da Vinci— master painter, celebrated artist, and brilliant inventor, centuries ahead of his time-could lay claim to both titles?

This intriguing story not only introduces the towering figure of Leonardo but also paints a moving portrait of a humble man whose deep concern for others won him a lasting place in the hearts of his fifteenth century countrymen.

The year is 1429. France clings desperately to independence as English invaders advance into French territory. Just as the city of Orleans seems certain to fall, a 16-year-old maiden from Lorraine rises out of nowhere and through sheer, bold faith rallies her countrymen to a surprising victory. Yet the celebration is short-lived; through treachery the English kidnap the girl, brand her a witch, and burn her at the stake. And so is born the astonishing, but true tale of Joan of Arc.

Marco Polo intrigued audiences with his tales of magnificent palaces filled with precious stones, rivers filled with gold and “men with tails” who threw nuts as big as a man’s head. He described things that no one had ever witnessed and no one believed him. They were certain he had never visited these wondrous places. Yet he had.

This story captures the greatest highlights of Marco’s astonishing adventures to India, China and many other exotic lands.

Today, every child learns that the earth revolves around the sun. Yet in sixteenth century Europe, that belief was considered absolutely false! Galileo was the extraordinary astronomer and inventor who discovered the truth, at the risk of his reputation and freedom. He refused to support an incorrect view of the universe, and spent the last eight years of his life under house arrest. Learn of Galileo’s courage and genius in this revealing story of how his integrity led to a whole new universe of discovery and knowledge.

At an early age, Madame Curie was taught the importance of education. As an adult she became an amazing heroine of science. Her devotion to her work, despite poverty and sickness, gave the world the theory of radioactivity, the discovery of plutonium, and the isolation of radium.

Marie was the first person to receive two Nobel Prizes, she chose not to profit from her research on radium so that the findings could be used for cancer research.

Trained in the traditional music methods by his father, Beethoven was an accomplished pianist by age 12. By his early twenties, he had performed for Joseph Haydn, who compared him to the great Mozart. Beethoven began to lose his hearing, but he threw himself even more deeply into his music, composing “Fur Elise,” “Sonata Pathetique” and the dramatic “Fifth Symphony.” Years later, audience members heard what he could not and leapt to their feet in appreciation for such passionate music. His creativity gave the world music that stirs the soul.