President George H.W. Bush delivers his 1990 State of the Union Address. President Bush talked about the fall of the Berlin wall and the restoration of democracy to Panama.

More Info »

With President Barack Obama set to deliver his State of the Union address in a few days, American History TV is showing a few past State of the Union addresses. On January 24th, 1995, President Bill Clinton delivered the State of the Union Address just a few months after the 1994 midterm elections swung control of the House of Representatives to the Republicans.

More Info »

With President Barack Obama set to deliver his State of the Union address in a few days, American History TV is showing a few past State of the Union addresses. President George W. Bush delivered his first State of the Union Address on January 29th, 2002, just a few months after the terrorist attacks of September 11th.

More Info »

American History TV joined historian Carol Reardon and Col. Tom Vossler to learn the story of the three-day Battle of Gettysburg through a selection of their favorite monuments.

More Info »

The Siege of Vicksburg took place from May 18th to July 4th, 1863. After failing to take the city by force, Union General Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Tennessee laid siege to the city, held by Confederate General John C. Pemberton and his forces. On July 4th, after 47 days, General Pemberton surrendered; and Vicksburg—the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River—was turned over to General Grant and the Union. In this program, we tour Vicksburg National Military Park with Tim Kavanaugh, the park's supervisory ranger for interpretation.

More Info »

Iver Bernstein discusses the causes and consequences of the New York City Draft Riots of mid-July 1863, that resulted from the federal draft for additional troops to fight in the war. Mr. Bernstein spoke at the U.S. Capitol Historical Society’s 2012 Civil War Symposium.

More Info »

Open for business in 1861 and located about six blocks from the capitol building, the United States Government Printing Office still prints the Congressional Record each day that the House and Senate are in session. We visited to learn the history of GPO and to see some of their historic printing jobs, including the "Official Records of the War of the Rebellion," which took twenty years to print, and the twenty-seven volume "Warren Commission Report on the Assassination of President Kennedy."

More Info »

Historian and author Craig Symonds talks about the various naval aspects of the war – from technological developments, to the battles themselves; from the Union blockade, to the rivers of the Western Theater. Symonds is history professor emeritus at the U.S. Naval Academy, and the author of “The Civil War at Sea.” He presented this talk at the Smithsonian’s Ripley Center, on the National Mall.

More Info »

Guests Charles Evans Jr. and Victor DeNoble discuss the documentary film that chronicles DeNoble’s unexpected discovery of an ingredient in tobacco which, the data revealed, when coupled with nicotine makes cigarettes more addictive. The research and the company’s attempts to keep it private lead to Congressional testimony before a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The movie details how this public revelation of DeNoble’s findings led journalists, politicians, attorneys and scientists to join forces against the tobacco industry,  which ultimately resulted in the first ever federal regulation of the tobacco industry. Evans discusses how and why he went about making the film, which began when he first watched Dr. DeNoble’s testimony on C-SPAN in 1994. DeNoble talks about growing up in New York, his early work at the Philip Morris Company and what it was like to testify before Congress on such a controversial subject.

More Info »

Historians Craig Symonds, James McPherson and Harold Holzer discuss the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. The three-day battle fought in Pennsylvania from July 1st through 3rd, 1863, was the bloodiest of the war, resulting in an estimated 51 thousand total casualties. This is the first in a two-part series on the battle, hosted by the New-York Historical Society.

More Info »