La Plaza, a Mexican American Cultural Center in Los Angeles, opened to the public in April of 2011. American History TV visited the center to learn about the founding of Los Angeles and the history of Mexicans in Southern California.

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Historians Peter Onuf, Ed Ayers, and Brian Balogh examine the history of beer and spirits in America on their public radio show "BackStory with the American History Guys." They staged the show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians and the National Council on Public History.

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Declared a National Historic Landmark District in 1995, Little Tokyo near downtown Los Angeles has been the center of Japanese culture in Southern California since the early 1900’s. We tour the Japanese American National Museum with docent Bill Shishima. He was born in Little Tokyo in 1930 and during World War II spent three years in Wyoming at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, a Japanese American internment camp.

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Most of us think of The Golden State as far removed from the Civil War, but according to Drum Barracks Civil War Museum Director Susan Ogle, California gold financed up to 25% of the Union war effort. American History TV visited the museum near the port of Los Angeles where Susan Ogle gave us a tour of the only remaining Civil War era military facility in the area.

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C-SPAN’s Local Content Vehicles take American History TV on the road. Throughout the weekend of February 2-4 we feature the history of New Mexico's capital city, Santa Fe.

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Mary Elizabeth Bowser was a former slave who became a Union spy in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. She was part of a pro-Union underground spy ring run by Elizabeth Van Lew, the daughter of a prominent Richmond citizen. In this program, authors Elizabeth Varon and Lois Leveen talk about the life and story of Ms. Bowser, as well as her relationship with Ms. Van Lew. The two authors also discuss how they wrote and researched their books. The event took place at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond.

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Saul Cornell discusses his book "A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America."  He explores the opposing sides of the gun control debate, arguing that both base their opinions on a flawed understanding of the second amendment.

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“Operation Gold” was a 1950s project conducted by the CIA and the British Intelligence Service to tap into Soviet communications by tunneling from West Berlin into East Berlin, Germany. Known as “Operation Stopwatch” by the British, the 1,500 foot tunnel was active for eleven months, and netted about 40,000 hours of East German telephone conversations - even though the KGB knew about the tunnel before it was built. Retired CIA officer Lou Mehrer tells the story of the Berlin Tunnel at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library & Museum in West Branch, Iowa.

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Harvard Law School history professor Annette Gordon-Reed is the author of two books exploring the story of Sally Hemings and her family’s ties to Thomas Jefferson. Her 2009 book, “The Hemingses of Monticello,” won a Pulitzer Prize. At the National Council for History Education National Conference in Richmond, Virginia, professor Gordon-Reed discusses teaching about slavery, as well as the research that led to her books.

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These are unedited excerpts from a 1992 conversation with former President Gerald Ford. He remembers Dwight D. Eisenhower from the perspective of the Michigan congressman that he was in the 1950s. Topics include the 1952 election and the GOP’s domestic agenda, McCarthyism, civil rights, and Ike’s legacy for the Republican party. He also discusses the day he took his young sons to visit Eisenhower at his Gettysburg farm, and the impromptu lesson the former World War II general gave the Ford boys on one of this nation’s most storied battles.   

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