Highlights This Weekend on American History TV April 10-12, 2021

by rlogan

C-SPAN3's American History TV
8am Saturday, April 10 - 8am Monday, April 12, 2021

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Saturday & Sunday 2pm ET
Oral Histories: The Vietnam War
For the next several weeks, we feature oral history interviews conducted by the Atlanta History Center's Kenan Research Center for the Veterans History Project.

Saturday 2pm ET - Leon Ellis served in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War. His plane went down during a bombing run and he was held in North Vietnam as a prisoner of war for five years. He recounts his years in captivity including the torture he endured.

Sunday 2pm ET - David Vassar Taylor recounts his time as a clerk in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. He describes the segregation of black and white troops as well as the discrimination he experienced at the hands of his commanding officers.

Saturday 6pm ET
The Civil War: Confederate Boat Burners on the Mississippi
Southern Utah University professor Laura June Davis talks about Confederate boat burners and naval guerrilla action on the lower Mississippi River during the last years of the Civil War. She describes how after the fall of Vicksburg in 1863, clandestine Confederate forces targeted commercial steamboats in order to disrupt Union supplies and cause panic in the North. Virginia Tech's Center for Civil War Studies hosted this event.

Saturday 8pm & midnight ET
Lectures in History:Vietnam, Walter Cronkite & Public Opinion
On February 27, 1968, CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite closed a special report on Vietnam with a pessimistic assessment of the U.S. war effort. Mr. Cronkite's remarks are often cited as a turning point in American public opinion against the war and credited with playing a role in President Lyndon Johnson's surprise decision a month later not to run for a second term. But American University professor Joseph Campbell, who teaches a class about what's known as the "Cronkite Moment," argues the impact of Mr. Cronkite's comments has been vastly overstated and is merely a media myth.

Sunday 8pm & midnight ET
The Presidency: First Address to Joint Session of Congress
It's customary for a newly-elected president to address a joint session of Congress early in his term. President Biden's has not yet been scheduled. We feature speeches from two of his predecessors on The Presidency this week:

George W. Bush - In his first address to a joint session of Congress after his January, 2001 inauguration, President George W. Bush spoke to a pre-September 11th country. He talks of a cooperative new spirit while outlining what he terms a "reasonable and responsible" budget, and calls for a renewed focus on education, tax relief, and a paydown of the national debt. And he warns of the 21st century threats of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

Barack Obama - President Obama addressed a joint session shortly after his January, 2009 inauguration. He speaks at the height of a recession that he acknowledges has left the country shaken and uncertain. He outlines his economic agenda, starting with a plan to put people back to work, while explaining how he'll reform healthcare and pay for the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

American History TV. All weekend - every weekend. Only on C-SPAN3.