Michael Murphy

The Triangle Fire chronicles the fire that tore through the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City killing one hundred and forty-eight young women and forever changed the relationship between labor and industry in the United States. A relationship that is still in question today as Americans re-examine the balance between the welfare of citizens and the motivations of global capitalism.

Wyatt Earp was a caricature of the Western lawman, spending his days drinking in saloons, gambling, and visiting brothels. But shortly after his death in 1929, distressed Americans down on their luck transformed him into a folk hero. Wyatt Earp examines an ordinary man’s role in that larger-than-life story, and how he became the legend that lives on today.

Tuberculosis is the deadliest killer in human history, responsible for one in four deaths for almost two centuries. While it shaped medical pursuits, social habits, economic development and public policy, TB and its impact are poorly understood.

In 1914, the Panama Canal connected the world’s two largest oceans. American ingenuity and innovation had succeeded where the French had failed disastrously, but the U.S. paid a price for victory.

In 1881, 25 men led by Adolphus Greely set sail from Newfoundland to Lady Franklin Bay in the high Arctic, where they planned to collect a wealth of scientific data from a vast area of the world’s surface that had been described as a "sheer blank." Three years later, only six survivors returned, with a daunting story of shipwreck, starvation, mutiny and cannibalism.

On October 2nd, at 6:45 a.m. mass murderer Horace Pinker was put to death. Now, he's really mad. His name was Horace Pinker, a psychotic TV repairman sentenced to death for a series of sick and twisted murders. But it's after his execution by the electric chair that the real trouble starts.

The Last Stand, the final act of General George Custer's larger-than-life career, played out on a grand stage with a spellbound public engrossed in the drama.

To many a symbol of slavery and oppression, Robert E. Lee, the leading Confederate general of the American Civil War, remains a source of fascination and, for some, veneration.

In this grisly saga of bizarre experiments, butchered teens, New Zealand doubling for suburban Illinois and a killer in a Tor Johnson mask.

Meet Nikola Tesla, the genius engineer and tireless inventor whose technology revolutionized the electrical age of the 20th century. Although eclipsed in fame by Edison and Marconi, it was Tesla's vision that paved the way for today's wireless world.

From PBS - Long before Paul Newman and Robert Redford immortalized them on screen, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid captivated Americans from coast to coast. In the 1890s, their exploits — robbing banks and trains in the West and then seemingly vanishing into thin air — became national news and the basis of rumors and myth. But who were Robert Leroy Parker and Harry Alonzo Longabaugh? How did they come together to form the Wild Bunch gang? And how did they manage to pull off the longest string of successful holdups in history while eluding the Pinkertons, the nation’s most feared detective force? Separating fact from fiction, the latest installment of AMERICAN EXPERIENCE’s popular The Wild West series explores the last pair of outlaws to flee on horseback into a setting sun.

In late-1800s Boston, a vision for the first subway in the U.S. overcomes opposition and technical setbacks, setting a bold precedent for other cities.

The Circus explores the history of this popular and American form of entertainment, from the first one-ring show at the end of the 18th century to 1956, when the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey big top was pulled down for the last time.

In Niagara Falls, a parish priest is forced to examine his life and past behavior, when he is accused of sexual misconduct 40 years earlier.

From PBS: In 1910, the Pennsylvania Railroad, led by the company's president, Alexander Cassatt, successfully accomplished the enormous engineering feat of building tunnels under New York City's Hudson and East Rivers, connecting the railroad to New York and eventually, via the Hell Gate Bridge, to New England, knitting together the entire eastern half of the United States. The tunnels terminated in what was one of the greatest architectural achievements of its time, Pennsylvania Station. Designed by renowned architect Charles McKim, and inspired by the Roman baths of Caracalla, Pennsylvania Station covered nearly eight acres, extended two city blocks, and housed one of the largest public spaces in the world. Neither Cassatt nor McKim lived to see their masterpiece completed, but many of the one hundred thousand attendees of Penn Station's grand opening proclaimed it to be one of the wonders of the world. But just fifty-three years after the station’s opening, the unthinkable happened. What was supposed to last forever, to herald and represent the American Empire, was slated to be destroyed. The financially-strapped Pennsylvania Railroad announced it had sold the air rights above Penn Station, and would tear down what had once been its crowning jewel to build Madison Square Garden, a high rise office building and sports complex. On the rainy morning of October 28, 1963, the demolition began; it took three years to dismantle Alexander Cassatt’s monumental station. In the wake of the destruction of Penn Station, New York City established the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Grand Central Terminal, designated a historic landmark in 1967, was spared a similar fate.

Discover the real story behind the most famous family conflict in U.S. history - the battle between the Hatfields and McCoys. More than a tale of two warring families, the film goes beyond the myth to show the forces that ignited the feud.

The story concerns two scientists who install themselves in an ant-proof dome full of computer equipment that interprets the ants' communications. When the men spread yellow poison over the area, annihilating millions of ants, the surviving ants find an antidote to the poison and, even stronger, they strike back.

Breaking the Surface is about the tough times Greg Louganis had on his way to becoming one of the world's top Olympic divers. Some topics discussed were Greg's childhood problems, his homosexuality, and him contracting the HIV virus.

Daisy Lowendahl is a best-selling suspense novelist who finds herself at her isolated beach house with a local young fan who knows almost everything about her, and two men, one of whom may be trying to kill her, the other of whom could save her life, causing Daisy to be thrown into the middle of a real-life drama.