American Experience

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ALPHABETICAL: F - I

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The Fall of Saigon (no website available)
Ten years after American ground troops arrived in South Vietnam, communists seized Saigon in a lightning attack that brought the war to a startling conclusion.
(The Fall of Saigon on the Vietnam Web site)

South Vietnamese leaders believed that America would never let them go down to defeat -- a belief that died as North Vietnamese tanks smashed into Saigon on April 30, 1975, and the long war ended with South Vietnam's surrender.

A Family Gathering (no website available)
The personal journey of three generations of a Japanese American family.

The personal journey of three generations of a Japanese American family. Settling in the 1900s in Hood River, Oregon, the Yasui family became respectable figures in the valley community. Yet in December, 1941, they were considered "potentially dangerous" enemy aliens and sent to internment camps. After the war, they would struggle to reclaim their place as patriotic Americans.

Fatal Flood
A dramatic story of greed, power and race during one of America's greatest natural disasters.

In the spring of 1927, after weeks of incessant rains, the Mississippi River went on a rampage from Cairo, Illinois to New Orleans, inundating hundreds of towns, killing as many as a thousand people and leaving a million homeless. In Greenville, Mississippi, efforts to contain the river pitted the majority black population against an aristocratic plantation family, the Percys-and the Percys against themselves. A dramatic story of greed, power and race during one of America's greatest natural disasters.

FDR
Franklin Delano Roosevelt restored hope to a country that had lost it, led the nation during the greatest war in history and championed the common man.
(Watch the program online on The Presidents Web site.)

His radio "Fireside Chats" went into millions of living rooms; his picture hung on the walls of homes and businesses; his wife was the most admired woman in America. Franklin Delano Roosevelt restored hope to a country that had lost it, led the nation during the greatest war in history and championed the common man. Yet there was nothing common about his aristocratic beginnings, and his exuberant personality disguised a painful private world.

Fidel Castro
Castro's face with its trademark beard, has become an iconic image worldwide, yet the man himself remains an enigma to all but a few. Learn about the most resilient of leaders.

On January 3, 1959, a column of victorious young rebels advanced along Cuba's main highway towards Havana. At the head of the column rode 33-year-old Fidel Castro Ruz. As he went by, a Cuban peasant turned to an American journalist, and said: "There he goes, the hope of a people."

Over the next few decades, by the force of his personality and the might of his Soviet benefactor, Castro turned himself and Cuba into significant players on the world stage. He did so while surviving the hostility of ten consecutive U.S. presidents, an invasion, several CIA assassination attempts and an economic embargo.

Castro's face with its trademark beard, has become an iconic image worldwide, yet the man himself remains an enigma to all but a few. Through interviews with relatives, childhood friends, fellow rebel leaders, Bay of Pigs veterans, human rights activists and journalists, American Experience: Fidel Castro constructs an intimate and revealing portrait of the most resilient of leaders.

The Fight
Joe Louis and Max Schmeling fought for their people, and for their nations on the brink of war. Most of all, they fought for themselves.

On June 22, 1938, 70,000 fans crammed into Yankee Stadium to watch what some observers have since called "the most important sporting event in history." Millions more tuned in to hear a blow-by-blow description on the radio.The rematch between the African American heavyweight Joe Louis and his German opponent Max Schmeling was riveting -- "one hundred and twenty-four seconds of murder," as one newspaper put it. But for most spectators the fight was much more than a boxing match; it was an historic event freighted with symbolic significance, both a harbinger of the civil rights movement and a prelude to World War II.In this first feature-length documentary about the momentous encounter, American Experience captures the anticipation the bout generated, the swirl of events leading up to it, the impact Louis's victory had on black America and its significance for Jews on both sides of the Atlantic.

Fly Girls
During WWII more than a thousand women signed up to fly with the U.S. military.

During WWII, more than a thousand women signed up to fly with the U.S. military. Wives, mothers, actresses and debutantes who joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS) test-piloted aircraft, ferried planes and logged 60 million miles in the air. Thirty-eight women died in service. But the opportunity to play a critical role in the war effort was abruptly canceled by politics and resentment, and it would be 30 years before women would again break the sex barrier in the skies.

Forbidden City, USA (no website available)
Chinese Americans defy cultural tradition to pursue their passion for American music and dance.

Before WWII, San Francisco's Chinatown was a separate world, closed to outsiders, ruled by rigid homeland customs. But in the 1930s, second generation Chinese Americans defied cultural tradition to pursue their passion for American music and dance. They started careers as "Chinese Fred Astaires" and "Chinese Frank Sinatras" in one of the city's famous Chinatown night clubs, Forbidden City.

Forever Baseball (no website available)
A wry philosophical essay on what makes baseball the great American pastime.

There is hardly a city, town or village without a baseball diamond. More than a game, baseball is a tradition, rite of passage, an enduring passion, a code for understanding the culture. A wry, philosophical essay on what makes baseball the great American pastime.

Freedom on My Mind (no website available)
Recruits in a nonviolent army fight the white Mississippi political establishment to register black voters, create schools and bring national attention to the struggle.

In the summer of 1964, two groups converged in Mississippi: one mostly young, white and well educated from out of state; the other, African Americans who lived in the most violently segregated state. Recruits in a nonviolent army, together they fought the white political establishment to register black voters, create schools and bring national attention to the struggle. It was a summer of rage, pain and enormous danger.

French Dance Tonight (no website available)
Cajun and Zydeco music innovators and performers talk about the emergence of two musical traditions.

When French settlers, exiled from Nova Scotia, migrated to Louisiana in the 1750s, they mixed with African Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, and others to create one of America's richest, most varied cultures. The film captures many of Cajun and Zydeco music's most important innovators and performers as they talk about the emergence of two musical traditions.

ALPHABETICAL: F - I

F | G | H | I