History

In Ken Burns: America's Storyteller, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Wynton Marsalis, and more celebrate the career of legendary documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. Watch clips highlighting Burns and his career.

Cécile Fromont is a professor of Art History at the University of Chicago specializing in Central Africa and Brazil who appears in the new, three-part documentary Africa's Great Civilizations. 

Maya Angelou was beyond prolific, and her life touched on many of the most significant people and events of the twentieth century. The creators of a film about the great woman discuss the difficulty of capturing her multi-faceted life on film, why they admire her, and what she was like.

The author of Heroines of Mercy Street discusses the determination and accomplishments of female Civil War nurses, the importance of writing about women in history, and her broad historical interests.

The last installment of Secrets of the Six Wives airs Sunday, February 5 at 9:00 pm.

Chicago had the largest cable car system in the world, in terms of riders and equipment. The city's adoption of the new transit system sparked a nationwide boom in cable cars--but it lasted for less than 25 years.

During the Civil War, many freed slaves moved to Chicago, swelling the black population from around 600 at the beginning of the decade to 3,691 in 1870. A black professional class began to emerge while new churches and communities were built. 

The new series Secrets of the Six Wives explores the lives of Henry VIII's spouses. How do the actresses compare with the real women they portray? And do the people portraying the same figures on Wolf Hall hold up?

How much do the actors on Victoria look like the historical figures they portray? Learn about the real people depicted on the show as you compare the character with the actor. 

The Chicago Public Library was founded in the wake of the Great Chicago Fire with an inventory of books donated from England and other countries. 

The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses depicts the civil war that wracked England in the late fifteenth century, as told by Shakespeare in his plays Henry VI and Richard III. The real-life people that the characters are based upon led outlandish, legendary lives.