How We Got Here - Season 1

First aired: 1/6/2015 12 episodes

Episodes

1. Nazis Get Us to the Moon

Aired: 1/6/2015

Adolf Hitler has just died and the Nazi regime is crumbling. Amidst the chaos, rocket scientist Wernher Von Braun leads a team of colleagues on a daring escape out of Germany. If he doesn't escape, the race for outer space will turn out differently.

2. Cars Win World War II

Aired: 1/6/2015

A chance meeting with his personal hero Thomas Edison and a visit to a Chicago meat packing plant give Henry Ford a bold dream destined to profoundly change the world. If he fails to put his inspiration into action, the United States will not win WWII.

3. Gold Makes Headlines

Aired: 1/13/2015

George Hearst is on the verge of giving up his dream of striking gold during the '49 gold rush. But if he gives up, his son will never become a newspaper magnet, and Richard Nixon may never be held accountable for his actions in the Watergate scandal.

4. Colt Makes All Men Equal

Aired: 1/20/2015

Samuel Colt's invention of the revolver and his use of mass production techniques to build it help drive the industrial revolution in the United States, directly linking him to the United States role as a world superpower.

5. Denim Defeats Communism

Aired: 1/27/2015

Dry goods store owner Levi Strauss agrees to finance tailor Jacob Davis' design for overalls with copper rivets. The rivets help make Davis work clothes resistant to tears in the canvas fabric. Strauss patents the design, later switches the material from canvas to denim, and creates Levi's blue jeans, which over time becomes the worldwide symbol of youth and rebellion, including rebellion that leads to the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

6. Morse Code Connects Us All

Aired: 2/3/2015

When Samuel Morse receives an urgent message from afar that his wife is about to die, he races back to be by her side. If he makes it to her sickbed in time, the speed-of-light communication we use today will never exist.

7. Clara Barton Saves the World

Aired: 2/10/2015

It's September 17, 1862, and The Battle of Antietam rages! Standing right in the thick of the fight is a former schoolteacher with brave purpose - Clara Barton. If she dies, the American Red Cross would not exist.

8. Deep Throat Exposes the Presidency

Aired: 2/17/2015

America has plunged into Civil War! If German immigrant Adolphus Busch dies in a deadly standoff, one of the most American products of all time will never exist. The story of Adolphus Busch and the power of beer is the unlikely story of How We Got Here.

9. Beer Unites America

Aired: 2/24/2015

10. Rockefeller's Oil Empire

Aired: 3/9/2015

A twenty-four year old bookkeeper, John D Rockefeller, is about to bet every penny he has on a fledgling upstart industry. If the accountant is wrong about the budding oil industry, the era of the automobile might not take off.

11. Steel Builds the Metropolis

Aired: 3/3/2015

A telegraph operator is in the throws of a crisis situation! The trains along the Pennsylvania Railroad line have stopped and his boss can't be found. What Andrew Carnegie does next will either end his career or put him on a path to change the world.

12. Harley Hogs the Road

Aired: 3/17/2015

Two young frustrated mechanics in Milwaukie have an idea - to put an engine inside of a bicycle frame. If William Harley and Arthur Davidson give up now, the motorcycle as we know it will never exist.