Episode 1
Aired Jan 7, 2003
Castles & Dungeons
A journey back to an unruly era examining the complexity of their construction and the multi-purpose they served; homes to kings and nobles, economic centers, courthouses, treasuries, prisons, and torture chambers.
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Episode 2
Aired Jan 28, 2003
Trans-Siberian Railroad
The Trans-Siberian railroad provokes a war, crosses treacherous terrain, and encounters huge obstacles; it's the longest, most expensive and complicated railroad ever built; ordered by the Czar in an effort to save his empire.
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Episode 3
Aired Feb 4, 2003
Booby Traps
All it takes to set off a booby trap is an unsuspecting victim lifting, moving, or disturbing a harmless-looking object; the history of booby traps from the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Greek, and Romans to the Middle Eastern crisis.
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Episode 4
Aired Feb 11, 2003
The Alcan Highway
A travel from British Columbia north through the Yukon Pass on their way to Fairbanks, Alaska, thanks to one two-lane roadway, the 1,522-mile long Alaska Highway.
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Episode 5
Aired Feb 19, 2003
Million Dollar Guns
Rare firearms; weapons owned by famous people.
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Episode 5
Aired Mar 5, 2003
Mackinac Bridge
The Mighty Mac connects the pastoral northern mainland of Michigan with the state's heavily forested Upper Peninsula and stands as a testament to the dreams, determination, and hard work of a small few who created a true masterpiece.
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Episode 6
Aired Mar 4, 2003
Twin Towers of the East
The Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia is the tallest structure in the world.
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Episode 6
Aired Mar 11, 2003
Bullet Trains
Trains capable of speeds of up to 190 miles per hour can be found throughout the world; scientists are looking at new alternatives to electricity, including magnetic levitation that can move passenger trains 345 miles per hour and beyond.
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Episode 7
Aired Mar 18, 2003
Army Corps of Engineers
Made up of soldiers and civilians, scientists and specialists in an enormous variety of fields, the US Army Corps of Engineers was created over 200 years ago by Congressional mandate to respond, in peace and war, to the nation's engineering needs.
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Episode 8
Aired Apr 1, 2003
Titanic Tech
Watertight compartments and a steel-plated hull convince all that HMS Titanic would be unsinkable, but a collision with an iceberg proves the belief wrong.
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Episode 9
Aired Apr 2, 2003
Coal Mines
Coal, the fuel responsible for more than half the electricity used daily. A journey underground with miners in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming, and the environmental concerns.
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Episode 10
Aired May 13, 2003
Non-Lethal Weapons
They stun, debilitate, immobilize, providing police and peacekeepers with options other than shouting or shooting; from the ancient caltrop to sound, light, and energy weapons; non-lethal weapons that disperse crowds and take down criminals.
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Episode 10
Aired Mar 26, 2003
Black Hawk: Night Stalker
The Black Hawk remains the world's most advanced twin-turbine military helicopter.
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Episode 11
Aired May 22, 2003
Torture Devices
A survey of torture devices employed throughout history, ranging from the ancient Greeks' Brazen Bull to the Spanish Inquisition's elaborate mechanisms.
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Episode 12
Aired May 26, 2003
Cosmodrome
How, at the height of Cold War rivalry, the engineers of the Soviet Union's elite Design Bureau developed what have become the most admired rocket engines money can buy, and how in the current climate they have found their way into American rockets.
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Episode 12
Aired Mar 19, 2002
Motors
Stories of those who believed in dreams and defied the commonplace with their extraordinary creations; covering some of the world's architectural and engineering structures, scientific inventions, and social wonders.
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Episode 13
Aired Jun 3, 2003
The Exterminator
Termites, mosquitos, rats, mice, ants and cockroaches have spread damage, disease and death for millions of years.
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Episode 13
Aired Apr 30, 2003
Ball Turret Gunners
Airmen man the B-17's belly guns.
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Episode 15
Aired Jun 25, 2003
Dangerous Cargo
Hazardous-material shipment; trucks carrying classified government materials; Con-Air flight moves dangerous felons.
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Episode 16
Aired Jul 2, 2003
Engineering Disasters 4
Buried within the wreckage of engineering disasters lie lessons which point the way to a safer future.
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Episode 18
Aired Jul 9, 2003
Logging Tech
The controversial logging industry topples 4 billion trees annually in a world striving to protect nature while devouring it.
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Episode 19
Aired Jul 16, 2003
Breaking the Sound Barrier
The development of jet technology and rocket fuel during World War II culminates in test pilot Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier on Oct. 10, 1947.
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Episode 20
Aired Jul 29, 2003
Terror Tech: Civilian
The construction of a terrorist-proof safe room, and how windows might someday act as biological weapons detectors; what technology can do to protect civilians, and how they can use technology to protect themselfs.
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Episode 21
Aired Jul 30, 2003
Loading Docks
A loading dock is the very heart of the transportation industry; from ancient times to tomorrow's lights-out facility, where computers and machines will store, sort, retrieve, and load stock without human interaction.
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Episode 22
Aired Jul 23, 2003
Sandhogs
Reviewing the impressive achievements and history of sandhogs, who challenge nature's awesome forces by driving tunnels through solid rock and sinking mud.
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Episode 22
Aired Aug 5, 2003
Terror Tech
The military's new mission is to detect, deter, and defend America from terrorist attack; cutting-edge technology, including Smart Bombs, Tactical Ballistic-Missile Systems, Electro-Optical Systems, and the pilotless drone Predator.
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Episode 23
Aired Aug 6, 2003
Military Movers
The United States Transportation Command, answering to the Department of Defense, runs military transport like an efficient private shipping and travel agency; from the Civil War to US Transcom, track the development of military logistics.
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Episode 23
Aired Jul 23, 2003
Car Crashes
Technological advancements may eliminate the need for human drivers, possibly reducing the frequency of car accidents.
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Episode 24
Aired Aug 12, 2003
Terror Tech 2
To defend the corporate high-rise buildings and those who work and live in them, an army of scientists, engineers, and security advisors set out on the vital mission to develop technologies to secure corporate America safe against terrorist attack.
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Episode 25
Aired Aug 13, 2003
Bullets
Targeting the historical trajectory of bullets, ranging from their origins in the 1300s as stones and lead balls to the "safe" and "smart" bullets of today.
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Episode 26
Aired Aug 19, 2003
Metal
The journey begins before the Bronze Age and goes into the shiny future when new metal structures, engineered at a molecular level to be stronger, lighter, and cheaper, shape human progress, as they have since man first thrust copper into a fire.
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Episode 27
Aired Aug 21, 2003
Landmines
Land mines are littered throughout 64 nations, making life a game of Russian roulette for two-thirds of the world's poorest nations.
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Episode 28
Aired Aug 26, 2003
Space Shuttle Columbia
The history of the Columbia, the first space shuttle to fly outer space, ranging from its inception to its deadly destruction in January 2003.
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Episode 29
Aired Sep 3, 2003
Overseas Highway
The Overseas Highway links mainland Florida with the Florida Keys, and contains 51 bridges, including the Seven-Mile Bridge; a 175-million refurbishment that ended in 1982 resulted in today's remarkable Overseas Highway.
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Episode 30
Aired Sep 24, 2003
Machu Picchu
The engineering marvel Machu Picchu sits perched on a ridge in the Peruvian Andes; originally built by the Incas, this magnificent structure remains a mystery.
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Episode 31
Aired Oct 15, 2003
Lake Pontchartrain Causeway
Two ribbons of concrete span the largest inland body of water in Louisiana, forming the world's longest automobile bridge.
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Episode 32
Aired Oct 21, 2003
Inviting Disaster: Three Mile Island
Based on the popular book "Inviting Disaster" by James Chiles, the episode explores the nuclear nightmares of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
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Episode 33
Aired Oct 28, 2003
Inviting Disaster 2
The Russian submarine EM Kursk /EM glided through the depths of the Arctic Sea, but 118 men would pay with their lives; their deaths would bring about an enormous step forward in Russia's evolving democracy.
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Episode 34
Aired Nov 4, 2003
Inviting Disaster 3
No program better symbolizes human mastery of machines than does the space shuttle; but the breakups of EM Challenger /EM and EM Columbia /EM revealed the program is tragically flawed.
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Episode 35
Aired Nov 4, 2003
Inviting Disaster 4: Building Failures
Historical building collapses, from ancient pyramids to the Cathedral at Beauvais to Kansas City's Hyatt Regency; clear warning signs often existed, but were ignored.
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Episode 36
Aired Nov 5, 2003
Shipyards
Shipyards are waterside construction sites where some of the largest tools ever built help create the biggest machines on earth; from ancient days to the 18th-century Industrial Revolution to the epic effort performed at Pearl Harbor.
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Episode 36
Aired Sep 30, 2003
Smart Bombs
Precision-guided weapons become a flashpoint for war critics.
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Episode 37
Aired Aug 15, 2002
Liberty Ships of WWII
Industrialists transform U.S. shipyards into mass-production facilities in a matter of months in the 1940s.
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Episode 37
Aired Nov 12, 2003
Extreme Trucks
A jet truck that can travel 300 mph; the Baltimore Technical Assistance Response Unit's mobile command truck; a garbage truck with an articulated arm; how SWAT, bomb squad, HAZMAT, and crime scene specialty trucks are built.
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Episode 38
Aired Nov 25, 2003
ET Tech
In 2003, scientists launched three life-seeking planetary landers; leading scientists, who believe life may exist beyond Earth, explain skepticism about ETs having visited Earth.
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Episode 39
Aired Oct 22, 2003
The Luftwaffe
Veterans and historians reveal how England's poorly equipped Royal Air Force defeated the Luftwaffe.
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Episode 39
Aired Dec 1, 2003
Car Tech of the Future
A talk with auto industry engineers, designers, historians and futurists, and a meeting with carmakers on the verge of technical innovations that might prove as far-reaching as the switch from horses to horsepower.
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Episode 40
Aired Dec 2, 2003
Extreme Gadgets
The world's best extreme athletes, designers, manufacturers, and engineers explain and demonstrate why the gadgets, gear, and technology of these sports have captured the public's imagination and revolutionized the sporting industry.
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Episode 41
Aired Dec 3, 2003
Tailgating
A journey around the U.S. to legendary tailgating colleges like Penn State, the University of Miami, and a visit to the home-team parking lots of the Packers, Cowboys, and Eagles; the evolution of tailgating from horse and buggy to tricked-out RV.
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Episode 41
Aired Oct 29, 2003
FBI's Crime Lab
Scientists and technicians use cutting-edge forensic technology to unearth identities of perpetrators at the FBI's crime lab at Quantico.
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Episode 42
Aired Dec 10, 2003
Failed Inventions
The minds of the off-kilter geniuses who thought up off-the-mark concepts; some tinkerers' musings were merely ahead of their time and deemed flops during the inventor's lifetime, but others were just plain bad.
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Episode 43
Aired Dec 17, 2003
The Technology of Kitty Hawk
On December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright took wing at Kitty Hawk and flew unraveling a complex problem that had defied history's most inventive minds; experts at the controls of full-scale replicas explain how they worked.
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Episode 44
Aired Dec 18, 2003
Egyptian Pyramids
More than 100 pyramids built as tombs for pharaohs still stand in Egypt, but many things about the ancient monuments remain obscure.
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Episode 45
Aired Dec 23, 2003
Toys
A look at five categories of boys' toys and what relationship they have had on the development of young minds; Super Soaker water gun; Lionel electric train; Erector Set; cap gun; Lincoln Logs; Matchbox Cars; G.I. Joe; LEGO bricks.
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Episode 45
Aired Nov 7, 2003
Guns of the Sky
Aircraft weaponry.
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Episode 46
Aired Dec 30, 2003
Engineering Disasters 5
A misplaced oil rig spells disaster in Louisiana; West Virginia flood; Exxon Valdez oil spill; collapsing radio and TV antenna towers; freeways and earthquakes.
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Episode 47
Aired Nov 17, 2003
Guns of Infamy
Guns used in assassinations; guns of the American Revolution; guns of Wild West outlaws.
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Episode 49
Aired Nov 28, 2003
B-52
The B-52 dominates the skies with a maximum speed of 650 miles per hour and the ability to drop 70,000 pounds of bombs.
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Episode 51
Aired Dec 2, 2003
Rolls-Royce
The same company that makes Bentley owns Rolls-Royce.
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Episode 54
Aired Dec 6, 2003
Tactical To Practical: # 10
Stories of those who believed in dreams and defied the commonplace with their extraordinary creations; covering some of the world's architectural and engineering structures, scientific inventions, and social wonders.
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Episode 58
Aired Dec 19, 2003
The Berlin Wall
Communists erect a 103-mile-long wall through and around Berlin in order to stop the flow of refugees to the West.
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Episode 61
Aired Jan 16, 2004
Guns of the Russian Military
Russian small arms emphasize robustness and simplicity of design.
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