This eight-part, 16½-hour television event explores New York City's rich history as the premier laboratory of modern life. A sweeping narrative covering nearly 400 years and 400 square miles, it reveals a complex and dynamic city that has played an unparalleled role in shaping the nation and reflecting its ideals.

The American Experience looks at the history of American whaling from its off-shore origins in the 17th century to the golden age of deep water whaling and the eventual decline in the decades after the Civil War.

DANTE explores the stunning power and drama of Dante Alighieri's great masterwork, The Divine Comedy - inarguably one of the greatest artistic masterpieces in the history of literature. The documentary by Ric Burns dives into the riveting life and times of the poem's maker - into the politics and culture of the late middle ages - into the birth of the Italian language - into the birth of humanism itself.

Chronological look at the life and career of Johnny Carson (1925-2005), with commentary from an ex-wife and more than 30 fellow comedians, friends, employees, and biographers. The biography defines why Carson was an enduring star (his cool, his timing, his genuine laugh, his breadth of knowledge) and pursues his motivations and inner self (a loner with a drinking problem, a decent Midwesterner whose mother withheld approval, a quiet person who loved to entertain). The key to understanding him, argues the biography, is his love of magic.

Photographs, period paintings, lithographs and headlines of the Civil War are combined with moving newsreel footage of Civil War veterans, interviews with distinguished historians and first-person accounts in this award-winning documentary by filmmaker Ken Burns. The miniseries vividly embraces the entire sweep of the war: the complex causes and lasting effects of America's greatest and most moving calamity, the battles and the homefronts, the generals and the private soldiers, the anguish of death in battle and the grief of families at home.