—Celebrating ingenuity, invention and imagination on a grand scale, "Modern Marvels" tells the amazing stories of the doers, dreamers and sometime-schemers who create everyday items, technological advancements and man-made wonders. From the Statue of Liberty to distilled spirits, and canals to bridges, no subject seems out of reach. Science, technology, electronics, mechanics, engineering, architecture, industry, mass production, manufacturing, and agriculture are just some of the many topics that have been covered during the long-running series.

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Season 219 of 33 Episodes

Rising from a stretch of desert with nothing but remoteness to recommend it, Las Vegas became a glittering wonderland for dreamers; a look at the forces that made Las Vegas a place unlike any on earth.
During the depths of the Depression, it was FDR's greatest triumph: a massive public works project that took a 40,000 square mile, disaster-prone river basin, and turned it into a model of industrial progress.
The world's largest concrete dam, and the largest concrete structure in the world, lies on the Columbia River in the State of Washington; built in 1931, it is also one of the largest hydroelectric power plants in the world.
More than 50 years after its construction, the Golden Gate remains one of the world's great engineering marvels. It took 25-million man-hours and 80,000 miles of cable to complete; the cost in human life proved even greater.
From the first well in Pennsylvania to the gushing Spindletop and modern supertankers, the story of oil is the story of civilization as we know it; a look at the ingenious and outrageous men who risked a lot for "black gold" and unimaginable wealth.
Under the supervision of sculptor Gutzon Borglum, miners and quarrymen carve the faces of four U.S. presidents into the Black Hills of South Dakota, paying tribute to the first 150 years of American history.
With technological advances, our ancient struggle against the sea has turned into a luxurious holiday; a peek at the elegant life on these floating resorts.
The construction of the 51-mile canal that took ten years to build and employed over 40,000 workers, 6,000 of whom died of yellow fever, malaria, and other horrors; an earlier, nine-year attempt by the French ended in failure and cost 20,000 lives.
Built of stone and glass, persistence and prayer, gothic cathedrals are an epiphany of imagination and an articulation of joy; featured are such masterpieces as Chartres, Notre Dame and the National Cathedral in Washington D.C.
It was meant to be a temporary exhibit, a demonstration of French engineering acumen at the Paris World's Fair; but to Parisians, the tower, designed by the brash, young Gustave Eiffel, came to stand for much more.
Tunnels, whether underwater, blasted through solid rock or negotiating the shifting strata of the Earth's unstable crust, represent a remarkable feat of engineering.
The history of one of Thomas Edison's first inventions, the phonograph; rare photographs and recordings document Edison's race against Alexander Graham Bell.
Thomas Edison announces plans for the central lighting of New York before an electrical system exists, or electric light is invented.
The complete story of the feuds, the mistakes, ingenuity, and successes that made movies possible and kept Edison at the front of the inventor pack; rare early films from the Edison Studios.
The intense competition, the romance, the success and disappointment that led to the miracle of long distance communication.
An exploration of the world's most popular entertainment, from the boy genius who invented it to the RCA "General" who made it a reality.
In our century, the computer has evolved from a crude punch-card tabulating machine into a lightning-fast worldwide information grid.
The history of photography began as early as the eleventh century; the advancements by Niépce and Daguerre in the 19th century and William Henry Fox Talbot and George Eastman in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Since the turn of the 20th century, designers have competed to build them faster, taller, and steeper; as technology pushes the envelope with flips, weightlessness, and more g-force than a jet, they have to calculate how much can the human body take.

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.
Upcoming
A large factory-fishing boat hunts down, catches and processes 300 tons of Alaskan pollock each day in the Bering Sea; the crew reveals the inner workings of one of the most sophisticated and complex vessels afloat.
Upcoming
Hot and spicy items; Tabasco sauce made by McIlhenny Co. in Louisiana; McCormick & Co. spices from Baltimore; chili cook-off; capsaicin gives peppers tongue-burning heat; Michael Jordan's SolToro Tequila Grill in Connecticut.
Upcoming
Battered and fried or simply raw--seafood is a popular dish, no matter how you serve it; Americans consume more than 5-billion pounds yearly, an order that takes more than a fishing rod to fill and worries conservationists.
Upcoming
Complex engineering failures include Sun Valley's 200-foot sinkhole, Laguna Beach landslide destroying 11 homes, Charles de Gaulle Terminal 2E roof collapse killing four, Fokker F-10 crash with Knute Rockne, and Marine Electric sinking disasters.
Upcoming
Examine mysterious maritime tragedies including Edmund Fitzgerald's 1975 sinking, Boeing 737 rudder crashes in 1991 and 1994, secret 1959 government nuclear facility meltdown, 4-million gallon diesel storage tank failure, and more.
Upcoming

Celebrating ingenuity, invention and imagination on a grand scale, "Modern Marvels" tells the amazing stories of the doers, dreamers and sometime-schemers who create everyday items, technological advancements and man-made wonders. From the Statue of Liberty to distilled spirits, and canals to bridges, no subject seems out of reach. Science, technology, electronics, mechanics, engineering, architecture, industry, mass production, manufacturing, and agriculture are just some of the many topics that have been covered during the long-running series.

Adam Richman

Live

Giant robots work factory floors and outer space; floating fortresses house 6,000 military personnel with length matching Empire State Building's height; diesel engines produce 108,000 horsepower in audacious engineering feats worldwide.

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Modern Marvels

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