SUMMARY: In previous books like "The Devil in the White City" and "Isaac's Storm," bestselling author Erik Larson has used everyday people to chronicle historical events. But his latest offering, "The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance during the Blitz," explores Winston Churchill's turbulent first year as Britain's wartime prime minister. Larson joins John Yang to discuss.
SUMMARY: Modern Mexico faced profound change 100 years ago, when revolution toppled a dictatorship, and the country has remained in a state of political evolution ever since. Mexico City native Joaquin Segura draws inspiration from the growing pains of the region around him, weaving powerful social commentary into his contemporary art. NPR correspondent Lulu Garcia Navarro has Segura’s story.
SUMMARY: This week marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, which first landed American astronauts on the moon's surface. Of the intrepid crew, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin have tended to dominate public attention, but it was pilot Michael Collins who flew the command module to the moon -- and faced his own distinct concerns about the return trip. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien reports.
SUMMARY: Johnson Space Center in Houston houses more than 2,000 samples collected over six Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972 from various parts of the moon. The collection includes rocks, core samples, pebbles and dust that scientists are still learning from 50 years later. Hari Sreenivasan reports on the laboratory keeping these artifacts safe.
SUMMARY: Retired astronaut Scott Kelly spent a record-setting 340 days on the International Space Station. And while he was there, he took hundreds of photographs that he compiled into a book: "Infinite Wonder: An Astronaut’s Photographs From A Year In Space." He spoke with NewsHour Weekend about his experiences in space and the spectacular views of Earth.
SUMMARY: Fifty years ago today, astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the surface of the moon. Now, for the first time since the Apollo program ended in 1972, NASA is planning an ambitious launch in 2024 to return astronauts to the moon, and to sustain a human presence there by 2028. Hari Sreenivasan reports from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
SUMMARY: Life in North Korea is difficult for outsiders to imagine. A new book attempts to pull back the curtain of opacity as it examines the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, who took over from his dictator father when his older brother fell out of favor. Nick Schifrin talks to The Washington Post's Anna Fifield, author of “The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un.”
SUMMARY: Tuesday marked 30 years since China's military suppressed a pro-democracy demonstration in Tiananmen Square with deadly force. But today, Chinese authorities made sure everything was normal at the site of the massacre. Remember the NewsHour's coverage of the tragedy, as Nick Schifrin talks to Minxin Pei of Claremont McKenna College, and Orville Schell of the Asia Society, about Tiananmen’s legacy.
SUMMARY: School children in the U.S. often celebrate Thanksgiving by dressing up as pilgrims and “Indians.” But these traditions tend to perpetuate myths that are offensive to Native American communities. Education correspondent Kavitha Cardoza takes a look at a new movement aiming to reinvent the way schools teach Thanksgiving.
SUMMARY: The tradition of the U.S. President’s pardoning a turkey at Thanksgiving was repeated once again at the White House, as President Trump performed the ritual before heading to Mar-a-Lago. But what started this peculiar custom? Yamiche Alcindor reports on the surprising history behind the holiday practice.
SUMMARY: This weekend marked the 40th anniversary of the Jonestown massacre, in which more than 900 followers of Jim Jones were victims of a cult mass murder-suicide in Guyana. Among the survivors was Jackie Speier, now a Democratic congresswoman from California. She joins Judy Woodruff to discuss her new book, “Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown, Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back" and current politics.
SUMMARY: This week marks 100 years since the birth of Nelson Mandela, who led a struggle against apartheid and brought his country to a new democratic future, while setting a political and moral example recognized around the globe. Now a new book that offers insight into Mandela's remarkable story through his own words. Jeffrey Brown takes a closer look with special correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault.
SUMMARY: Based on new information, the Justice Department is reopening the investigation into the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, the African-American boy whose brutal killing by two white men in Mississippi became a galvanizing event that helped spark the civil rights movement in America. William Brangham gets reaction from Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala).
SUMMARY: Holocaust survivor Reva Kibort remembers when the German soldiers came to Warsaw, Poland, and at first, she says, "they weren't so bad." But soon enough she was transported to a concentration camp, escaping the murder the other children suffered by hiding in a pile of dirty laundry. Kibort gives her Brief but Spectacular take on being a survivor and speaking out about injustice.
SUMMARY: Now a Thanksgiving staple, nutmeg, used to be worth its weight in gold. The spice, originally grown only on the island of Banda Rhun, was so attractive to the Dutch East India Company that it traded its ownership of land that is now New York City for sole control of its trade. Why was our favorite eggnog garnish so valuable to 15th-century explorers? Special correspondent Mike Cerre has the answer.
SUMMARY: Protests in South Africa over a statue of a 19th century diamond magnate and colonial conqueror set off a national debate two years ago about the remnants of apartheid? As part of his ongoing series, Culture at Risk, Jeffrey Brown reports on the symbols and monuments in South Africa's past that are still being fought over today.
SUMMARY: Every food story is an economic story, says author Laura Shapiro. In "What She Ate," Shapiro offers tales of female empowerment or self-definition by way of the kitchen and dinner table, cooking up portraits of Eleanor Roosevelt, Eva Braun, Helen Gurley Brown, and others. Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports.
SUMMARY: Rebecca Rusch has spent most of her life wondering what happened to the father who left for Vietnam and never came back. As a tribute to him and closure for her family, Rusch rode nearly 1,200 miles along the Ho Chi Minh Trail to visit the site where her dad's plane was shot down in Laos in 1972. But her journey was just the beginning. Special correspondent Mike Cerre reports.
SUMMARY: Filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick sorted through 5,000 hours of historical footage and photos for a documentary that took 10 years to create. The new PBS documentary series, “The Vietnam War” takes us to a moment in history that is still not fully understood, and comes at a moment when we're thinking about America's role in the world. Judy Woodruff discusses its resonance with Burns and Novick.
SUMMARY: Filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick spent a decade talking to hundreds of veterans from both sides of the Vietnam War, to capture the complexity of perspectives that persists years later. In the second part of their conversation, Judy Woodruff speaks with Burns and Novick about their new PBS documentary series, “The Vietnam War.”
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): But, Lynn, do you come away, do you think, understanding how the United States got pulled into this, despite the French being kicked out, essentially, Dien Bien Phu?
Senator John F. Kennedy saying the Americans don’t belong in a land war in Asia. Decisions made by Eisenhower not to get involved. And yet the United States was pulled in.
LYNN NOVICK: Yes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Did you understand why, at the end, do you think?
LYNN NOVICK: Well, it is sometimes stunning to think, with all those road maps and signposts saying don’t do it, we still did.
It seems clear that there’s definitely a Cold War context that’s very important, and certain kind of received wisdom, conventional wisdom about that, and that we have to stop communism and containment and that whole idea.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Even so, the film shows that, in May of 1964, President Johnson himself expressed misgivings about why the U.S. was at war and Vietnam’s value in a phone call with national security adviser McGeorge Bundy.
FORMER PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON: I just laid awake last night thinking about this thing. The more I think of it, I don’t know what in the hell — it looks like to me we are getting into another Korea.
It just worries the hell out of me. I don’t see what we can ever hope to get out of there with, once we’re committed. I don’t think it’s worth fighting for, and I don’t think we can get out, and it’s just the biggest damn mess.
MCGEORGE BUNDY, Former National Security Advisor: It is an awful mess.
FORMER PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON: And I just thought about ordering those kids in there. And what the hell am I ordering them out there for? What in the hell is Vietnam worth to me? What is it worth to this country?
MCGEORGE BUNDY: Yes. Yes.
FORMER PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON: Now, of course, if you start running into communists, they may just chase you right in your own kitchen.
MCGEORGE BUNDY: Yes, that’s the trouble. And that’s what the rest of the — that half of the world is going to think if this thing comes apart on us.
SUMMARY: How should Americans remember the past and confront the deep wounds of slavery? The events of recent weeks have intensified a national conversation about Confederate monuments, with calls to remove them from public spaces. William Brangham talks to Peniel Joseph of the University of Texas, W. Fitzhugh Brundage of the University of North Carolina, Pierre McGraw of the Monumental Task Committee.
SUMMARY: Ali Soufan, a former FBI counterterrorism agent who identified the 9/11 hijackers, felt both joy and worry the night Osama bin Laden was killed. He worried that the U.S. didn't have a strategy to combat bin Laden's message, which lived on even though the Al-Qaeda leader was dead. The evolution of terrorism is the subject of his new book, "The Anatomy of Terror.” Soufan joins Margaret Warner.
MARGARET WARNER (NewsHour): You, in almost a novelistic way, look at bin Laden or al-Zarqawi, who was the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq; or Baghdadi, the head of ISIS.
ALI SOUFAN: Ya.
MARGARET WARNER: Was there a common thread among them?
ALI SOUFAN, Author, “The Anatomy of Terror: Well, ya, absolutely. And the common thread is their own belief.
It is people who believe that there is an ongoing war between the West and the United States. And anyone who does not in their way of interpreting events around the world is an infidel, regardless if you're a Muslim or you're not a Muslim. That doesn't matter.
And that's why almost 95 percent of the victims of this form of terrorism are Muslims.
SUMMARY: The backdrop of Saturday's violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, was a plan to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from the city's downtown. What's the story behind such monuments and why do we continue to struggle with the legacy of the Civil War? Edward Ayers of the University of Richmond joins William Brangham to offer some historical context.
SUMMARY: Statues of Confederate leaders have been removed in the night, torn down by protesters and seen as a flash point for communities, especially in the South. What challenges do cities face when trying to deal with controversial memorials, as well as the backlash? Hari Sreenivasan talks with Lt. Ryan Lee of the Portland Police Bureau; and Mayor Jim Gray of Lexington, Kentucky.
SUMMARY: Dubbed the "Saturday Night Massacre," the political drama that unfolded on October 20, 1973, pitted a President against the Justice Department and has drawn parallels to today. William Ruckelshaus is one of the officials who refused to carry out an order from President Nixon to fire a special prosecutor investigating Watergate. Ruckelshaus joins Judy Woodruff to look back at what happened.
SUMMARY: In the summer of 1967, the simmering unrest in cities across America exploded. In Detroit [riot], tensions between the police and the African-American community reached their limit, unleashing five days of full-out violence -- riots or a rebellion, depending on whom you ask. Fifty years later, special correspondent Soledad O'Brien reports on what sparked it all and the scars that remain today.
