America's Hidden Stories - Season 2

It's 1940, and as the Nazi Army overruns Europe, Germany is also funding a well-financed attempt to rig the U.S. election in hopes of ousting FDR from office and keeping America out of the war. Shockingly, this secret plot isn't the brainchild of Hitler's, but of an American oil tycoon named William R. Davis. Today, a group of historians and political experts examine uncovered government reports and White House letters and contemplate just how close the Nazis came to rigging the American election and changing the outcome of World War II.

Film historian Tom Rice stumbled upon a rare artifact while researching depictions of the Ku Klux Klan in movies. It was fragments of a 1920s-era film that didn't simply show the Klan but made the notorious hate group the central part of the narrative. Who made this film? Why did they make it? And was it ever released? To answer those questions, and hopefully find a full version of the silent-era film, Tom will visit the Library of Congress, team up with KKK experts, and meet one of the filmmaker's descendants, revealing a story as shocking as any Hollywood production.

On October 2, 1919, Woodrow Wilson's wife, Edith, discovered her husband on a White House bathroom floor, the victim of a massive stroke. What happened over the next year would make history...or would have if it hadn't been so carefully guarded. Join a team of historians as they investigate newly uncovered documents that suggest that Edith Wilson was, in effect, America's first female president, and--equally shocking--that she and her accomplices may have schemed to conceal an incapacitated president from the public.
 

From the American Revolution to the end of the 1800s, a mysterious ritual spread across New England...and beyond. Graves were broken into, the organs of the dead were burned and turned into horrifying forms of medicine. The reason why: to ward off vampires. Over time, stories of these exhumations vanished into rumor and legend, but new evidence has brought these ghoulish practices back into focus. So, were 19th-century farmers really fighting vampires? Or were they facing off against a predatory phantom that was even deadlier? See how a silent, invisible, and very real threat turned 19th century New England farmers into vampire hunters.
 

Did two female spies from Virginia actually help the North win the Civil War? A Virginia society lady established an underground Northern spy ring in Richmond. A freed female slave worked as a secret agent right under the enemy's nose in the Confederate White House. It sounds like something out of a spy movie, but newly discovered evidence suggests the long-forgotten story of Elizabeth Van Lew and Mary Bowser is not only real but consequential enough to rewrite the accepted history of the Civil War. Join us as we examine this remarkable story of espionage missions, prison escapes, and incredible sacrifices. 

Witness the events--both political and romantic--that turned George Washington from British loyalist to American icon. Before there was Martha Washington, there was Mary Philipse, a British loyalist who was not only George Washington's secret love but the key to his destiny. At least that's the legend. But is their story based on romantic fantasy or historical fact? Did their doomed relationship lead to his rebellion against Britain? And why did Revolutionary politicians condemn Mary to death? Join us as we search for the truth behind the rumors, uncovering a story about a young soldier who wanted so badly to be British and transformed into a symbol of America.