Stories from the Vaults - Season 1
Season 1
Episodes
Famous Donors
Roughly 50,000 items are annually donated to the Smithsonian's collection. See Roosevelt's hunting trophies, Steinbeck's sea urchins, Phyllis Diller's joke file, and other gifts from famous patrons.
Superlatives
Tom is on a mission: to discover what it means to be the best, the tiniest, the coldest and the most misunderstood.
No Place Like Home
Host Tom Cavanagh tries to unravel the idea of "Home Sweet Home." He visits the National Air and Space Museum's collection of space suits, learns about Native American tipis at the National Museum of the American Indian, and finds an astonishing array of life in a thimble of sand.
Beauty
Beauty isn't just in the eye of the beholder. Three Smithsonian curators offer their surprising perspectives on the elusive meaning of true beauty as it applies to their work with advertising, orchids and ants.
Firsts
Enter the vaults of the National Museum of American History and the National Air and Space Museum in search of earth-shattering firsts. From a new collection of vintage planes to the very first videogame (hint: it wasn't Pong).
Life after Death
The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, the National Museum of Natural History, and the National Postal Museum all hold clues to the afterlife. Deep inside their vaults, the evidence for life after death has never been more convincing.
Random?
Dive into the very heart of the world's largest museum complex amidst more than 136 million objects. With such an incredible variety of things to see, there's nothing haphazard about the systematic collections at the Smithsonian. Host Tom Cavanagh visits the National Zoo and the National Museum of American History, showing us that breadth certainly doesn't equal randomness.
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Survivalists from all over the world - including Brazil, Australia, Mexico, and the United States - represent their homelands in a grueling 40-day primitive bushcraft competition. Paired with a partner, their skills, toughness and teamwork will be tested as they compete for national pride and the largest cash prize in franchise history.
Beyond the Gates
Beyond the Gates is set in a leafy Maryland suburb just outside of Washington D.C., and in one the most affluent African American counties in the United States. Here you'll find a posh gated community with winding tree-lined streets and luxurious mansions to call home. At the center of this community are the Duprees, a powerful and prestigious multi-generational family that is the very definition of Black royalty. But behind these pristine walls and lush, manicured gardens are juicy secrets and scandals waiting to be uncovered. And those that live outside these gates are watching closely. These are the places where our characters live, love, work and play. Those who have "made it" and those who haven't are all trying to navigate life … and some with more grace than others.
The Agency
The Agency follows Martian, a covert CIA agent ordered to abandon his undercover life and return to London Station. When the love he left behind reappears, romance reignites. His career, his real identity and his mission are pitted against his heart; hurling them both into a deadly game of international intrigue and espionage.