The Hoover Dam
A hard-driving engineer with a reputation for excellence is on a quest to tame one of the wildest rivers in the United States, bringing much needed water to the arid American West. He'll struggle with a disgruntled workforce, hellish conditions, and nearly insurmountable engineering challenges, but when it's done, the Hoover Dam will be as tall as a 60-story building, requiring more material than the Great Pyramid, and with enough concrete to circle the equator.
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More from this season
S1 E1
Race for the Railroad
Two rival rail companies, led by Charles Crocker of the Central Pacific and Thomas Durant of the Union Pacific, stop at nothing to best each other.
S1 E2
Liberty Rising
A little-known 19th-century French artist embarks on a 20-year odyssey to build the tallest statue in the world and erect it on U.S. soil.
S1 E3
Road Warriors
Two master roadbuilders spend decades struggling to create a highway system that connects every city and town in America. It will be the greatest public works project in history--more expensive than two thousand Hoover Dams, three times longer than the Great Wall of China, and with enough pavement for three round trips to the moon.
S1 E4
The Panama Canal
Two powerful nations--France and America--compete to build a path just 50 miles long that will connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Completing it will cost 30 thousand lives, $600 million dollars, and require overcoming every obstacle imaginable--from mudslides to malaria to bankruptcy.