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The Great Adventure
1963 - 1964 0.0 (0 votes) 1 Seasons
Genres
Drama
Networks
CBS

The Great Adventure

Overview

The Great Adventure is a historical anthology series that appeared on CBS for the 1963-1964 television season. The series, narrated each week by Van Heflin, and featuring theme music by Richard Rodgers, presented a weekly one-hour dramatization of the lives of famous Americans and important historical events in American History.

Key Crew

Producer: Bert Granet, John Houseman

Seasons

Season 1 (1963)

No overview available.

26 episodes

Episodes
Episode 1: The Hunley
1963-09-27

During the Civil War, an engineer working for the Confederacy develops a primitive submarine that can evade the Union ships blockading Southern ports.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 2: The Death of Sitting Bull
1963-10-04

The first of a two part episode, the US Government believes that Sitting Bull has joined the Ghost Dancers, a Sioux religious movement the government believes will lead to another Indian War, and take action that ends in a double tragedy.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 3: The Massacre at Wounded Knee
1963-10-11

The second of a two part episode. Days after Sitting Bull's death, the US Army's bungled attempt to disarm a party of Sioux results in the unnecessary deaths of over 300 men, women and children.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 4: Six Wagons to the Sea
1963-10-18

The attempt in 1894 by farmers from California's Central Valley to get their produce to market by wagon despite attempts by the Southern Pacific Railroad to foil their efforts and preserve their monopoly of transporting produce.

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Episode 5: The Story of Nathan Hale
1963-10-25

American Continental soldier turns spy against the British and gives all for a concept called Democracy.

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Episode 6: Go Down, Moses
1963-11-01

Ruby Dee plays the escaped slave Harriet Tubman and her attempts to rescue enslaved family members and friends through the pre-Civil War Underground Railroad.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 7: The Great Diamond Mountain
1963-11-08

In this humorous episode, two con men perpetrate the Diamond Hoax of 1872 in an attempt to swindle San Francisco banker William Ralston, played by Barry Sullivan.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 8: The Treasure Train of Jefferson Davis
1963-11-15

The Confederate Government of Jefferson Davis makes a futile attempt to escape Richmond and capture by the Union Army.

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Episode 9: The Outlaw and the Nun
1963-12-06

A nun comes to a town to teach school and finds that education is so undervalued by the community that she has only two pupils. She sets out to change that.

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Episode 10: The Man Who Stole New York City
1963-12-13

The rise and fall of Boss Tweed and his Tammany Hall political machine in 1860s New York City.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 11: A Boy at War
1963-12-20

The future seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson, is a 13 year old boy soldier struggling to survive the American Revolution.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 12: Wild Bill Hickok - the Legend and the Man
1964-01-03

Down on his luck and in decline, Wild Bill Hickok arrives at the end of his trail in Deadwood in 1876.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 13: The Colonel from Connecticut
1964-01-10

The story of Col. Edwin Drake, the first man to drill for oil in the U.S.

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Episode 14: Teeth of the Lion
1964-01-17

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Episode 15: Rodger Young
1964-01-24

James MacArthur plays Rodger Young. The story of a young man that enlists in the Army despite having poor eyesight and hearing and ends up earning the Medal of Honor for his deeds fighting the Japanese during WWII.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 16: The Testing of Sam Houston
1964-01-31

In 1817, Andrew Jackson appoints a young Sam Houston to oversee the forced relocation of the Cherokee from Tennessee. He soon clashes with both Jackson and the US Government over his fair and humane treatment of the Cherokee.

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Episode 17: The Special Courage of Captain Pratt
1964-02-14

Richard Pratt's now controversial efforts to assimilate Native Americans into "white" society by education and rejection of tribal traditions. He advocated for Native Americans and founded the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

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Episode 18: The Night Raiders
1964-02-21

A recounting of the events leading to John Brown's disastrous raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859.

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Episode 19: Plague
1964-02-28

Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse attempts to convince the US Government and the public of the value of vaccinations against small pox. One of his first patients - the President of the United States Thomas Jefferson.

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Episode 20: The Pathfinder
1964-03-06

The meeting of two great American Legends in 1846 California - Colonel John C. Fremont and John Sutter - on the eve of war with Mexico.

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Episode 21: The President Vanishes
1964-03-13

In 1893 President Grover Cleveland embarks on a mysterious voyage into Long Island Sound aboard a friend's yacht pursued by a suspicious reporter. It was twenty four years later that it was revealed that he had surgery to remove a tumor.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 22: The Henry Bergh Story
1964-03-20

A man crusades for better treatment of animals and forms the ASPCA in 1866. He later crusades for better treatment of children.

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Episode 23: Kentucky's Bloody Ground
1964-04-03

The first of a two part episode recalling Daniel Boone's attempt to settle Kentucky and the events leading to the siege of Boonesborough by the Shawnee in 1778.

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Episode 24: The Siege of Boonesborough
1964-04-10

This two part episode recounts the story of Daniel Boone and the 1778 Siege of Boonesborough by the Shawnee.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 25: Escape
1964-04-17

The true Civil War story of an escape by Union POWs from the Confederate Libby Prison in 1864. The POWs tunneled under the walls and into an adjoining building which gave them access to the street. While some were recaptured, a few got away, including Colonel Streight [Michael Constantine] who had organized the escape.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 26: The Pirate and the Patriot
1964-05-01

Thirty four years later, General Andrew Jackson, commanding the US Army defending New Orleans, is about to get revenge for his treatment by the British during the American Revolution with a little help from a local buccaneer.

Runtime: N/A min

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