'' American Experience'', originally titled ''The American Experience'', is an American

television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, e ...

and a

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

documentary series created by Peter McGhee. The series airs

documentaries A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in term ...

about significant historical events or figures in

United States history The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Numerous indigenous cultures formed, and many saw transformations in the 16th century away from more densely ...

. The show is produced primarily by

WGBH-TV WGBH-TV (channel 2), branded on-air as GBH or GBH 2 since 2020, is the primary PBS member television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship property of the WGBH Educational Foundation, which also owns Boston's sec ...

, a

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...

and PBS affiliate located in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

. WGBH-TV creates

non-commercial educational A non-commercial educational station (NCE station) is a radio station or television station that does not accept on-air advertisements (TV ads or radio ads), as defined in the United States by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and was or ...

programs and distributes them on public television stations throughout the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. However, other PBS affiliate stations, such as WNET in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, have co-produced episodes for the television series. Since the program's debut on October 4,

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...

, ''American Experience'' has broadcast 362 new episodes and has been a recipient of over 265 broadcast and web awards. The program's thirty-fourth season premiered on February 7, 2022.

Series overview

Episodes

Season 1 (1988–89)

Season 2 (1989–90)

Season 3 (1990–91)

Season 4 (1991–92)

Season 5 (1992–93)

Season 6 (1993–94)

Season 7 (1994–95)

Season 8 (1995–96)

Season 9 (1996–97)

Season 10 (1997–98)

Season 11 (1998–99)

Season 12 (1999–2000)

Season 13 (2000–01)

Season 14 (2001–02)

Season 15 (2002–03)

Season 16 (2003–04)

Season 17 (2004–05)

Season 18 (2005–06)

Season 19 (2006–07)

Season 20 (2008)

Season 21 (2009)

Season 22 (2009–10)

Season 23 (2010–11)

Season 24 (2012)

Season 25 (2013)

Season 26 (2014)

Season 27 (2015)

Season 28 (2016)

Season 29 (2017)

Season 30 (2018)

Season 31 (2019)

Season 32 (2020)

Season 33 (2021)

Season 34 (2022)

Upcoming episodes

Notes

References

External links

* official website {{DEFAULTSORT:American Experience Episodes Lists of American non-fiction television series episodes