From just several hundred advisors at the start of the decade, to more than 550,000 American troops by the end of it, the escalation of the war in Vietnam – and the fighting and the dying – brought social and political polarization back home. It was also televised – and, the more Americans saw of the war, the more unpopular the conflict became. Tim O’Brien, Frederik Logeval, Karl Marlantes, Neil Sheehan, Andrew Bacevich, George Herring, Tom Hayden, and Philip Caputo discuss the Gulf of Tonkin, and LBJ, for this most complex of American stories.

Selma, Birmingham, and the March on Washington are reexamined by eyewitnesses to history. Diane Nash, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, U.S. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Rev. C.T. Vivian, Bob Moses, Diane McWhorter, Taylor Branch, David Garrow, and Isabel Wilkerson give critical context to the lunch counter sit-ins, Freedom Rides, Freedom Summer, integration, and the Children’s Crusade for the moral mission of the Civil Rights Movement.

Clips of performances by British bands of the 1960s, including Manfred Mann, the Animals, Peter and Gordon, Joe Cocker, Traffic, Procol Harum, the Troggs, the Kinks, the Yardbirds, the Hollies, and Gerry and the Pacemakers. Host: Casey Kasem.

Tom Hayden, Gloria Steinem, Lance Morrow, Evan Thomas, Dan Rather, Morley Safer, Tim Naftali, and Mark Kurlansky discuss how one of the most dramatic years in American history was punctuated by a Soviet incursion into Czechoslovakia, devastating assassinations, turning points in the wars in Southeast Asia, a decisive and televised end to the Johnson Administration, violence at the Democratic National Convention, and the election of President Nixon.

Gloria Steinem, Robert Kennedy, Jr., former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, Cecile Richards, Marlo Thomas, Douglas Brinkley, and Gail Collins discuss how feminism, civil rights, environmentalism, conservatism, and the gay rights movements were fueled by deep yearnings for freedom by a generation unwilling to wait.