Howard Hughes and the Spruce Goose

4th October 2005 1 hour Season 1 Episode 9

Howard Hughes takes on the challenge to build an enormous flying boat capable of airlifting 750 troops and war materiel as heavy as tanks across the Atlantic Ocean in support of the Allied war effort, thus avoiding the threat of German U-boats. The project becomes the focus of Hughes OCD. Even after the project is canceled by the military his company successfully builds and Hughes personally flies the prototype dubbed by its detractors as the spruce goose.

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Season 1 · Episode 10

Ultimate Weapon: Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb.

J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Father of the A-bomb, creates the world's deadliest weapon of mass destruction--with the "power of 1,000 suns" it can annihilate tens of thousands in a moment. His scientific brilliance is the power behind the atom bombs used against the Japanese during WWII, but his conscience led him to question the invention that helped end the war. Watch as Oppenheimer paces anxiously in New Mexico while the crew on a B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, deploys the massive "Little Boy" bomb towards the Aioi Bridge in Hiroshima. The resulting massive loss of life leads Oppenheimer to rethink the way in which nuclear energy was to be used.

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