Plot Synopsis

AMERICA'S HIDDEN STORIES is a one-hour docuseries that follows teams who use state-of-the-art technology and newly discovered evidence in hidden records to investigate what books may have missed about notorious events in American history. Each 60-minute episode tries to answer a questions about a different historical event: Is a British lord responsible for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor? Did Benedict Arnold act alone? Where is the true site of the Salem witch hangings? Was Revolutionary War hero General Pulaski actually a woman? Did Ronald Reagan secretly order a cyberattack on the Soviet Union during the Cold War? Was America's heartland the true birthplace of the Spanish flu?

The series opener, "Salem's Secrets," follows a team of scholars as they reexamine a 300-year-old case: the Salem witch trials. Over 200 men, women and children were accused of witchcraft in 17th-century Salem, Massachusetts and, in the end, 19 were hanged on a hillside in town. Salem's story has become legend, yet this installment reveals new discoveries. Using old documents to uncover fresh clues about the town's dark past and 3D computer mapping techniques along with ground-penetrating radar, experts have rediscovered the true long-lost site of the witch hangings.

The sophomore season of AMERICA'S HIDDEN STORIES premiered on Monday, October 26, 2020 at 8pm ET/PT on Smithsonian Channel. The season opener, "Hitler's US Election Plot," reveals newly unearthed secrets about a plot hatched by a U.S. oilman and the Nazis to keep FDR from being reelected.
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Season 3 of AMERICA'S HIDDEN STORIES debuted on Monday, May 29, 2023 at 8pm ET/PT on Smithsonian Channel. Modern historians -- equipped with state-of-the-art technology and newly discovered evidence -- rewrite the nation's most iconic stories. The season opener focuses on the Osage Murders.