Original subtitles

and a courthouse where abe lincoln practiced law.

along with 2,000 other nearby homes.

ford paid tribute to edison and other american inventors

at a one-of-a-kind site--

greenfield village in dearborn.

this is where ford transported

and recreated dozens of notable homes from around the world.

among them: edison's invention factory,

part of which came from menlo park, new jersey.

the village also features the wright brothers' workshop

two generators on the river powered the estate

ford and edison had something else in common...

their visits to the seventh day adventist sanitarium

in battle creek--

health spa to the rich and famous.

in 1876, a surgeon and inventor named dr. john harvey kellogg

took over the site--

insisting patients follow a regimen

of vegetarianism, colonics, and daily exercise.

and with those profits, ford bought 1,300 acres

early cars were handcrafted by specialized workers--

a long, slow process.

with an assembly line,

ford managed to dramatically cut the model t's production time.

once the automobiles started selling,

ford put the money back into his business,

$825 to $575 in just four years. lowering the car's price from

by 1914, nearly half the cars on american roads

were model ts...

dr. harvey and his brother, will,

on the banks of the nearby rogue river,

where he built the fair lane estate.

ford was proud of his modest roots

and told builders not to spend more than $250,000.

but after two years and 56 rooms,

the total bill was nearly $2.5 million.

the home featured a hydroelectric power station,

built with design help from ford's friend, thomas edison.

when gordy set up shop in hollywood.

with "shop around,"

written and performed by robinson

and his band, the miracles.

gordy, a former auto worker, knew from the car business

that to keep consumers happy, he had to produce fast.

and, for the next decade, he did

with talent like the temptations,

the four tops, the supremes and many more.

the hit factory thrived through the '60s until 1972,

one year later, the company had its first hit

in 1988, he was inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame.

but the motown sound might never have existed

had it not been for clarksdale, mississippi, and the blues.

the music has its roots in the mississippi delta,

at juke joints where african americans gathered

in the early 1900s to dance, drink, and listen to music.

blues is said to have started south of here, in tutwiler.

a bandleader named w.c. handy

will went on to found the kellogg company,

were always researching healthier food options.

one day, while trying to make a bread substitute,

will left out boiled wheat too long.

he rolled and baked it anyway--

accidentally inventing

what would eventually become corn flakes.

sanitarium patients loved it,

even asking to have the cereal shipped to their homes.

by drastically cutting assembly costs.

creating a permanent rift between the brothers.

was a household name. by 1906, kellogg's

more than five decades later, michigan produced something else

that would take the u.s.a. by storm--

the motown sound.

in 1959, at the urging of his friend smoky robinson,

a songwriter named berry gordy founded motown records

in this modest detroit house.

before coors, german immigrant david yuengling

by manufacturing cement and other products.

and when prohibition ended, his beer endured.

the all-aluminum beer can-- in the '50s, coors unveiled

which quickly made steel ones obsolete.

and it's rumored that coors

was a favorite of president gerald ford,

who apparently brought it aboard air force one.

four decades later, president barack obama

would reach for a different american beer--yuengling.

when prohibition hit, coors stayed afloat

started making his beer in pottsville, pennsylvania.

here, the water was soft and clean.

there were thousands of beer-drinking german immigrants,

and the nearby railroad made shipping easy.

yuengling did well locally for years--

it gained steam nationally. then, in the '80s,

great grandson that's when yuengling's

solved the problem of how to pronounce the beer's name--

including cabernet sauvignon, merlot, syrah, and zinfandel.

in the 1870s, commercial winemaking began

with an indiana rancher named andrew york.

he had a surplus of grapes,

so he started the ascension winery,

which eventually became the york winery--

among the oldest in the country.

paso robles is now home to dozens of wineries

signature big reds, that produce the region's

by reintroducing an old brew and calling it simply "lager."

in the 1870s, many men went west in search of gold.

but one man dreamt of making a fortune on something else:

beer.

german-born adolph coors

hiked through the foothills of golden, colorado,

looking for his key ingredient-- sparkling clean water.

coors and a partner converted an old tannery into a brewery,

then shipped their beer to thirsty miners.

and started bottling ketchup in 1876.

he also gave back, starting the hershey school

to give disadvantaged kids a good education.

another pennsylvania entrepreneur

made it big with ketchup.

pittsburgh native henry john heinz

started out selling horseradish,

which did well until the economy collapsed.

after being broke for a few years,

heinz borrowed money from his brother

and started bringing chocolate to the masses.

one component of his success: a clear glass bottle.

consumers liked to see what they were buying.

by 1900, heinz was the leading manufacturer

of ketchup and other condiments.

a michigan businessman changed the u.s.a. forever in 1908

when he debuted the model t ford.

the automobile, henry ford didn't invent

but he did make it affordable

after his dad left,

today, yuengling is the oldest operating beer company

in america.

about an hour away from the brewery

is one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in north america--

hershey chocolate company in hershey, pennsylvania.

founder milton hershey grew up on a nearby farm,

where his father took on

one failed venture after another.

heard a fellow traveler playing what handy called

a strong work ethic, hershey's mother taught him

which saw milton through years of failure--

until he made a fortune on caramel.

in 1893, he was fascinated by chocolate-making

at the chicago world's fair.

at the time, milk chocolate was a delicacy

produced mostly by the swiss.

in 1905, hershey opened up a factory in his hometown

tucked into the mountains. taliesin's buildings are low,

came from the man behind this masterpiece--

frank lloyd wright.

wright and his students started coming to arizona in 1933

to escape the bitter winters

of wisconsin. in wright's home state

in 1937 he purchased this land outside scottsdale

to build a permanent winter retreat

and school of architecture.

on organic architecture. wright's work focused

some of the greatest architecture made in the u.s.a.

wright and his students would come back to taliesin west

every winter until his death in 1959 at the age of 91.

arizona is also home to one of the most unique structures

ever made in the u.s.a.

this is biosphere two in the town of oracle, outside tucson.

in 1991, scientists sealed eight people inside it for two years

to see if humans might be able to colonize another planet.

inside, they had a working farm

before it was built, drivers had to take

the allegheny mountains protect it from much manmade noise.

on top of that, residents can't use cell phones,

digital cameras or wi-fi connections

because the signals would interfere

with the astronomers' work.

in the western part of the state

is what some call a work of structural art--

the new river gorge bridge,

the longest single-arch steel bridge in the world.

along with replicas of an ocean, savannah, and rainforest.

a 40-mile trip around the gorge.

bridge construction began in 1974,

with engineers stringing cables between towers on either side.

the challenge of a single-arch design

is that the weight of the structure

pushes outward from the arch,

threatening to make the bridge sag.

but in this case, the mountain provides rock solid support.

americans were just beginning to take flight.

over the decades, people have come from around the world

to live and work at arcosanti,

but the total population never approached

the 5,000 mark soleri envisioned.

from forward-thinking architects in the southwest...

to resourceful townspeople in the midwest...

what's made in the u.s.a.

has changed drastically over the decades.

in the early 1900s,

also incorporated green efforts like solar power.

within 70 years, some were landing space shuttles.

this is a country that went from driving the auto industry

to powering the internet.

and from singing the blues...

to that groundbreaking motown sound.

regardless of how the technology or landscape may change,

one thing will remain the same--

america will continue to reinvent itself.

70 miles north of phoenix is the community of arcosanti--

scientists learned a great deal--

but that was largely overshadowed by infighting

between biospherians and some of their bosses.

biosphere two is now owned by the university of arizona,

which uses it to study climate change and ecology,

among other things.

elsewhere in arizona, another visionary

has different ideas about how the future should look.

they chose this town: that's part of the reason

the work of italian architect paolo soleri.

in 1970, long before "going green" was popular,

he started constructing "arcologies" here--

buildings that blend ecology and architecture.

soleri wanted to introduce

a new kind of carless city living

that could also save the planet.

his urban experiment

so he could make a spicy sauce.

moved to avery island after marrying into the avery family.

their main staples were salt and sugar cane--

but edmund grew tabasco plants as a hobby.

when the civil war started, the family fled.

they returned to find the salt mines flooded

and the sugar cane burned.

but the red pepper plants were flourishing.

edmund, a talented cook,

allowed the peppers to age and ferment

in the mid-1800s, a man named edmund mcilhenny

in 1868, he sent samples in small cologne bottles

to food distributors-- and called it tabasco.

peppers come from mexico, these days most of tabasco's

but every bottle is still filled at this factory on avery island.

from alabama to texas are fields of white.

these are cotton plants,

a major source of income in the south

since slaves painstakingly picked it in the 1700s.

a bus right here, it's said muddy boarded

"the weirdest music he'd ever heard."

nine years later, handy published "memphis blues"--

the first song with "blues" in its title.

clarksdale is home to the delta blues museum

housed in an old freight depot.

it also celebrates musicians with close ties to the town,

including charlie patton, son house, robert johnson,

and muddy waters.

then, an inventor named eli whitney

joining six million black southerners

in the great migration north.

he sang, "and make my getaway." "i'm going to pack my suitcase,"

found in chicago the exposure muddy waters' music

launched the delta blues into the mainstream,

changing music forever.

another southerner came up with something hot

in the bayous of louisiana.

the accident led to rigorous new safety measures

one of the biggest spectator sports in the world.

the first organized nascar race was in daytona beach in 1948--

on the actual beach.

over the next two decades, stock car racing would explode,

hitting the airwaves the same year talladega opened

and producing stars like pete hamilton

and david pearson.

was dominated by dale earnhardt in the '80s and '90s, the track

before his death during a 2001 daytona race.

it opened in 1969, the latest addition to the nascar circuit,

in the sport.

nearly 600 miles from the speedway

more different-- is a place that couldn't be

the very peaceful town of green bank, west virginia--

home to the green bank radio telescope,

land-based movable structure. the world's biggest

radio astronomers use it to learn more about outer space--

but they need things to be very quiet.

he left the south broke and frustrated.

came south as a tutor--

and saw how hard it was

to separate the seeds from the cotton.

he created a cotton gin that, unlike its predecessors,

could handle the short staple cotton

commonly grown in the south.

but before whitney could profit from the invention,

others illegally copied it.

when franciscan friars started making wine here.

whitney went north to pursue another idea--mass production.

he started making guns with something new:

machine-made, interchangeable parts.

his model went on to help spur the industrial revolution.

other farmland in alabama

produced something far different--

one of the fastest race tracks in america--

the talladega superspeedway.

an american woman was making history with one.

in kansas.

wichita resident lloyd stearman in the mid '20s,

started designing biplanes like these--

the main aircraft used in those early aviation years.

the planes are still flying nearly 90 years later.

a stearman biplane even starred

"north by northwest," in alfred hitchcock's

where it was used to try and murder cary grant.

while some businessmen were building planes,

his fellow flying mavericks just happened to be taking off...

amelia earhart was born in atchison,

where kansas artist stan herd pays tribute to her

with a one-acre earthen portrait.

growing up, earhart spent much of her time here,

high above the missouri river. in her grandparents' house

as a girl, she was independent,

and even kept a scrapbook of accomplished women.

in 1928, earhart gained worldwide fame

of 75 football fields. inside, it's the equivalent

from vancouver to seattle--

international airmail. america's first

boeing also started repairing

and manufacturing military planes,

eventually building world war two bombers.

the company is a top producer of passenger aircraft...

many of which are made here, 25 miles north of seattle.

everett plant-- this is boeing's mammoth

the largest building in the world when measured by volume.

when she became the first woman to fly across the atlantic.

behind massive bay doors, boeing builds four models of planes.

the aircraft emerge with a green mylar coating

to prevent damage.

this is also where boeing builds the 787 dreamliner,

which offers passengers wi-fi, live tv and cell phone use.

after a few hundred tests, a plane is ready for delivery.

but william boeing certainly wasn't the only one

fascinated by flight.

named it after the date the tornado hit.

the greenest town in america.

it was a tough sell to residents,

but they gradually began to rally.

soon, eco homes like this rose, modeled after a grain silo

200-mile-per-hour winds. that withstood the tornado's

the 5-4-7 arts center

was the first public building to go up--

to make the arts a priority. part of the town's decision

the kansas architectural students who designed it

their idea was to make greensburg

which were also destroyed, the town's library and museum,

now live in the award-winning kiowa county commons building.

its roof overhang, awnings, and trees

control the amount of light and heat that enter...

while solar panels generate power.

but the building that may symbolize

greensburg's rebirth best

is the spiral-shaped museum--

in the remote plains of western kansas

she was driven, in part, by a desire to help women

achieve social and economic independence,

often using her fame to advocate

for female pilots and women's issues.

but her attempt to be the first woman around the world

came to a tragic end when she disappeared over the pacific--

a mysterious death that sometimes overshadows

her lifetime of accomplishments.

then, boeing started flying letters

is a town that remade itself after a devastating tragedy.

in 2007, a massive tornado

leveled the small community of greensburg.

half of the survivors decided not to come back.

but the population here

had actually been decreasing for years.

city leaders decided they didn't just need to rebuild--

they needed to revitalize.

estate on lake washington bill gates' multi-million-dollar

a year later, gates got a call

about developing a top-secret operating system.

it was for something unheard of at the time--

an ibm personal computer.

employees have perks in redmond, microsoft's

like a soccer field, baseball diamond,

and 25 high-end cafeterias.

a few lucky workers even get to visit the boss' house...

proof of just how much money can be made in the u.s.a.

he relocated to washington in 1979.

features a reception hall and conference facilities,

in case he needs to take work home with him.

one of the libraries contains a leonardo da vinci notebook,

which gates bought in 1994 for more than $30 million.

is traditional, and while the home's exterior

the inside is, of course, state of the art.

a house computer can detect

what temperature and music each resident prefers.

these are the big thinkers, big dreams, and big things

from the men who brought flight to the masses...

to the woman who spent her life pushing the limits.

it's a land of innovation--

from a colony some hoped could exist on mars...

to a city others thought would be a blueprint for the future.

this is a place where good ideas have made millionaires...

and a good golf swing produced a billionaire.

from self-made men to manmade products,

another major american brand was made in seattle--starbucks.

that could only be made in the u.s.a.

in the evergreens of washington state

america a computing superpower-- is one company that's made

microsoft.

headquarters this is the software giant's

just outside seattle, in redmond.

bill gates, a seattle native, dropped out of harvard in 1975

to start the company in albuquerque, new mexico.

named william boeing.

and developed hypothermia.

afterwards, bauer came up with an idea

for a goose-down breathable jacket--

an invention that revolutionized cold-weather outerwear.

he hit it really big in world war two,

when the down-filled bomber jackets

he made for fighter pilots

became the height of fashion.

the war also made a fortune for another washington businessman

soon, he started sweating in his wool clothes

he flew as a passenger for the first time in 1914,

just eleven years after the wright brothers' virgin flight.

boeing had been running a successful timber company,

but once he was airborne,

decided he could build a better plane.

in two years, he learned to fly, hired engineers,

and took his new plane for a test flight.

at first, the company struggled.

their signature mermaid

the company started out as a small shop

in nearby pike place market, where it opened in 1971.

in 1983, marketing director howard schultz

went to milan, italy,

and noticed the popularity of espresso bars.

he convinced starbucks' founders

to try out the coffeehouse concept,

and now starbucks is sold in 55 countries.

oldest attraction-- the new entrance to the town's

comes from a 16th century norse woodcut.

it pays tribute to seattle's seaport roots,

and the seafaring history of coffee.

a washington outdoorsman made it big in the u.s.a.

after a near-death experience.

in the 1930s, a man named eddie bauer

was hauling fish he had just caught

through the olympic peninsula.

tracks from the last one to make this journey are still visible.

vehicle assembly building, is nasa's

the largest single-story structure in the world.

inside, engineers assembled every single space shuttle.

before launch, shuttles were rolled out

and onto this 135-foot-wide path, called the crawlerway.

the 17-million-pound spacecraft

sat on giant crawler transporters

that, because of the crushing weight,

than a mile per hour. couldn't move faster

towering over this stretch of coast

astronauts returned to earth-- this is also where america's

aiming for two black strips on the tarmac.

the space shuttle program ended in 2011.

now, nasa is looking for new ways

to put its historic infrastructure to use.

florida may be famous for its made-in-the-u.s.a. oranges--

actually native to the state. but it turns out the fruit isn't

spanish settlers brought it here from china in the 16th century.

personal driving range. woods' own

along the pristine waters of jupiter island, florida,

is the home of another athlete who made it big in america.

multi-million-dollar estate, this is tiger woods' 12-acre

which he kept as his permanent residence

after his messy split with wife elin nordegren in 2010.

the house includes four greens,

all with different types of turf to replicate real courses.

on the second floor is quite the custom add-on--

it took another few hundred years for oranges to catch on.

up the florida coast is a city

a leader in space exploration. that's made the u.s.a.

cape canaveral is home to the kennedy space center--

a longstanding testament to the power of american ingenuity.

here at pad 39-a,

astronauts neil armstrong, buzz aldrin and michael collins

blasted off...

as did 135 space shuttle missions.

dole bought some land

these are the dole pineapple plantations on oahu--

main sources of revenue. and one of hawaii's

but no one knows exactly how the pineapple ended up here.

what historians do know is that a spanish adventurer

successfully started raising them in the 1800s.

then, at the turn of the century,

a harvard grad named james drummond dole

came to oahu and thought the fruit might have potential.

putting his business and agricultural degrees to use,

on the tropical islands of hawaii.

and started using the relatively new technology called canning.

after some persistent marketing,

the pineapple became a symbol of friendship

and a staple in many kitchens.

thousands of miles away, california winemakers

are busy producing made-in-the-u.s.a. reds.

vineyards in paso robles

have been around since the 18th century,

the company got its start in 1933 as a small co-op.

the fruit ripens in the fall,

and thousands of migrant laborers are hired

to help with the harvest.

racing between the rows are trucks called "goats"

that gather the fruit from workers

and ferry it to nearby tractor trailers.

the oranges then travel to nearby processing plants

like this one owned by florida's natural.

all of whom were also made in the u.s.a.

orange juice producers now it's one of the biggest

in the country.

open trailer trucks take the fruit from farm to factory.

inside, millions of oranges a year are turned to pulp,

their juice pasteurized and bottled

before it makes its way around the world.

thousands of miles away from florida,

another american product had more mysterious beginnings

generating enough electricity for 125,000 homes.

workers assemble the three tubes

that will make up the windmill's tower...

then attach the giant propeller blades to their hub.

a powerful motor goes on top. once that's finished,

finally, the propeller is ready to be installed.

in this delicate dance between man and machine,

each gear and part must be perfectly aligned.

when the workers are done,

262 windmills will tower over the kansas plains,

where its transformer is located.

in nearby oklahoma is the birthplace

of the doppler weather radar.

this is the national weather center in norman,

where the doppler was born out of world war two technology

to detect enemy aircraft and missiles.

in 1964, the radar allowed scientists

to measure motion inside a storm for the first time.

more recently, doppler radar advanced to this,

bp is behind this wind farm-- called flat ridge two--

the big well.

the building sits

atop the deepest hand-dug well in the world.

the structure is modeled after the fibonacci sequence--

a series of numbers that creates spirals found in nature,

including tornadoes.

kansas has also helped make the u.s.a. more eco-friendly--

by harnessing the power of the wind.

called "o.u. prime."

in south central kansas.

the wind industry has skyrocketed in the u.s.,

outpaced only by china.

but to tap into the wind's potential,

some assembly is required.

the windmills arrive in pieces,

which are then spread out on the prairie.

each one will sit on a concrete pad

they started out selling sneakers from japan--

that helped make a sportswear giant--nike.

this is hayward field, or "track town u.s.a.,"

at the university of oregon in eugene.

in 1949, a man named bill bowerman

became the track and field coach here.

known for his attention to detail,

bowerman even cobbled shoes for his runners.

then, in 1964, bowerman went into the shoe business

with former u of o runner bill knight.

western oregon is home to the track

but in 1971, launched their own company, nike,

named after the greek goddess of victory.

beaverton headquarters, at the company's

nike is still looking for ways to give runners an edge...

inviting top athletes to train here.

the names of sports legends the campus' buildings bear

that have been sponsored by nike,

including michael jordan, mia hamm and john mcenroe--

that are part of the googleplex--

resolution radars of its kind. it's one of the highest

researchers use it to help predict severe weather--

a necessity in the middle of tornado alley.

1,400 miles away is one of the sites

that helped google become a household name.

server farm this is the company's

in the dalles, oregon.

inside are tens of thousands of processors

america is a land of risk takers--

basically the biggest collective computer in the world.

and powering all that creates a lot of heat--

which is why this server farm is near the columbia river.

the dalles dam hydroelectric station--

and its half-mile powerhouse--

supply google with cheap, renewable energy--

something the company says is a priority

as it continues to expand.