Stories from the Vaults - Season 1
Season 1
Episodes
Famous Donors
Roughly 50,000 items are annually donated to the Smithsonian's collection. See Roosevelt's hunting trophies, Steinbeck's sea urchins, Phyllis Diller's joke file, and other gifts from famous patrons.
Superlatives
Tom is on a mission: to discover what it means to be the best, the tiniest, the coldest and the most misunderstood.
No Place Like Home
Host Tom Cavanagh tries to unravel the idea of "Home Sweet Home." He visits the National Air and Space Museum's collection of space suits, learns about Native American tipis at the National Museum of the American Indian, and finds an astonishing array of life in a thimble of sand.
Beauty
Beauty isn't just in the eye of the beholder. Three Smithsonian curators offer their surprising perspectives on the elusive meaning of true beauty as it applies to their work with advertising, orchids and ants.
Firsts
Enter the vaults of the National Museum of American History and the National Air and Space Museum in search of earth-shattering firsts. From a new collection of vintage planes to the very first videogame (hint: it wasn't Pong).
Life after Death
The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, the National Museum of Natural History, and the National Postal Museum all hold clues to the afterlife. Deep inside their vaults, the evidence for life after death has never been more convincing.
Random?
Dive into the very heart of the world's largest museum complex amidst more than 136 million objects. With such an incredible variety of things to see, there's nothing haphazard about the systematic collections at the Smithsonian. Host Tom Cavanagh visits the National Zoo and the National Museum of American History, showing us that breadth certainly doesn't equal randomness.
Recently Updated Shows
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
After surviving Godzilla's attack on San Francisco, Cate is shaken yet again by a shocking secret. Amid monstrous threats, she embarks on a globetrotting adventure to learn the truth about her family—and the mysterious organization known as Monarch.
America's Funniest Home Videos
ABC's longest-running primetime entertainment show, America's Funniest Home Videos, returns for season 33 this fall with the same mission -- giving families something genuinely funny to enjoy together on Sunday nights.
"AFV," the longest-running primetime entertainment show in ABC history, returns for season 33 with the same mission - to provide viewers with hysterical moments that fly by at a dizzying pace.
The Curse of Oak Island
The Curse of Oak Island documents brothers Rick and Marty Lagina as they pursue their lifelong dream of solving more than a 220-year old Oak Island mystery. For over two centuries, teams of searchers, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, have attempted to crack the code that will unearth the treasure believed to be buried on the small island off the coast of Nova Scotia. Armed with the knowledge of those that came before them, the muscle of heavy machinery and decades of engineering know-how, the Lagina's and their partners may be closer than anyone in history to finding the treasure that has so far claimed the lives of six men.
When Calls the Heart
When Calls the Heart is inspired by Janette Oke's bestselling book series about the Canadian West, the series tells the captivating story of Elizabeth Thatcher, a young teacher accustomed to her high society life, who receives her first classroom assignment in Coal Valley, a small coal mining town where life is simple, but often fraught with challenges. Upon arrival, Elizabeth befriends Abigail Stanton, a wife and mother whose husband, the foreman of the mine, along with a dozen other miners, has just been killed in an explosion. The newly widowed women find their faith is tested when they must go to work in the mines to keep a roof over their heads. Set against the wild canvas of a 19th century coal town, Elizabeth will have to learn the ways of the frontier if she wishes to thrive in the rural west on her own.