| Description |
1 online resource (50 minutes) |
| Summary |
An encounter with the most brilliant pioneers of the industrial age. Recreating their stories of burning ambition, extravagant dreams, passion and rivalry as great minds clashed, this programme delves into the history of seven epic monuments spanning the industrial revolution. Using spectacular CGI, the seven stories that are revealed here are: the SS Great Eastern, the London sewer system, the Bell Rock Lighthouse, the US Transcontinental Railway, the Panama Canal, the Hoover Dam, and the Brooklyn Bridge. In 1869, a brilliant engineer, John Roebling from Germany, won the contract to build the largest bridge in the world, the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. It was to stretch 1,600 feet, in one giant leap, across the wide and turbulent East River that separates New York from Brooklyn. The foundations were to sink 70 feet below the river. The two mighty towers would dwarf much of New York. At the time such a bold design seemed almost miraculous, and all to be built out of a new material - steel. Yet Roebling's ambitious dream was to cost him his life, and unknowingly he also condemned his son, Washington, to a shadow life. Determined to continue with his father's vision, Washington Roebling and his team laboured deep beneath the East River, but this led them to develop a mysterious new disease, Caisson disease - nowadays known as 'the bends'. Washington was so badly affected, he could not continue with his work. Suffering great pain and paralysis, could only watch through a telescope from his window, when the great network of cables was eventually spun across the great East River |
| Notes |
Title from resource description page (viewed August 26, 2019) |
| Performer |
Narrated by Robert Lindsay |
| Notes |
In English |
| Subject |
Roebling, Washington Augustus, 1837-1926.
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Roebling, Emily Warren, 1843-1903.
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Roebling, John Augustus, 1806-1869.
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Roebling, Emily Warren, 1843-1903. |
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Roebling, John Augustus, 1806-1869. |
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Roebling, Washington Augustus, 1837-1926. |
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Bridges -- New York (State) -- History
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Civil engineering -- History
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Technological innovations -- History
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Bridges.
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Civil engineering.
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Technological innovations.
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Brooklyn Bridge (New York, N.Y.) -- History
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New York (State)
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New York (State) -- New York -- Brooklyn Bridge.
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| Genre/Form |
Historical reenactments (Television programs)
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History.
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Historical reenactments (Television programs)
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| Form |
Streaming video
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| Author |
Wilmshurst, Paul, director
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British Broadcasting Corporation, production company.
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Learning Channel (Firm), production company.
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