Law and Politics Videos

What the law requires (or allows) is not always fair or just or honorable. Politics is often polarizing. Stories in this collection help us to examine the highs and lows of "the law" over the centuries.

In 1508, as Michelangelo thought about how to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling, he had to have someone else create the scaffolding.

NOTE: This clip contains a segment on fourteenth-century art and its creative processes.

Richard I, King of England, decides to participate in the Third Crusade. His eventful journey takes him to Jerusalem.

Richard Nixon, America's 37th President, apologizes for his role in the Watergate cover-up.

On June 23, 1972, an audio recorder taped a damaging talk - called "The Smoking Gun" - between Nixon and Haldeman. The tape doomed Nixon’s presidenc...

Richard I, son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, reigned in Britain between 1188-1198.

When Robert Kennedy, about to address an Indianapolis crowd including many African-Americans, learned that Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinate...

Rosa Parks brought the civil rights movement fuel to grow with her actions.

By the fall of 1692, the authorities running the Salem Witch Trials begun to have second thoughts about all the claims. Perhaps Governor Phips decided...

While "witch hunts" frequently took place in parts of Europe between the 14th and 16th centuries - resulting in the deaths of up to 50,000 people - th...

The first witch trial, in Massachusetts, occurred soon after the Puritans arrived in America. In 1648, Margaret Jones was accused - and hanged - in Ch...

A group of girls in Salem Village accuse three women of being witches. During a pretrial hearing, magistrates question the three accused and accept qu...

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