09/20/00: Is that a spear in your backyard?
Nick and Kevin catch up with archaeologist Mike Johnson at the Cactus Hill excavation site in Cactus Hill, Virginia. There they get down among the rocks and stones of the dig to learn about the first Americans.

09/23/00: Getting in touch with the Native American past through the heart of a woman

09/30/00: Don a headdress made of turkey feathers and return to the 1600's
Nick and Kevin explore some Dutch and French settlements in the New World. They learn about the treaty between the French and Iroquois and how it was based on the fur trade. They explore Mission St. Marie in Ondondaga Lake Park, New York, and Huguenots St New Paltz, New York.

Stage Two: The Birth of the United States
(no Nick kids dispatches)

Stage Three: Expansion & Reaction

11/08/00: Fighting over money
Traveling through Texas, Nick describes the Mexican-American War, a war fought not for liberty and justice but for money.

Stage Four: Civil War & Reconstruction

11/29/00: Harpers Ferry: John Brown's fatal vision
Kiddie version of Nick's John Brown dispatch.

12/20/00: Sojourner's Truth marches on
Sojourner Truth, A free woman whose words helped to enlighten a generation.

Stage Five: Transformation of the U. S.

01/06/01: A ghost dance for hope
Nick describes white settlers' westward movement under a philosophy of Manifest Destiny and the decimation of Native Americans, as well as the Wovoka Messiah and the religion of the Ghost Dance that revived Indians' hope. He recounts the story of Sitting Bull's murder and the Massacre at Wounded Knee, where U.S. troops gunned down almost 300 Lakota Sioux under a white flag of surrender.

01/06/01: Sitting Bull wins one for the Lakota Indians!
Nick describes the Fort Laramie treaty that promised the Black Hills to the Sioux, the U.S. government's breaking of the treaty, and Native Americans' victory against Custer and his cavalry at the Battle of Little Big Horn, where Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho fought under the leadership of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.