The Great Adventure
The Great Adventure
TV ShowEnded

The Great Adventure

1963
1 season
26 episodes
Drama

The Great Adventure is a historical anthology series that appeared on CBS for the 1963-1964 television season. The series, narrated each week by Van Heflin, and featuring theme music by Richard Rodgers, presented a weekly one-hour dramatization of the lives of famous Americans and important historical events in American History.

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Trailer

THE GREAT ADVENTURE - OPENING THEME CBS 1963

Cast

Seasons

  • Ep 1

    1.The Hunley

    27-09-1963

    During the Civil War, an engineer working for the Confederacy develops a primitive submarine that can evade the Union ships blockading Southern ports.

  • Ep 2

    2.The Death of Sitting Bull

    04-10-1963

    The first of a two part episode, the US Government believes that Sitting Bull has joined the Ghost Dancers, a Sioux religious movement the government believes will lead to another...

  • Ep 3

    3.The Massacre at Wounded Knee

    11-10-1963

    The second of a two part episode. Days after Sitting Bull's death, the US Army's bungled attempt to disarm a party of Sioux results in the unnecessary deaths of over 300 men, women...

  • Ep 4

    4.Six Wagons to the Sea

    18-10-1963

    The attempt in 1894 by farmers from California's Central Valley to get their produce to market by wagon despite attempts by the Southern Pacific Railroad to foil their efforts and...

  • Ep 5

    5.The Story of Nathan Hale

    25-10-1963

    American Continental soldier turns spy against the British and gives all for a concept called Democracy.

  • Ep 6

    6.Go Down, Moses

    01-11-1963

    Ruby Dee plays the escaped slave Harriet Tubman and her attempts to rescue enslaved family members and friends through the pre-Civil War Underground Railroad.

  • Ep 7

    7.The Great Diamond Mountain

    08-11-1963

    In this humorous episode, two con men perpetrate the Diamond Hoax of 1872 in an attempt to swindle San Francisco banker William Ralston, played by Barry Sullivan.

  • Ep 8

    8.The Treasure Train of Jefferson Davis

    15-11-1963

    The Confederate Government of Jefferson Davis makes a futile attempt to escape Richmond and capture by the Union Army.

  • Ep 9

    9.The Outlaw and the Nun

    06-12-1963

    A nun comes to a town to teach school and finds that education is so undervalued by the community that she has only two pupils. She sets out to change that.

  • Ep 10

    10.The Man Who Stole New York City

    13-12-1963

    The rise and fall of Boss Tweed and his Tammany Hall political machine in 1860s New York City.

  • Ep 11

    11.A Boy at War

    20-12-1963

    The future seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson, is a 13 year old boy soldier struggling to survive the American Revolution.

  • Ep 12

    12.Wild Bill Hickok - the Legend and the Man

    03-01-1964

    Down on his luck and in decline, Wild Bill Hickok arrives at the end of his trail in Deadwood in 1876.

  • Ep 13

    13.The Colonel from Connecticut

    10-01-1964

    The story of Col. Edwin Drake, the first man to drill for oil in the U.S.

  • Ep 14

    14.Teeth of the Lion

    17-01-1964
  • Ep 15

    15.Rodger Young

    24-01-1964

    James MacArthur plays Rodger Young. The story of a young man that enlists in the Army despite having poor eyesight and hearing and ends up earning the Medal of Honor for his deeds...

  • Ep 16

    16.The Testing of Sam Houston

    31-01-1964

    In 1817, Andrew Jackson appoints a young Sam Houston to oversee the forced relocation of the Cherokee from Tennessee. He soon clashes with both Jackson and the US Government over h...

  • Ep 17

    17.The Special Courage of Captain Pratt

    14-02-1964

    Richard Pratt's now controversial efforts to assimilate Native Americans into "white" society by education and rejection of tribal traditions. He advocated for Native Americans and...

  • Ep 18

    18.The Night Raiders

    21-02-1964

    A recounting of the events leading to John Brown's disastrous raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859.

  • Ep 19

    19.Plague

    28-02-1964

    Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse attempts to convince the US Government and the public of the value of vaccinations against small pox. One of his first patients - the President of the Unite...

  • Ep 20

    20.The Pathfinder

    06-03-1964

    The meeting of two great American Legends in 1846 California - Colonel John C. Fremont and John Sutter - on the eve of war with Mexico.

  • Ep 21

    21.The President Vanishes

    13-03-1964

    In 1893 President Grover Cleveland embarks on a mysterious voyage into Long Island Sound aboard a friend's yacht pursued by a suspicious reporter. It was twenty four years later th...

  • Ep 22

    22.The Henry Bergh Story

    20-03-1964

    A man crusades for better treatment of animals and forms the ASPCA in 1866. He later crusades for better treatment of children.

  • Ep 23

    23.Kentucky's Bloody Ground

    03-04-1964

    The first of a two part episode recalling Daniel Boone's attempt to settle Kentucky and the events leading to the siege of Boonesborough by the Shawnee in 1778.

  • Ep 24

    24.The Siege of Boonesborough

    10-04-1964

    This two part episode recounts the story of Daniel Boone and the 1778 Siege of Boonesborough by the Shawnee.

  • Ep 25

    25.Escape

    17-04-1964

    The true Civil War story of an escape by Union POWs from the Confederate Libby Prison in 1864. The POWs tunneled under the walls and into an adjoining building which gave them acce...

  • Ep 26

    26.The Pirate and the Patriot

    01-05-1964

    Thirty four years later, General Andrew Jackson, commanding the US Army defending New Orleans, is about to get revenge for his treatment by the British during the American Revoluti...

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