In one of the most significant land grabs in US history, three charismatic leaders sought individual glory and national fulfillment in the conquest of California. Discover the martial exploits and political controversies of John Charles Fremont.

Soldier, professor, explorer, John Wesley Powell led the first major exploration of the Colorado River in 1869, where he documented rock, plant, and animal species unknown to man, and encountered the "gates of hell.

The bloody saga of the battle between the cattle barons and the homesteaders that raged in Wyoming in 1892. The cattle ranchers went on a rampage and hired mercenaries to kill anyone who stood in their way before the army was called in to restore order.

In 1889, Wyoming erupts in the West's most brutal range war--a campaign of terror pitting the wealthy cattle barons against the homesteaders, and "the powerful" against "the people." From barn burnings to lynchings to gangland slayings, the barons will stop at nothing to defend their claim to thousands of acres of government land.

From hell and back, the saga of what a group of settlers had to endure on the way to the Promised Land. Kenny Rogers hosts.

A fond look back at the lives of Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, John Wesley Powell, and the other mountain men, trappers, and pathfinders who blazed the trail westward for starry-eyed pioneers to follow.

Most Americans have never heard of Jedediah Smith. Since the early 1800s, this forgotten legend has gathered dust like so many other pioneers and explorers. Yet Smith's legacy significantly shaped the course of American history. Smith achieved many firsts in his short period of travels--the first white man to recognize the significance of the South Pass in Wyoming, the only viable passage for wagons through the Rockies; walk across the Great Basin in present day Utah; travel from Southern California to Oregon by land; traverse the state of Utah from north to south; and remarkably, the first white man to travel from the east, overland into California. In this dramatic 2-hour special, we follow the life of Smith during the decade of the 1820s as he navigates the American West. It's a tale of clashing cultures and dangerous encounters, bear attacks and violent battles with many Indian tribes, and most of all the story of the journey of an unsung American hero.