History's Lost & Found (1999)

The Shroud of Turin. The Wright Brothers' plane. The treasures of King Tut. This is a captivating examination of some of the most famous objects and artifacts in human history. Some are macabre (Abraham Lincoln's deathbed), some priceless (the Declaration of Independence) and some more curious than anything else. Features include {Episode 1:} Einstein's brain, a stuffed-and-mounted philosopher, and the Gettysburg Address; {Episode 2:} the car that carried John F. Kennedy to his death, the wooden gun that John Dillinger used to bluff his way out of jail, and the amputated, stuffed leg of a Civil War general; {Episode 3:} John Paul Jones's body, the London Bridge, and George Washington's wooden teeth; {Episode 4:} Jackie Onassis Kennedy's blood-stained dress, King Herod's tub, Paul Revere's lantern, and footage of the Spanish American War; {Episode 5:} the bus ridden on by Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, the boat from the movie "The African Queen", an English ruler who lost his head after he was buried, a fire horse who lost his hoof on the way to a fire, and monsters in New Jersey; {Episode 6:} the metal staircase at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon that thousands of evacuees climbed, the tumor taken from Grover Cleveland's throat; {Episode 7-8:} Edison's electric killing machine, Togo the sled dog, Calvin Coolidge's exercise horse, Elvis Presley's purple Cadillac, Ludwig van Beethoven's hearing aid, William Shakespeare's will; {Episode 9:} Lewis & Clark's luggage, the Hollywood sign, faked photographs of fairies, the first vacuum cleaner, and the crew compartment of the ill-fated Challenger Space Shuttle; {Episode 10:} the St. Valentine's Day Massacre wall, the invention of barbed wire, a legless WWII ace who nearly escaped a POW camp on tin limbs, Alan Shepard's golf shot on the moon, the first metal detector, the pressed aluminum disk cut by convicted murderer Lead Belly, and a visit to a Civil War-era Washington, D.C. brothel; {Episode 11:} the stuffed animal that inspired the classic Winnie the Pooh stories and sparked an international controversy, an escape from the prison known as "The Rock", Alfred Packer - the Colorado Cannibal, America's first astronauts - monkeys named Able and Baker, love letters from King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, and John Wayne on the way to the Alamo; {Episode 12:} the truth behind the death of Jesse James, the guillotine, the barber who killed mob boss Anastasia, Mark Twain's bed, the image of the Marines planting the Stars and Stripes on Mt. Suribachi, the first issue of Mad Magazine and Hugh Hefner's pajamas; {Episode 13:} Imelda Marcos's shoes, Al Capone's Cadillac and Lizzie Borden's ax; {Episode 14:} Buddy Holly's glasses and the original Monopoly board; {Episode 15:} Eva Braun's home movies, the infamous dress Marilyn Monroe wore at JFK's 45th birthday celebration; {Episode 16:} first Apple computer, George Washington's schoolbooks, President Herbert Hoover's invented game called Hooverball, reel-to-reel tapes laid down by Louis Armstrong, and the last New York City Checker cab; {Episode 17:} Andy Warhol's wigs, the funeral bier of Lincoln and Kennedy, a record-breaking car, and the Lone Ranger's mask; {Episode 18:} the letters of Mary Todd Lincoln, the origins of the recreational vehicle, Jayne Mansfield's death car, a surfboard, a musical instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin; {Episode 19:} the remains of the Hindenburg, the Appomattox surrender tables, Ghandi's bloodstained dhoti, the first Zippo lighter, the original text of the Nuremberg laws, Ronald Reagan's booth at Chasen's, and James Dean's motorcycle; {Episode 20:} Joseph Haydn's lost head, Liberace's rhinestone piano, the first cellular phone, Silly Putty, the large shoes of Charlie Chaplin, and the Confederate Constitution; {Episode 21:} Hitler's moveable bunker, the first microwave oven, Jim Thorpe's Olympic medals, Painless Parker's tooth necklace, the Watergate address book, Colonel Sanders's pressure cooker; {Episode 22:} the original La-Z-Boy and Schindler's famous list; {Episode 23:} the death car of General George Patton, the first Academy Award, the U-2 spy plane in which Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union, and the first modern surfboard; {Episode 25:} secret White House tapes made by Lyndon Johnson, the car that got Henry Ford started on the road to his destiny, Elvis Presley's official (and ironic) DEA badge, the story of the remains of the unknown soldier, the first parking meter, and the fans of dancer Sally Rand; {Episode 26:} Rin Tin Tin, Stanley Milgram's Shock Box, the coat Admiral Nelson wore for his final battle, John Lennon's station wagon, and Charlie Parker's plastic saxophone; {Episode 27:} Jack Ruby's gun, the lost squadron of WWII, the original Sun Studio soundboard, the first transistor, the heart of Louis XVII, the original Coke bottle; {Episode 28:} the USS Pampanito, Mark David Chapman's autographed Double Fantasy album, the first Mustang convertible, JFK's missing tooth, Thomas Edison's tinfoil phonograph, and St. Stephen's crown; {Episode 29:} the Spruce Goose, Elvis Presley's guitar, Shackleton's Arctic survivor: the James Caird, George Washington's inaugural Bible, the original TV dinner tray; {Episode 30:} Malcolm X's blood-stained diary, the world's only private subway car, Peter the Great's amber chamber, Pancho Villa's death mask, Bonnie and Clyde's death car, and the log of the Mayflower. In the stories that surround them, history and the human condition are illuminated.