Frances Cleveland uses her public image for good, Edith Wilson acts as president after her husband has a stroke, and Dolley Madison saves American artifacts from destruction.

Frances Cleveland uses her public image for good, Edith Wilson acts as president after her husband has a stroke, and Dolley Madison saves American artifacts from destruction.

Baron von Steuben whips Washington's army into shape, longtime friends John Adams and Thomas Jefferson break ties, and Benedict Arnold becomes a British spy.

British explorer James Cook socializes with the natives in Hawaii; future senator Daniel Inouye fights in World War II; surfer Eddie Aikau earns a reputation for riding big waves.

Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" angers publisher William Randolph Hearst; animator Ub Iwerks helps Walt Disney create Mickey Mouse; Nancy Reagan urges her husband to get into politics.

Charles Sumner is beaten on the Senate floor; Judge J. Waties Waring advocates for civil rights; a slave named Robert Smalls commandeers a Confederate ship and sails it to his freedom.

Abraham Lincoln tries to stay alive on the way to his inauguration; Francis Scott Key pens "The Star-Spangled Banner"; Edgar Allan Poe clashes with Rufus Griswold.

Disc jockey Alan Freed plays rock and roll for the first time; Kris Kristofferson gets his big break with some help from Johnny Cash; music producer Sylvia Robinson assembles the Sugarhill Gang.

Sculptor Fréderic-Auguste Bartholdi designs the Statue of Liberty; Sybil Ludington takes her midnight ride during the American Revolution; Nellie Bly goes undercover in an asylum on Blackwell's Island.

The Season 2 premiere features organic chemist Percy Julian; civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin; and boxer Joe Louis.