I Was There

Theo Wilson travels back in time to April 19, 1995, when Oklahoma City is rocked by a two-ton fertilizer bomb shortly after 9 AM. The catastrophic result of years of planning by domestic terrorist, Timothy McVeigh. Theo investigates the layers of this complicated story, taking us beyond the Ryder box truck carrying the explosives and into the mind of the man who perpetrated one of the most evil acts in American history.

It’s 1929 and inside a garage in downtown Chicago, host Theo Wilson witnesses the bloodiest execution in gangland history–the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. But how did Al Capone and a Northside/Southside battle triggered by Americans’ thirst for booze get us here?

Theo Wilson time travels to the tension-filled 60s to see how inspirational Civil Rights hero, John Lewis, came to lead a historic march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday. Wilson charts Lewis’ career from his first childhood protest, to risking his body and life as a civil rights icon, and the Bloody Sunday march, and how a decision to air it on national TV helped lead to change.

On January 26, 1986, 2.5 million school children watched live as the Challenger space shuttle exploded in the sky, claiming the lives of seven astronauts—including a teacher. With red flags raised in the days before liftoff and multiple chances to stop the ill-fated launch, Theo Wilson is inside the moments that make you wonder, why did Challenger ever take off?

Theo Wilson time travels to 1865 and immerses himself in the events that lead John Wilkes Booth to hatch a plan to kill President Abraham Lincoln.

Theo Wilson travels back in time to 1893 Chicago, finding himself in the lair of America’s first famous serial killer, H.H. Holmes. But how did Holmes become such a prolific murderer? Theo follows Holmes dark road from conman, to the owner of a fiendishly engineered “murder castle,” where he hunts his victims in the convenient shadow of the World’s Columbian Exposition.

Theo Wilson time-travels to the mid-1800s where he finds a young man named Jesse James on the path toward becoming America’s most infamous outlaw. Wilson separates myth from reality in Jesse James’ career, and charts how a thirst for fame, riches, and revenge led James toward his fated murder by a member of his own gang.

Theo Wilson travels back in time to Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 where the village is self-destructing over allegations of witchcraft amongst dozens of its citizens. Wilson is there to dissect the bizarre, “viral” chain of events that leads the accused to the gallows in a chapter of our history that laid the groundwork for fair trials today.

Theo Wilson time-travels to Russia on April 26th, 1986, as workers at the Chernobyl nuclear plant are in the throes of a disaster that will put the lives of millions of Soviet citizens and Europeans in jeopardy. From ground zero, Wilson explores the decisions and cover ups by the Soviets before, during and after the meltdown at the reactor, which still smolders today.

Theo Wilson time-travels back to 1889 to the bucolic river shores of Johnstown, Pennsylvania where the biggest flood in U.S. history is about to be unleashed. Wilson finds himself dissecting the disaster, along the way discovering how filthy rich steel barons cut corners on maintenance of a nearby dam and laid the groundwork for this epic flood—all because they wanted to fish.

Theo Wilson travels back in time to 1937, finding himself aboard the world's most luxurious airship, the Hindenburg, where he must solve the mystery of what leads to its fiery fall from the sky--the first epic disaster ever caught on moving film.