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The Best Episodes of Modern Marvels

Every episode of Modern Marvels ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Modern Marvels!

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HISTORY’s longest-running series moves to H2. Modern Marvels celebrates the ingenuity, invention and imagination found in the world around us. From commonplace items like ink and coffee to architectural masterpieces and engineering disasters, the hit

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
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    Modern Marvels Season 8 Episode 19 - The World Trade Center
    10.0/10(1 votes)

    #1 - The World Trade Center

    S8:E19

    An historical look at the technological engineering of the World Trade Center. The special was completed and the interviews took place before the tragic events of September 11, 2001. Rather than remake the program to reflect the horrors of that day, our program stands as an historical record to the wonder it once was–from the construction of this technological feat to the daily working of its complex system. The program offers some of the last interior footage of the Twin Towers.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. Modern Marvels Season 10 Episode 53 - Overseas Highway
    9.0/10(1 votes)

    #2 - Overseas Highway

    S10:E53

    A spectacular roadway nearly 120 miles long, the Overseas Highway links mainland Florida with the Florida Keys, and contains 51 bridges, including the Seven-Mile Bridge. A boat was the only mode of travel from Miami to Key West until oil tycoon Henry Flagler completed his railroad line in 1912. After a 1935 hurricane destroyed 40 miles of track, the scenic highway was built using Flagler’s bridges. A $175-million refurbishment that ended in 1982 resulted in today’s remarkable Overseas Highway.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  3. Modern Marvels Season 13 Episode 41 - Renewable Energy
    9.0/10(1 votes)

    #3 - Renewable Energy

    S13:E41

    Take an in-depth look at the most proven and reliable sources: solar, wind, geothermal, biofuels, and tidal power. From the experimental to the tried-and-true, renewable energy sources are overflowing with potential... just waiting to be exploited on a massive scale.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  4. Modern Marvels Season 10 Episode 60 - Lake Pontchartrain Causeway
    8.0/10(1 votes)

    #4 - Lake Pontchartrain Causeway

    S10:E60

    In the land of Mardi Gras, jambalaya, and zydeco, exists an engineering marvel called the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway that seems to go on forever. Two ribbons of concrete span the largest inland body of water in Louisiana, and at nearly 23.87 and 23.88 miles long, these two spans form the world’s longest automobile bridge. At midpoint–12 miles out–water surrounds travelers who are unable to see either shoreline. The bridge is so long, it actually transverses 1/1000th of the earth’s circumference!

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  5. Modern Marvels Season 9 Episode 60 - Failed Inventions.
    7.0/10(1 votes)

    #5 - Failed Inventions.

    S9:E60

    Join us for a salute to the dreamers and schemers who brought the world an odd assortment of flawed ideas–like flying, swimming, and jet-powered automobiles, flying rocket belts, and radium-filled clothes that promised to inflate the owner's sagging love life! And we explore the minds of the off-kilter geniuses who thought up these off-the-mark concepts. Some tinkerers' musings were merely ahead of their time and deemed flops during the inventor's lifetime, but others were just plain bad!

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. Modern Marvels Season 3 Episode 1 - Space Shuttle
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #6 - Space Shuttle

    S3:E1

    Considered by many to be the most astounding machine ever built, this reusable spaceship is the apex of flight technology. This program recounts the challenges and the critical issues that led to NASA’s decision to create an “airplane” to navigate space.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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    The 20 WORST Episodes of Modern Marvels

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  7. Modern Marvels Season 3 Episode 2 - Brooklyn Bridge
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #7 - Brooklyn Bridge

    S3:E2

    It was an engineering feat of almost miraculous proportions and a design of spectacular elegance. Rare photographs and behind-the-scenes stories recall the politics, the struggles, and the tragedies that made possible “the Eighth Wonder of the World”.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. Modern Marvels Season 3 Episode 3 - Tunnels
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #8 - Tunnels

    S3:E3

    There is no more potent demonstration of man’s resolve than the design and construction of tunnels–avenues that slice through a conspiracy of elements in the single-minded determination to connect two points. Whether underwater, blasted through solid rock, or negotiating the shifting strata of earth’s unstable crust, we explore the design and engineering of famous tunnels…and the motivation behind them.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  9. Modern Marvels Season 3 Episode 4 - Tennessee Valley Authority
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #9 - Tennessee Valley Authority

    S3:E4

    During the depths of the Great Depression, it was FDR’s greatest triumph: A massive public works project that took a 40,000 square mile, disaster-prone river basin, and turned it into a model of industrial progress.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  10. Modern Marvels Season 3 Episode 5 - Oil
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #10 - Oil

    S3:E5

    From the first well in Pennsylvania to the gushing Spindletop and modern supertankers, the story of oil is the story of civilization as we know it. We’ll take a look at the ingenious and outrageous men who risked everything for “black gold” and unimaginable wealth.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. Modern Marvels Season 3 Episode 6 - Silver Mines
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #11 - Silver Mines

    S3:E6

    It was called the "mother lode", a deposit of silver so massive that it would produce $300-million in its first 25 years of operation, establish Nevada as a state, and bankroll the Union Army in the Civil War. Named after an early investor, we'll see how the Comstock Lode, discovered near Virginia City, proved to be a scientific laboratory from which vast improvements in mining technology and safety were pioneered, including innovations in drilling, ventilation, drainage, and ore processing.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. Modern Marvels Season 3 Episode 7 - The NYC Subway
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #12 - The NYC Subway

    S3:E7

    A trip through time on the New York Subway beginning at the beginning– October 1904. We look at New York before the subway–a world of horse carts and elevated trains. We see early impractical experiments in transportation like the pneumatic subway or the elevated cable car. The program will deal with the technology of the subway, the construction, and financing. We look at subway stations and equipment.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  13. Modern Marvels Season 3 Episode 8 - The Railroads That Tamed the West
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #13 - The Railroads That Tamed the West

    S3:E8

    The year was 1869 and America had just completed the greatest building achievement in its history–the Transcontinental Railroad. A thin ribbon of steel and wood now connected East and West. But the fledgling country now faced an even greater challenge–how to harness the awesome potential of the railroad to tame the still wide-open and wild West.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  14. Modern Marvels Season 3 Episode 9 - Paving America
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #14 - Paving America

    S3:E9

    The story of the construction of our grand national highway system, from its beginnings in 1912 (it was conceived by auto and headlight tycoons) to its completion in 1984 (when the last stoplight was removed–and buried).

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. Modern Marvels Season 3 Episode 12 - The Alaskan Oil Pipeline
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #15 - The Alaskan Oil Pipeline

    S3:E12

    Being starved by an OPEC embargo, America is desperate for oil, and in 1973 construction begins on a 800 mile pipeline, tapping into Alaskan oil to quench their insatiable oil hunger.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  16. Modern Marvels Season 4 Episode 1 - America's Highways
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #16 - America's Highways

    S4:E1

    In 1912, a headlight-maker and an auto magnate built the first cross-country road to spur the demand for new cars; 70 years and $125 billion later, the highway system had grown to 42,000 miles. Rare photographs and interviews tell the incredible story of the “paving of America”.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. Modern Marvels Season 4 Episode 2 - The Telephone
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #17 - The Telephone

    S4:E2

    From Alexander Graham Bell’s crude creation, to today’s high-speed wireless networks, we’ll look into the past, present and future of the telephone. We’ll visit the AT&T archives to see how the very first telephone boxes wired together with telegraph cables have evolved into vast wireless networks. Enter into the inner workings of Los Angeles County’s 911 emergency dispatch center, as well as explore advancements made by Lucent/Bell Labs in phone-embedded GPS technology. With telephone privacy issues making headlines, witness a demonstration of how easy it can be for someone to illegally tap your phone. We’ll also look at a technology developed by NASA-Ames that might one day allow people to converse by merely thinking what they want to say.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. Modern Marvels Season 4 Episode 3 - Aqueducts
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #18 - Aqueducts

    S4:E3

    Many rivers quenched the thirst of millions in the American west and around the world. Without these aqueducts, some of the earth’s largest cities would turn into gigantic ghost towns. Their technology has been in use for over two thousand years. But today these engineering marvels cost billions of dollars to build, requiring thousands of men to toil for years on end. Aqueducts have made some men famous and others fabulously wealthy. In Los Angeles one man’s vision took one hundred thousand men to complete and a great city was truly born. In Northern California the most famous conservationist of our time waged the political fight of his life in an attempt to save one of nature’s most spectacular valleys from San Francisco’s demand for more water.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  19. Modern Marvels Season 4 Episode 4 - Television
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #19 - Television

    S4:E4

    An exploration of the world’s most popular entertainment, from the boy genius who invented it to the RCA “General” who made it a reality.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  20. Modern Marvels Season 4 Episode 5 - The Computer
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #20 - The Computer

    S4:E5

    A look at the inventions that have revolutionized society as we know it. They began as behemoths which weighed over 2 tons!

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  21. Modern Marvels Season 4 Episode 6 - Captured Light
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #21 - Captured Light

    S4:E6

    A look at the history of photography beginning as early as the eleventh century. Includes the advancements by Niepce and Daguerre in the 19th century and William Henry Fox and George Eastman in the 20th century.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  22. Modern Marvels Season 4 Episode 7 - Stealth Technology
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #22 - Stealth Technology

    S4:E7

    A look at the F117 Stealth Fighter that led the pack for the Allies in Gulf Wars One and Two and virtually decimated Iraqi Air Defense. Find out how the technology allows it to approach its target without being detected by radar. Also, a look at the B2 Stealth Bomber.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. Modern Marvels Season 4 Episode 8 - Pyramids: Majesty And Mystery
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #23 - Pyramids: Majesty And Mystery

    S4:E8

    Standing majestically for centuries, the world’s great pyramids have long inspired and mystified scholars. Leading experts and historians explore the engineering genius that created some of the largest structures on the planet. From ancient Egypt to Central America, we visit these technological masterpieces.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  24. Modern Marvels Season 4 Episode 9 - Roller Coasters
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #24 - Roller Coasters

    S4:E9

    Since the turn of the 20th century, designers have competed to build them faster, taller, and steeper. But as technology pushes the envelope with flips, weightlessness, and more g-force than a jet, how many thrills can the human body take?

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  25. Modern Marvels Season 4 Episode 10 - Observatories: Stonehenge to Space Telescopes
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #25 - Observatories: Stonehenge to Space Telescopes

    S4:E10

    From Stonehenge to the Hubble Telescope, man has always been a species of stargazers. Unforgettable film footage and expert accounts reveal the facts of astronomy’s most mind-boggling discoveries.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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Best Episodes Summary

"The World Trade Center" is the best rated episode of "Modern Marvels". It scored 10/10 based on 1 votes. Directed by Unknown and written by Unknown, it aired on 6/25/2001. This episode scored 1.0 points higher than the second highest rated, "Overseas Highway".