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00:00It has the longest freshwater coast in America, Michigan, a land of blue waters, brilliant
00:10skies, and giant industry.
00:13It was here where timber and steel helped create one of the greatest manufacturing centers
00:18in the world, where one man's passion for invention gave birth to America's love affair
00:25with cars, and where icons of that industry still stand tall.
00:32It was from Michigan that bootleggers once supplied America with illegal rum, and musical
00:40superstars from Stevie Wonder to Madonna headed out to entertain the world.
00:46Aerial Michigan tells the story of the workers who brought America's largest industrial
00:50corporation to its knees and helped win battles in World War II, where a hometown team reigned
00:58supreme in one of the biggest rivalries in American sports.
01:04Thanks to its unique shape, locals often called their state the Mitten.
01:10But the rest of the world knows this Midwestern powerhouse as Michigan.
01:40This isn't your average American highway.
01:56It's a weekday morning, but all of its lanes are empty, except for one truck.
02:02This is what's called a proving ground, a place where America's automakers put their
02:07latest vehicles through tough tests before rolling them out across the country.
02:14It was the automobile that transformed Michigan into one of the greatest manufacturing centers
02:19in the world, and much of that credit belongs to one car, known as the Model T.
02:29It all started here in Dearborn, just a few miles west of Detroit.
02:35In 1908, the first Model T rolled off Henry Ford's assembly line.
02:41This horseless carriage was the first lightweight, reliable, and most importantly, inexpensive car ever made.
02:50To help convince ordinary families to buy his $850 cars, Ford famously offered to double
02:56many of his own workers' wages so they too could afford the cars they built.
03:03The Model T was an unimaginable success.
03:08Over the next 19 years, 15 million Americans across the country bought Model T's,
03:14and America's love affair with the automobile was born.
03:25This may be the best place to imagine what life was like back in the days when the first
03:30automobiles rolled out onto America's streets.
03:33It's a place known as Greenfield Village.
03:37Henry Ford wasn't just obsessed with cars, he was fascinated with all kinds of inventions,
03:44and created an entire village just to celebrate them.
03:50At the heart of Greenfield Village lies Thomas Edison's Invention Factory.
03:56It was in this Menlo Park complex where Edison first demonstrated his incandescent light bulb.
04:03Ford moved the surviving buildings from New Jersey and recreated the rest.
04:11Next door lies the Henry Ford Museum.
04:15It houses one of the most diverse automobile collections in the world.
04:20Inside this vast complex is the limousine in which President Kennedy was assassinated,
04:25the bus in which civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat,
04:30the first Ford Mustang, and the last Model T ever made.
04:39By 1914, a thousand Model T's rolled off Ford's assembly lines every day,
04:45which made him a very wealthy man.
04:49He bought 1,300 acres of land and commissioned a new home, Fair Lane Estate.
04:56He warned his architects that he only wanted to spend $250,000 on this 56-room house,
05:03but after hundreds of masons, carpenters, and other artisans worked around the clock for two straight years,
05:09the final bill came in at nearly $2 million.
05:14What made the estate unique was that it had its own hydroelectric power station.
05:20Ford had designed it with help from his good friend, Thomas Edison.
05:25Built on this stretch of the Rouge River that ran through his property,
05:29Ford installed two generators that powered the entire estate,
05:33as well as the homes of 2,000 residents of West Dearborn.
05:39The 300-foot-long underground tunnel carried steam, electricity, and water from the plant to his residence.
05:48Oddly enough, the man most responsible for a world of cars lived in a home that was practically carbon neutral.
05:57Meanwhile, gas-powered vehicles of all shapes and sizes were rolling off the assembly lines
06:02of Ford, General Motors, Oldsmobile, and other early automakers.
06:07This new industry transformed Michigan,
06:10and there's no better place to see that transformation than downtown Detroit.
06:16In 1927, the seven Fisher brothers, who owned the company that first mass-produced the automobile body,
06:23commissioned this skyscraper for their new headquarters.
06:28They gave Michigan's great architect, Albert Kahn, a blank check
06:32to design a tower that would grace the city like none had before.
06:37When it was completed in 1928, many called it the most beautiful building in the world,
06:43a cathedral to commerce.
06:46At first, real gold covered its tower, but that was removed during World War II
06:52for fear that the Fisher building would become the target of enemy bombers.
07:02As Detroit's skyline expanded in the 1920s, its culture thrived.
07:09The Fox Theater opened its doors in 1928.
07:13Funded by movie pioneer William Fox, it was the first in the world to have built-in equipment for sound.
07:21Later, it became a venue for live shows.
07:24Sinatra, Elvis, and native Detroiters The Temptations and Eminem have all performed here.
07:31By the 1970s, the Fox had fallen into disrepair,
07:36but a $12.5 million renovation has recently restored this Art Deco landmark.
07:43Not all of Detroit's great architecture from its heyday in the 1920s has been so lucky.
07:51This is Michigan's Central Station, or what's left of it.
07:57Opened in 1913, it was the tallest railway station in the world.
08:02Roman Baths inspired the design of its grand station on the lower floors.
08:08During the heyday of rail travel, up to 200 trains arrived and departed from here every day.
08:15Charlie Chaplin wasn't the only famous passenger to disembark here.
08:19Three presidents did too, Roosevelt, Hoover, and Truman.
08:25The last train left Michigan Station more than 20 years ago.
08:29Its platforms stand empty.
08:32Platforms that were once the last stop for thousands of workers seeking jobs on Detroit's assembly lines.
08:39And they came from all over the world.
08:47As the demand for cars rose across the country, automakers needed labor to build them.
08:53Tens of thousands flocked to Michigan looking for work, many from as far away as the Middle East.
09:00Today, Dearborn is home to the largest mosque in the United States.
09:05That's because one-third of all Dearborn residents claim Arab-American heritage.
09:11Dearborn's population of immigrants from Lebanon and Syria and other countries in the Middle East
09:15grew rapidly in the early 20th century.
09:18Most were Christian, but later, increasing numbers of Muslim Arabs arrived.
09:24And in 1963, the community built this mosque, the Islamic Center of America.
09:31Along with labor, the big automakers also needed something else to keep their assembly lines moving.
09:38Raw materials, and the most important of these was steel.
09:45To ensure his factories had a steady supply, Ford built this plant.
09:50First fired up nearly a century ago, this facility once supplied the steel for Model Ts.
09:57Now it's being upgraded to turn out lightweight, rust-resistant body panels for new models of cars.
10:03It's owned by Severstal, one of Russia's largest steel companies.
10:10Steel in Michigan remains a burning hot business.
10:14This fiery liquid, called slag, is a byproduct of turning iron ore into steel,
10:20and will be used to build roads.
10:26The automotive industry has driven Michigan's economy for more than a century.
10:32But out beyond its assembly lines and towers of industry, Michigan is a very different land.
10:39A land defined since its earliest beginnings by water.
10:46It's said that every resident in the state is less than 85 miles from one of four of America's Great Lakes.
10:53Erie in the southeast, Huron to its east, Superior to the north, or Michigan on its west coast.
11:05Once, this area was covered by a great sheet of ice called the Wisconsin Glacier.
11:12After that ice melted roughly 14,000 years ago, Paleo-Indians arrived.
11:19They hunted mastodons and mammoths, caribou and beaver.
11:24More recently, descendants of these early tribes explored the area's waterways in dugout canoes,
11:31fishing the many inlets that still line Michigan's coast today.
11:36From the air, this is as varied a shoreline as any in North America.
11:42Endless beaches, remote pine forests that reach right down to the water,
11:49miles of marsh, and a giant wall of sand towering above Lake Michigan.
11:59It's called Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore
12:04and is often ranked among the nation's tallest sand dunes.
12:08But that's not quite accurate. This isn't a typical dune.
12:14The sand on its surface actually rests atop a bluff of rock and gravel left by a glacier,
12:20which is why it's called a perched dune.
12:24But scientists say that it may not be perched here for long.
12:29Westerly winds off Lake Michigan are moving Sleeping Bear Dune inland
12:33at an average rate of two feet per year.
12:37It's 450 feet high from top to bottom.
12:41Climbing back up can be hard work.
12:45Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carl Sandburg has said that these dunes
12:49are to the Midwest what the Grand Canyon is to Arizona and the Yosemite to California,
12:55a signature of time and eternity.
13:01Once, natural landmarks like this one on Michigan's coast
13:05helped guide the Native Americans and European explorers who first navigated the Great Lakes,
13:11just as Michigan's lighthouses do for ship captains today.
13:17There are more than 120 lighthouses on Michigan's shores.
13:22More than in any other state, including Maine.
13:26Efforts are underway to save these historic structures,
13:29since many of these beacons are no longer in service, at least for ships.
13:35Today, this one on Big Sable Point is being used to pop the question.
13:42One reason there are so many lighthouses in Michigan
13:46is because this state has a very long coast.
13:50More than 3,200 miles, making it the longest freshwater coast of any state.
13:57Not the easiest shoreline to map in a canoe,
14:02but that's what a French Jesuit priest tried to do in the 1670s.
14:08Hoping to find a passage to China and convert a few Native Americans along the way,
14:13Father Jacques Marquette set off with a party and two canoes
14:17to explore and map the shores of the Great Lakes.
14:21He never found his passage, but by the time the expedition was done,
14:25five months later, he had documented more than 2,000 miles of shoreline.
14:32He also founded a Jesuit mission on what's now the Canadian border,
14:36in the northernmost part of the state.
14:39That settlement became the city of Sault Ste. Marie,
14:43which is among the oldest cities in the United States,
14:46and home to the Sioux Locks.
14:51All freighters sailing from New York, Chicago, or Detroit to Lake Superior
14:56All freighters sailing from New York, Chicago, or Detroit to Lake Superior
15:01have to travel through these locks.
15:05The reason the locks are necessary is because the water level in Lake Superior
15:10is 21 feet higher than that in Lake Huron.
15:16In the old days, cargo had to be carried around nearby rapids,
15:21but in 1853, the state of Michigan commissioned these locks
15:25so a single vessel could travel throughout all the Great Lakes
15:29without having to transfer its cargo.
15:34This bulk carrier, the Indiana Harbor, is on its way south.
15:39It arrived in the lock at the level of Lake Superior.
15:43Now, water from the lock is being released,
15:46lowering the ship 21 feet to the same water level as Lake Huron.
15:52From here, this 1,000-foot-long vessel will carry its cargo of iron ore
15:57down to steel plants in Michigan and other Midwestern states.
16:02To lower a ship this size, it takes just 12 minutes,
16:07and workers here know that there's no time to waste.
16:13Ten thousand vessels pass through the Sioux Locks every year,
16:17making it the busiest locks in the world.
16:21The Sioux Locks lie on Michigan's Upper Peninsula,
16:24a place that used to be completely separated from the Michigan mainland,
16:29until a remarkable feat of engineering brought the two Michigans together.
16:36It's not a typical morning in northern Michigan.
16:40High above the Straits of Mackinac, tens of thousands of people are on the move.
16:46But they're not taking part in a mass protest or making a morning commute.
16:52This is the annual Labor Day crossing of Michigan's mighty Mack Bridge.
16:58Every year, thousands of people come to the Mack Bridge
17:03Every year, thousands come from across the state
17:07to celebrate the role of this bridge in linking Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas.
17:14Once, this divided state was part of a single landmass,
17:19until it was severed by retreating glacial ice.
17:23As surrounding waters flowed in, they formed the Straits of Mackinac
17:27that now divide Michigan into two very different pieces.
17:33The only way to cross the Straits was by air or water,
17:37but in 1957, the Mackinac Bridge was completed.
17:42Its span measures in at 26,372 feet,
17:47making it the longest suspension bridge in the Western Hemisphere.
17:52Its two main cables are suspended from towers that soar over 500 feet into the air.
18:00G. Mennon Williams, the Michigan governor who oversaw the project,
18:04announced that the bridge ranks with the pyramids,
18:07the great hydroelectric dams, the skyscrapers of Manhattan,
18:11and the Panama and Suez Canals.
18:16But not everyone up here is so happy about the mighty Mack.
18:21On the northern end of this constructed marvel is Michigan's beloved natural one,
18:27the Upper Peninsula, also known as the U.P.
18:33The U.P. makes up almost a third of the state,
18:36but is home to only 3% of Michigan's population.
18:41U.P. residents, who can often be identified by distinctive accents,
18:45refer to themselves as Upers.
18:49Some of them wish the bridge had never been built
18:52and have even called those who live below it trolls.
18:59Some Upers have even launched movements for the U.P. to secede
19:03and to establish its own 51st American state
19:07to be called Superior after their own Great Lake.
19:13It might sound far-fetched, but actually,
19:16the idea of an independent Upper Peninsula may not be such a crazy one.
19:22The fact is, most of the U.P. was not originally intended to be part of Michigan.
19:28In the 1830s, the population of the Michigan Territory reached 60,000,
19:33which meant it could now apply for U.S. statehood.
19:36But at the time, Michigan and Ohio were in a nasty battle
19:40over a piece of land sandwiched between them,
19:43which would have given each state potentially lucrative shipping routes
19:46to the Mississippi River.
19:49This piece of land is now known as the Toledo Strip.
19:53The federal government finally awarded the 468-square-mile Toledo Strip to Ohio
19:59and, in compensation, gave 9,000 square miles in the Upper Peninsula to Michigan.
20:07At the time, many here thought that the U.P. was destined to remain forever a wilderness.
20:13Little did anyone know, their new land held buried treasure.
20:19Just five years after Michigan received statehood,
20:22vast deposits of copper and other precious ore were discovered in the U.P.
20:28Soon, this forested region bustled with miners
20:31who produced more than 5 million tons of copper by the mid-20th century.
20:37Those days are now gone.
20:40The last copper mines closed here in 1995,
20:43and the forests of the U.P. are quiet again.
20:51The mighty Mack Bridge finally connected Michigan's two peninsulas,
20:55but just a few miles to the east lies an island that can still seem lost in time.
21:04Surrounded by waters rich in fish and positioned at the mouth of the Straits,
21:08Mackinac Island was first inhabited by Native Americans,
21:12then French fur traders, and later the British, who established this fort here in 1780.
21:21The U.S. government took control of the island in 1796, but then lost it.
21:29On the night of July 17, 1812, the 30 American troops stationed here were asleep
21:35when 300 British soldiers and Native American allies, who had sailed from Canada,
21:40landed on the backside of the island.
21:43Quietly in the dark, they pulled a cannon up the hill and aimed it at Fort Mackinac.
21:51When the Americans awoke to discover that they were staring down the barrel of a cannon
21:56and were outnumbered 10 to 1, they surrendered without a fight.
22:02It was the first land engagement of the War of 1812.
22:07But two years later, after Britain lost that war, Fort Mackinac was safely returned to U.S. hands.
22:16The island's rich history and isolation is also its charm.
22:21The story goes that someone once brought a car to the island,
22:24but after it scared the horses here, it was banned.
22:28Horse carriages and bicycles are now the only vehicles allowed on Mackinac's streets.
22:35Perched high above the straits is the Grand Hotel.
22:40It's been full nearly every summer since it opened in 1887.
22:45Mark Twain used to offer lectures to the hotel's guests for a dollar each.
22:51The grand 660-foot-long porch is the longest in the world.
22:56Once it was the gathering place for just about everyone on this tiny island.
23:01And it was on this porch where actors Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour
23:05filmed the romantic cult classic, Somewhere in Time.
23:09But this island also played a small role in a much more epic tale,
23:14the creation of Michigan's great city, Detroit.
23:19In 1701, a French commander named Antoine de la Monte Cadillac,
23:23who was in charge of Mackinac Island, headed south
23:27and arrived on the banks of this river, which links Lake Erie with Lake Huron.
23:32Cadillac had been given permission from the French government to build a fort here.
23:37He wanted to keep this vital waterway out of British hands
23:41and reap personal profits by controlling trade,
23:44especially trade in rum to Native Americans.
23:48He claimed his new fort would be the paradise of North America.
23:54It was named Detroit after the French word le détroit, or the straight.
24:01Cadillac would have a hard time recognizing the place today,
24:06and he might be surprised that most Americans know his name.
24:12In 1902, Henry Leland founded Cadillac Automobiles,
24:18which General Motors turned into one of America's best-known luxury cars.
24:24Detroit's location on a major shipping route,
24:27and its close proximity to raw materials like ore and timber,
24:30helped it grow into an important industrial and financial center,
24:34one that rivaled San Francisco, Chicago, and New York City.
24:40But during the 1920s, Detroit had something very important that these cities didn't.
24:48In 1919, the U.S. government banned the sale and consumption of alcohol across the country.
24:55A few years later, Prohibition was in full swing,
25:00and Detroit was just a stone's throw from Canada,
25:03across the river where alcohol was still legal.
25:08Soon, the city crawled with liquor smugglers and the mafia.
25:16Detroit had no bridges to Canada at the time, only the MacArthur Bridge,
25:21which led to Belle Isle, in the middle of the Detroit River, right on the Canadian border.
25:28What made Belle Isle a perfect hub for the buying and selling of liquor
25:32was that it was already a popular meeting place and recreation center for Detroiters.
25:37In the late 1800s, Detroit had hired Frederick Law Olmsted,
25:41the designer of New York's Central Park, to plan a new public park on Belle Isle.
25:48Architect Albert Kahn was commissioned to design this elaborate conservatory,
25:53which was inspired by President Thomas Jefferson's Virginia estate, Monticello.
25:59In the 1950s, the conservatory was given a collection of 600 orchids,
26:04which still remains the highlight of its botanical gardens today.
26:09But in Prohibition days, this popular island offered the perfect cover
26:14for rum smugglers from Canada to meet their buyers from Detroit.
26:22But not all of Canada's booze crossed Belle Isle's MacArthur Bridge.
26:26Vast quantities of rum, vodka, and whiskey were smuggled in boats
26:31or pulled across the river on cables.
26:34When the Detroit River froze, smugglers walked across,
26:38with bottles stowed in their high boots, thus the term bootleggers.
26:45There was so much illegal liquor flowing through Detroit,
26:48it was the second biggest industry in the city at the time, after automobiles.
26:53The Detroit River carried 75% of all liquor smuggled into the United States during Prohibition.
27:00When the nearby Ambassador Bridge opened in 1929,
27:04and cars could drive across the borders, smuggling alcohol got a whole lot easier.
27:10Secretaries were hired to hide it in their purses.
27:14Others stowed it in false trunks.
27:17One man was even caught with a shipment of eggs,
27:20each of which had been emptied and filled with scotch whiskey.
27:24The techniques of smuggling liquor in the 1920s
27:27are similar to those used by today's drug couriers,
27:30and Detroit's proximity to Canada still makes it a hub of illegal trade.
27:36The Ambassador Bridge is now the busiest international crossing in the U.S. for goods.
27:42Surprisingly, this vital link to the United States' biggest trading partner
27:46is the only privately owned border crossing in the country.
27:50The bridge's owner is a billionaire trucking magnate.
27:58Detroit's proximity to Canada is one of the reasons that it's no longer the state capital.
28:05After Michigan received its statehood in 1837,
28:09legislators wanted a more protected site for their capital city.
28:14So they moved it from Detroit to a little-known inland spot called the Township of Lansing,
28:21which was so small at the time, some simply called it a hole in the woods.
28:28The story goes that legislators joked when they reached their decision.
28:32They couldn't quite believe that they had chosen this tiny town of fewer than 20 people
28:38to be the capital of their new state.
28:41But their moral beliefs couldn't have been clearer.
28:45The first act of the legislature was to abolish the death penalty,
28:50making Michigan the first English-speaking territory in the world to outlaw capital punishment.
28:57Tolerance has been a core part of Michigan's history ever since.
29:02In the 19th century, it was a haven for runaway slaves fleeing the South on the Underground Railroad.
29:09And it helps explain why Michigan is home to a town popularly known as Little Bavaria.
29:17In the 19th century, German Lutheran missionaries called their brethren back home
29:22to join them in converting Chippewa Indians to Christianity.
29:27Many were shocked by the conditions here.
29:30One wrote home saying that the most miserable village in Germany has palaces by comparison.
29:36But slowly, their little town, Frankenmuth, grew and now looks more German than American.
29:45But it didn't always look this way.
29:48Frankenmuth was a pretty typical Midwestern community until the 1950s
29:53when enterprising townspeople renovated it into Little Bavaria.
29:59Now, three million visitors a year come here to soak up the old world atmosphere
30:05and locally brewed German beer.
30:10One reason Frankenmuth is so popular is because more than two million Michiganders claim German heritage.
30:21The crops that Germans and other early settlers farmed in Michigan
30:25have given the state one of the most diverse crop systems in the world.
30:32Beans, cherries, sugar beets, blueberries, and wheat
30:36are only a few of the more than 200 commodities grown here.
30:42At the turn of the 20th century, a local Michigan doctor
30:46used one of the state's most plentiful crops to develop a food empire.
30:51In 1876, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg ran this vast sanitarium
30:57for the Seventh-day Adventist church here in Battle Creek.
31:02Patients filled its rooms, hoping to benefit from Dr. Kellogg's principles of healthy living.
31:07Eat what the monkey eats, he prescribed, simple food and not much of it.
31:13Dr. Kellogg's prescribed regimen included abstinence, a vegetarian diet, colonics, and cornflakes.
31:23Many famous patients came for Kellogg's cure, including President William Howard Taft,
31:28Thomas Edison, and Amelia Earhart.
31:33Several years earlier, Dr. Kellogg and his brother, Will,
31:36had developed a method of producing flakes from wheat and corn
31:40by first steaming it and then using heavy rollers to flatten it into flakes.
31:46Tired of their old porridge, his patients loved it, and Kellogg's cornflakes was born.
31:54Will went on to found the Kellogg Company.
31:57Today, it's one of the world's most recognized brands,
32:01and it's still headquartered in Battle Creek, which is also known as Cereal City.
32:08Local legend has it that when the building's architects surveyed Kellogg executives,
32:13most said they wanted a corner office,
32:17which is how the Kellogg headquarters got its unique shape.
32:22The corn for Kellogg's cornflakes no longer comes from Michigan,
32:27and these days, Michigan farmers are experimenting with a new kind of crop,
32:32one that Dr. Kellogg would most certainly disapprove of.
32:37This is Michigan wine country.
32:41There are now 14,600 acres of vineyards in the state.
32:45Most grow juice grapes, but somewhere in Michigan,
32:48Most grow juice grapes, but some 100 vineyards now produce Michigan wine.
32:55Vintners here on the Old Mission Peninsula like to point out that their vineyards lie on the 45th parallel,
33:02the same latitude as such celebrated French wine regions as Alsace, Bordeaux, and Burgundy.
33:09For now, most winemakers here only sell locally, but they're hoping that will change.
33:15Michigan wine country also lures Detroiters and other city dwellers, seeking a summer escape.
33:22And when they do, there's no rush to get back home.
33:26In Michigan, summer holidays are so treasured, they've even been written into law.
33:35The name Michigan is a Native American word meaning big lake,
33:40but that doesn't just refer to the four great lakes that border the state.
33:44It also refers to Michigan's more than 11,000 inland lakes, like this one.
33:50These are the turquoise waters of the longest and deepest inland lake in the state.
33:57Torch Lake has been called one of the most beautiful in the world.
34:02It's one reason Michiganders spend their summers right here at home.
34:07They paraglide over the shore bluffs of Benzie County
34:12and ride the dunes of Silver Lake State Park.
34:19Summer holidays are so important in this state that the Michigan legislature weighed in and made it official.
34:26Schools are not allowed to start classes before Labor Day.
34:32And just before school begins, tens of thousands leave their holidays behind
34:37and gather for an annual Labor Day weekend ritual.
34:43The opening game of the University of Michigan's Wolverines football team.
34:50No university, and not even any team in the NFL, can beat Michigan's Big House,
34:57the largest football stadium in the country.
35:02For years, the Big House and Penn State's Beaver Stadium battled for that title.
35:06But in 2010, the University of Michigan spent $226 million to make their stadium even bigger
35:14and successfully beat out Penn State's by 3,329 seats.
35:20Official seating capacity is 109,901, but attendance at most games tops 110,000.
35:29Today, all seats for this game against Western Michigan are sold out,
35:34which is why tickets were being scalped for up to $4,000.
35:40What makes this stadium so unique for its size is its understated design.
35:45There's no giant dome or retractable roof.
35:50The Big House was built in the 1920s on land that contained an underground spring.
35:55During construction, the moist, unstable earth swallowed a crane,
36:00which, according to legend, still remains buried beneath the field.
36:06Today's players are following in the footsteps of football legends Tom Brady, Tom Harmon, Desmond Howard,
36:13and even President Gerald Ford, who played center for the Wolverines in the 1930s.
36:21Past attendees could have included Google co-founder Larry Page, actor James Earl Jones,
36:27the late Dr. Jack Kevorkian, or even Madonna, all former students at the U of M.
36:38But football hasn't been the only history maker on this campus.
36:44In the beginning of the 1960s, a much smaller group of Michigan students gathered on these steps of the student union
36:50to hear presidential candidate John F. Kennedy during a midnight campaign stop.
36:56He urged them to contribute part of their lives to America, a plan that later became the Peace Corps.
37:06During the Vietnam War years, the campus was alive with gatherings and protests for peace.
37:12Michigan faculty led the country's first teach-in in 1965.
37:18Two years later, hundreds of students occupied the administration building in opposition to the university's defense contracts.
37:26The students were taking a cue from Michigan's auto workers,
37:30whose own sit-down strike 31 years earlier had brought one of the world's biggest industrial corporations to its knees.
37:39It happened in the Automotive Manufacturing Center of Flint, about 57 miles northwest of Detroit.
37:48This now-abandoned building was once part of General Motors' Fisher Body Plant No. 1, where workers assembled GM's cars.
37:57And it was here, on the evening of December 30, 1936, that those workers locked themselves in and sat down.
38:08Day after day, they refused to work or to leave, demanding better pay and union recognition.
38:15Strikes spread quickly throughout other GM factories, and assembly line workers and police battled.
38:2444 days later, after its assembly lines had stopped altogether, GM gave in.
38:31The company signed an agreement recognizing the United Auto Workers as the sole bargaining agent for its employees,
38:38ushering in a new era for labor and industry.
38:41But within three years, many of America's unionized auto workers weren't making cars, but machines of war.
38:51In 1940, President Roosevelt ordered automakers to retool their assembly lines for trucks, tanks, and bombers.
39:00At the time, this plane, the B-17, was one of America's most advanced aircraft.
39:05To handle production of a new, longer-range B-24, Henry Ford built a revolutionary assembly plant, Willow Run.
39:14It was the world's largest factory at the time, turning out one B-24 every hour at its peak.
39:21Each new plane took its first flight from here, the Willow Run Airfield in Ypsilanti.
39:27By the war's end, Willow Run had turned out more than 8,000 planes.
39:32Both B-24s and B-17s, like this one, served as America's front-line bombers in Europe.
39:40Five years earlier, the United Auto Workers leader Walter Ruther had argued that America's battles can be won on the assembly lines of Detroit.
39:49And World War II proved that he was right.
39:52Detroit quickly adopted the nickname, the Arsenal of Democracy.
39:59In the 1950s, business boomed again, at least for the big three automakers.
40:05Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler flooded the market with stylish, cheaper models and sold 60 million cars in one decade alone.
40:14But Detroit's smaller cars, like the B-17 and B-17A, were the most popular.
40:20But Detroit's smaller car makers struggled.
40:25This vast industrial complex was one of the most advanced factories in the world when it was built in 1903.
40:31Not only did it produce some of America's most luxurious and sought-after cars of the 1930s,
40:38but it also introduced the world to an architect who would transform Detroit's skyline, Albert Kahn.
40:45Kahn, a German immigrant, employed the revolutionary building technique of reinforced concrete.
40:52Instead of strengthening its structure with wood alone, the resulting factory was sturdy, spacious, and efficient.
41:03The legendary Packard brothers stopped producing their luxury cars here in 1956, unable to stay competitive with the big three.
41:11Their nearly mile-long plant has become one of the most visible symbols of Detroit's decline.
41:25But while Detroit companies like Packard were starting to falter, music began to thrive.
41:32Motor City was reborn as Motown.
41:36In 1959, a young composer and entrepreneur named Barry Gordy bought this unassuming house on Detroit's Grand Avenue.
41:45He turned it into the headquarters of his new Motown Records.
41:50Soon, history was being made in Studio A, a converted basement where round-the-clock recording sessions produced the distinctive Motown sound.
41:59A stunning array of local talent sang and socialized here.
42:04Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross and the Supremes, The Temptations, and Stevie Wonder.
42:10Gordy's studio, also called the Hit Factory, produced more than a hundred top-ten singles.
42:17Today, these historic studios have been turned into the Motown Museum, and the Motown Records Museum.
42:24Today, these historic studios have been turned into the Motown Museum, and the Motown Label is now headquartered in New York.
42:33Gordy sold it to MCA Records in 1988.
42:37The popular, soulful tunes of Motown echoed across an ever-changing Detroit.
42:44By the end of the 1960s, unemployment was on the rise.
42:49Newcomers looking for work faced housing shortages.
42:52White police abuse in African-American neighborhoods fueled existing racial tensions.
42:58By 1967, it had all reached a fever pitch.
43:02And then, on a hot July night, the city exploded.
43:08It started here, at this intersection at Claremont Avenue and 12th Street, just blocks from the Motown studio.
43:15Dozens of people had gathered at a small bar for an after-hours party to celebrate two Vietnam vets.
43:22But the police raided the gathering, and violence broke out.
43:27A riot began.
43:29Businesses were looted, buildings burned, and the violence quickly spread.
43:34Even the National Guard was unable to bring order.
43:37By the time the famous Detroit riots subsided five days later, 43 people were dead and thousands injured.
43:46It's been more than 40 years since the riots, but Detroit still struggles with uneasy race relations, poverty, and crime.
43:56Problems that are symbolized by one famous city street, 8 Mile.
44:05This long, straight road is the dividing line that marks the boundary between the city of Detroit and its northern suburbs.
44:13Between its poorer neighborhoods and its wealthier ones.
44:22Many know 8 Mile today as the title of a 2002 film starring the Detroit hip-hop artist, Eminem.
44:29Born Marshall Mathers, Eminem lived just north of 8 Mile as a teenager, but crossed this boundary to take part in Detroit's freestyle rap battles.
44:39Music, Eminem sings, is the only way that I know how to escape from this 8 Mile road.
44:47Eminem's success did enable him to break free from 8 Mile, but he didn't go far.
44:53He now lives in this 29-room home near Rochester Hills, just outside of town.
45:01Eminem hasn't been the only famous artist to put Michigan on the big screen.
45:05In the 1980s, a scrappy Michigan filmmaker arrived in Detroit and turned his exploration of the auto industry into a cult classic.
45:19In 1988, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, armed with a camera, knocked on the ground floor entrance of the General Motors' former headquarters,
45:28which then stood a few miles away from its present location here in downtown Detroit.
45:34He was hoping to have a meeting with GM's chairman, Roger Smith.
45:39But instead, he was escorted out, again and again, which became the story of his film, Roger and Me.
45:50General Motors' current headquarters, a complex known as the Renaissance Center,
45:54was originally built to help pull Detroit up after its devastating 1967 riots.
46:00But by the time Michael Moore arrived in town, Michigan's auto industry was also facing hard times, or at least, its workers were.
46:09Things were particularly bad in Moore's hometown, Flint, where GM was born.
46:16Flint had lost 40,000 auto jobs as carmakers moved out of Detroit.
46:21While GM itself was recording record profits.
46:26On top of this giant slab of concrete was once the Buick assembly line.
46:31It housed 28,000 workers during peak production in the mid-1980s.
46:38Now, the only evidence of this plant is the green lawn that greeted executives as they arrived for work.
46:44Moore never got the meeting he wanted with Roger, but he did succeed in highlighting the corporate greed that led to the layoffs
46:50and turned once-thriving factories like this one into toxic cleanup sites.
46:58And Flint hasn't been the only place in Michigan to suffer.
47:04With the decline of the auto industry, Detroit has lost a significant portion of its workforce.
47:10With the decline of the auto industry, Detroit has lost nearly a million residents in the last 60 years.
47:18And the exodus continues.
47:21Between 2000 and 2010, Michigan was the only state in America to lose population.
47:28The vast facilities of the automakers are disappearing, or being reborn.
47:35The Packard Plant is now a giant canvas for some of the world's best-known graffiti artists.
47:42After one known as Banksy tagged here, a local gallery owner cut out his work from the Packard Plant's wall so he could show it in his gallery.
47:53Entire city blocks have been vacated, and Eminem has featured Detroit's ruins in his music videos and movie.
48:01But despite the decay, there are many who would never leave Detroit, no matter how hard times get.
48:09Like die-hard fans of the Detroit Tigers, who play here at Comerica Park.
48:15For years, this park also had the reputation of being a right-handed hitter's nightmare.
48:20Players and fans alike complained about the farther-than-usual left-field wall.
48:26So in 2002, the team moved the wall 25 feet closer to home plate.
48:32And that year, the Tigers hit 77 more home runs.
48:37But the next year, they had an impressive losing streak, one of the worst in American League history.
48:43But that doesn't seem to stop Tiger fans from coming.
48:48And there are those who live for the city's annual Jazz Fest, one of the largest free jazz gatherings in the country.
48:55Today, Michigan's economy is still step-in-step with the revenues of its automobile industry.
49:02And these days, those fortunes depend increasingly on sales overseas, in Europe, China, and other emerging markets.
49:11But production at home continues.
49:14Every day, at Ford's Dearborn truck plant, up to 800 F-150s are loaded onto trains and shipped across the U.S.
49:23The F-150 remains the best-selling vehicle in America, 34 years running.
49:30Out on the proving grounds, new vehicles are put to the test every year.
49:35Their quality and performance may have a big impact on Michigan's future for years to come.
49:45But there's always been much more to the Wolverine State than the automobile.
49:52The towering dunes that line its coast.
49:57The pristine waters of its inland lakes.
50:02The brilliance of its skies.
50:06And Michigan's people, who transformed this ancient land with the simple tools of water, timber, steel, and a spirit that's still alive today.
50:19High above its Mackinac Straits, celebrating the land that is Michigan.
50:35Michigan Technological University