The Twentieth Century

The read

The series ran 9 seasons across 221 episodes and has finished, so there is no cliffhanger risk.

Synopsis

The Twentieth Century is a long-running CBS documentary television series that aired from 1957 to 1966, sponsored throughout its run by the Prudential Insurance Company and narrated by Walter Cronkite. Drawing on the resources of CBS News, the series produced both historical compilation documentaries and originally photographed contemporary reports, presenting major political, cultural, scientific, and social developments that shaped the modern world. Episodes combined newsreel footage, eyewitness testimony, and on-location reporting, covering subjects ranging from global conflicts and political change to arts, science, and international social transformation. Popular with audiences and critically respected, the series functioned as a formative model for later American television documentary programming and helped establish the compilation-documentary format as a central mode of broadcast nonfiction.

Ratings

Seasons

Key crew

• James BenjaminWriter

Cast

• Walter CronkiteSelf - Narrator