so the mission of our air forces, which began nearly four years ago, was accomplished. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] american history tv airs on c-span three every weekend, telling the american story three events, interviews and visits to historic locations. this month in prime time to introduce you to programs you could see every weekend on c-span three. the lectures in history, business to college classrooms across the country dinner lectures by top history professors, american artifacts, a look at the treasures of u.s. historic sites, museums and archives, railamerica reviewing -- railamerica, the civil war reader about the people he

shaped the civil war and reconstruction, and the u.s.dency focuses on presidents and first ladies to learn about their politics, policies and legacies. all this month on american history tv on c-span three. to mark the centennial of the national park service american history tv is featuring natural and historic sites across the country as recorded by c-span's cities tour staff. we look at the history of the national parks. the names engraved on this rock near where i marked my name and the day of the month and year. this morning we're going to walk

up pompey's national monument, talks a little about the site. why is this play so important but only to the history of the united states but the history of yellowstone county, montana as well as the west in general. as we ascend pompeii's pillar, i want people to think about what it was like 200 years ago. clark and his party are heading down the list on river hoping in planning to meet up with lewis. as they are coming down the river they're having to stop at , various intervals. and you might ask, well, what are they stopping for? they are stopping to hunt, to gather food. they're stopping because of the immense herds of buffalo that are crossing the river, and when i talk immense, i'm talking about herds of buffalo so large that there would be times they would have to stop for four, even six hours to wait for the buffaloes to cross the river before they could continue on.

and other reasons they would stop was partly curiosity and the natural intent of an explorer, which is to look at the land and see the land. so as we think about all of those things, and as we tell the story today, clark is coming down the yellowstone and that morning they had gotten up. they had hunted. they had seen immense herds of buffalo, and he decides to get off the river and walk for a while and sees this. this large sandstone outcrop here, and i think it's just naturally part of human interest to want to come to something large, climb up on top of it and look around, and that's exactly what he did. as part of an explorer, somebody that was looking to traverse the west, to create maps, to learn about things that -- the landscape, the natural history, et cetera. he comes and he ascends the pillar, goes up on top, looks

around, triangulates his position, comes down and on his way down leaves his mark. right here, his signature. thus the only remaining on-site physical evidencen the entire lewis and clark expedition. this signature represents not just the visit of clark, but i think of it as signifying a start of something. in legacy that had some way's been here before him. 1806 and thenin subsequently written about and chronicled in his journals led a lot of folks who then traveled across the west to come to this rock, mark their names as well as drawings, inscriptions, all kinds of things all over the rock. as you look for his signature directly to the left you can see all of these different signatures and marks and names and they cover the entire rock. so throughout pompey's pillar are these signatures.

hundreds of them, startle with explorers and fur trappers not long after clark visited. then going into the time of the homesteaders and wagon trains up to the modern era, folks too tilled the land after the turn of the century. i'm sure if we looked hard enough we would probably find some local high school classes name on here from the 19 six these in 1970's. ompey's pillar tell as story and continues on today with this legacy of all of these people that have passed by. so each time a visitor comes here, given they can no longer scrawl their names or write on the rock, they leave that legacy, too. as i mentioned before, that legacy kind of started before clark. if you look over here at the rock, you can see where there are some markings on the rock in sort of a reddish hue. those are actually native american picture graphs and petroglyphs.

it was significant to the natives of the area. when we get on top i'll explain why there was significance to the site both culturally and given the immense hunting to the native americans that lived in this area. this rock i ascended, and from its top had a most extensive view in every direction. after satisfying myself at the extensive country around and immense herds of elk and buffalo and wolves that abounded, i proceeded on. we are standing on top of pomp ey's pillar national monument. what is remarkable and amazing about this site is we are able to tell a story that is over 200 years by standing in one spot. what is also remarkable is being able to stand here and see these landmarks, and the landscape, from what it was 200 years ago, but also for what it is today. the first thing is the animals. when clark was here 200 years ago, this landscape was covered

with buffalo, elk, antelope, all kinds of different species would have been here and with them the same predators we've read about many times. coyote, mountain lion and of course, the wolf. you ask why were all of those animals here, and they're certainly not here today? as you look at the rims and the cliff formation around me you see this natural break. this was a funnel. these rims run all the way to billings and quite a distance to the east. here we have a natural break where these herds of buffalo, elk and other animals would have been able to funnel down to the river, cross, and feed in this area. thus, when we talk back about the native americans and their use of the site, the idea they had this large platform to stand upon and use both for cultural ceremonies but also for hunting is immense, if you think about the number of animals that would have been in this area on a regular basis. as we think about that we think about the changes because for us the buffalo herds are not really here anymore. there are still some elk seen.

the big horn sheep that were seen by clark on the cliffs are no longer here. we still have a few mountain lions hanging out in the area and, of course, coyotes wander around every once in a while. but the landmarks are still here. from those landmarks start a story. that story is of the west. pompey's piller sir where you can tell the entire story of our country's west from one place. president woodrow wilson signed legislation creating the national park service on august 20 5, 1916. to mark the centennial american history tv is featuring national park service sites about the country. we continued with another stop on the c-span city store. next, asian-american activists reflect on their efforts in the 1960's to

establish an asian-american cultural and political identity. the discussion is moderated by the author of "serve the people: serving him asian-american people of the 1960's." the japanese-american international museum los angeles hosted this event. clement hanami: it is such an honor for me to introduce karen ishizuka. a third-generation japanese-american. part of the asian-american movement in los angeles. she was formerly a senior curator here at the japanese american national museum. she's a scholar, a visionary and a mentor to many. she is an award-winning filmmaker. she is the cofounder of the watase media arts center and producer of many media works and publications at the museum. her body of work reflect of both the quality and excellence. i had the incredible opportunity of working with karen on many projects. none more important than ic