his texas ranch, and at 8, author of madam presidency, the secret presidency of edith wilson, who was woodrow wilson's wife, she buffered his presidency as he recovered from a stroke. for more, go to c-span.org. military force is one of the things that i think the american public gets impatient about it because they really believe they have this trump card, this great military that can defeat anyone. but it's not true. it is an extraordinary military and very powerful but it can only win in certain situations. and it can only really destroy things. it can't build a new order in its place. >> sunday night on question and answer, journalist and professor mark danner talks about his career and the challenges facing the u.s. war on terrorism. >> what we don't want to do is

respond in such a way that will produce more of these militants, more of these militant organizations. they want us to overreact. they want us to occupy muslim countries so they can build their recruitment. they want us to torture people. they want us to do things that is going to allow them to make their case against us. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern, on c-span's question and answer. each week, american art ifacts takes you to museums and historic places to learn about history, located in virginia beach, the military aviation museum is home to world war i and ii aircraft, most of which are air worthy. we toured to learn about the advances in aviation and pilot training during the war. >> well, welcome to the virginia

beach military aviation museum. i'm lucky enough to be one of the staff pilots here. museum has a complete collection, and you can follow the development of aviation all the way through our collection. and any time there are about 60 planes here we have restoration going on and more planes being developed. standing in front of it now, probably one of the oldest planes. this is a 1907 wright brothers model. it's not far removed from the first flier that they flew at kitty hawk. there is only an aft elevator. the engine is all set. and a chain drive, driving the two propellers, so it's a single engine plane. the geniuses coming up learned

the secret to flight was not to be stable but tolerab be able t maneuver and have more development in the aircraft. for the pitch of the airplane they moved the control and the elevator moved up and down in the back that controlled the up and down motion. they did develop a rudder on the airplane, which controls the yaw, in order to turn you have to control the airplane. they took a box cutter and twisted it. it's called wing work. you can see as i move it that the whole wing structure moves and changes the angle that its at. that is the wind warp. again, very early stages. in a few minutes we'll go up to the other hangar, to the world war i hangar where we have the curtis pusher. you will see the difference in

the developments. the wright brothers were fairly rigid in what they could do with their designs after they manufactured them. they didn't like many changes in them, and they were involved in patent suits, claiming they infringed on their patents. the right to take a plane over to europe and demonstrate it there, the europeans who had flown a few airplanes before, were amazed. however, as world war i began and started up. the u.s. said our developments are very light compared to what is going on in europe recently. one of the reasons is the wright brothers had patented discussions in court, and it slowed things down. the u.s. government bought the wright paint for a flying machine for one dollar. after that, it was the wind warning that went away.

this is the airplane that began on it from there on in. this particular airplane we have is famous for another reason, a type like this. this is a replica that was the first airplane to fly coast to coast in the united states. there was a big contest going with the money involved that could make it in 30 days or less. they did not make the 30 days, they were responsible for the meat packing company, they developed a company. they had a big advertising on top and bottom of the wing and provided the pilot with a railroad car, spare parts, mechanics and his mother and wife to travel across the united states chasing as they went through. flying in these days is very difficult and rough, you didn't go very far. you were very subject to wind or precipitation, it was very bad. and of course there was always the crash landings. there were always those things, you didn't make it in 30 days, but armor said keep on going,

we'll pay your expenses, he literally crashed in the pacific ocean to say he had been across the country. by the way, the only parts left were the wing spans, the oil pans, the rest had been replaced in the time it took him to fly across the united states. now that we've taken a look at the wright flier, let's go back, the hangar is on either side of us, in the world war ii section, and we'll go back to world war i, where we have the curtis flier. so let's look at aviation as it develops throughout the end of war world i. now we're into the end of the world war i hangar on virginia beach as it continues the sequence. we came out here to look at the curtis pusher airplane, curtis

as you know invented the eleron. i'll show you how it worked. this particular airplane by the way is significant and the first airplane to land and take off from a ship at sea. so it became very exciting in 1911, where you consider it the first birth place of 1911. the pilot sat in the seat in front of them. the aircraft had two elevators in front of them. the first one is called the kanard, this pitched up like a normal elevator, modern aircraft did. the problem is, it's very difficult to fly so you have that. the real thing that counts, you twist the control wing like that you can see the elerons move up. they worked the same principle

in between. curtis didn't know a whole lot. none of them did in those days and he was learning as he went along. one thing that was inefficient was putting the wings. he did do it so it worked out well. the airplane was a lot of fun to fly, a little exhausting when you were up there. a lot of thing were. they didn't understand something called control harmony, you're doing the pitch, but at the same time you're making it work for that type of thing. you can see the structure, they didn't develop the fuselages. this is where it began. let's take a look at the beginnings of the world war i period. this was one of the few combat airplanes that actually started the war using the wing warning

principle. the french had a training area, as well. again, they're starting to enclose it, the car alongside is very realistic. the observer in the back, they called them observers would actually fire the carbon at other airplanes in the air and even it would be possible to rig a machine gun that fired over the propeller. they still had not invented firing through their propeller. it has a skid on it. all world war i airplanes used a skid. some of the replicas put a tail on them. a normal type elevator, big thing to watch is this is what wing warping looked like. it's going up, at the same time pulling this one down. fairly in effective. this is the state of the war at the beginning of 1915. now let's look at another curtis

and compare that to the curtis push we looked at before. we'll go over and look at the famous jenny, which became a standard trainer all the way through. they put two people in the cockpits with dual controls. also a true jenny, one of the true airplanes we have in the world war i collection, it's a restoration. the painting on this one, by the way, we tried to stay local all the way through. this is the first airplane that landed in a big abandoned field in the north side of the james. this is the first army air forces airplane to land there. the jenny as you can see has gone to a better bi-plane structure, a little more rigid. there are still a lot of wires in the early airplanes, that is one of the things they had to do

to keep the structure strong. they say if the pigeon flew out and escaped you were missing a wire. you can see them up there. same principle, but again, a much more omodern variation. the pilot started calling it jenny, of course, a wonderful name. very popular airplane, during the war it was a trainer and then afterwards it became a trainer not only for the military but for civilian pilots, as well. when you go back and read the history throughout the roaring 20s, this was one of their favorite airplanes. many of them available as surplus aircraft. lindberg had one he was trying to fly around, trying to earn a few tladollars when things were

little bit tough like that. you could put one student in the cockpit, the other could fly the airplane, a nice way to do it. initially you just had to yell over the wind at the person in front of you. you can see that the guy in back undid his seat belt, could lean forward and actually tap the shoulders and get the attention of the guy in front. there was a device invented which lasted well into world war ii, which was nothing more than a garden hose, a funnel on one end for the instructor to talk to, and one for the student, a perfect method, because the student could not talk back. and apparently, the old instructors used to blast this, and it really got your attention. this is the way they trained into the 20s and 30s, by using the jennys. we looked at the big blario

before, and a smaller one tucked in. i have to mention the americans that we know over to learn to fly in france. the lafayette guys, and later on the american air service guys that we know over and trained with the french. the french method, they put you in a little blarios with the wings cut down and they would let you run around the area like that. you would literally hop up and down the feed, take off, get airborne, maybe try a couple of little turns. they turn you around, you do a couple more of those. when you're ready for the big day you talk to the instructor, he would pat you on the shoulder, you get in the airplane and make your first real solo flight all by yourself. you can see whether the early

aviators use this. they trained a lot of americans before they went over in the states and became a popular airplane throughout the 20s and 30s, i can't imagine doing loops and rolls and spins but that is what they used to do so it worked out. let's take a look at the first war plane. doesn't look very war-like right now, with a big teddy bear in the cockpit. but this is the first airplane to put a synchronized machine gun in the front, a revolutionary idea at the time. instead of trying to aim a gun at the wind and in the stream, just point the whole airplane at your enemy and fire the guns doing it. how did they do it? it was a relatively simple thing. on the cam, connected, and through a series of rods it went up and went into the machine

gun. basically the cam was saying shoot, don't shoot, shoot, don't shoot, and that is how they managed to avoid shooting their own propellers off. that is how a synchronized propeller worked. this war started in the summer of '15 when the aware started getting out. this was called the fokker scourg scou scourge because it was so deadly. as the war developed you can see the progression going through. we're now going to look at one of the ultimate fighters to world war i, the foffer d-7. some of them had bmw engines in them as well. many of them manufactured. this was specified in the treaty. they specified the germans would give them away.

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the ladies stocking wrapped around his throat when÷ú he was gone. look at the parachute. the parachutes were not used well into the german side, the the reason to change radically all the way through. there was never really truly a good explanation. they're too heavy and add to the light weight airplanes.

the others one said we're afraid you're all cowards. that turned out to be absolutely completely bogus. one of the other things they carry a small sidearm, a service pistol. probably on the ground, maybe fight enemy off if you landed behind the lines. if your airplane wasym on fire, you only had two choices. you could jump over the side or put yourself out of your own way. many people ask about the crazy camouflage pattern, other d 7 had the same type of pattern, differencenbs that that was painted on or made a replica. it was actually manufactured with this pattern on it. let's see it. wing and all the fabric aircraft anufactured.

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they were underneathe it. and finally said, okay, we'll order it and check ard board pattern and it las#-" all the way until world war ii.ym these guys that were doing well and working and putting out the home front. the whole first war that was really interesting thing all the way through. we have already gone through the development before the war and the open cockpit, veryslow moving air, which lasted well into the 30s. when world war i ended, it was a little bit of stagnation aviation and it kind of stopped. and the engines were a littlezv bit bigger and faster, but there were no real development and

until again combat started÷ú 19 when morris code started, synchronized machine guns, electrical systems and that's the real development. the guysym in world war i that t the original up and they were going through. there was the famous german, one veryym early age and organizati and development of tactics. there's something called a bulky, which is a fancy way of saying a bunchvfzez rules for a combat. modern guys in the u.s. navy and united states air force still pull it out and reach some of tre basic. things were all established there. it's hard to imagine that world war i united states started over 100 years ago andu! that's at t state we're at now. things have changed e radically. some things have changed and some haven't. and see some of the÷ú airplanes fall away from history, and they can bring you up in history and

tell you 1,001 stories i didzv t have a chance to cover this zv time. >> the city changed as the turn of the 20th century. >> when it was open. he did not put it. still ÷úrunning, both in the 9 1890s. >> and that lectures÷ú in histo. and that's the real, interesting thing about country music, is

that it's the music ofd8 people who are privileged to be white who are privileged to be white and i'll talk about thata second. people who are under privileged in terms of the class. >> college professor, on the emerging definitions ofym whiteness and blackness and colonial american and how it impacted the origins of country music. sunday afternoon atym 4:00 on rl america. >> a cautious congress, budget cutbacks and state of local and administrative problems on new year's horizon created evidence. or worse, may level off. this was the climate, the land and the unfinished task to face lynn don johnson on the first of december 1966. >> the film, the president 1966 documents the final month of the year of preside