announcer: tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern, a 1968, america in turmoil, we look at the media's role. we will discuss the televised coverage of the war in vietnam, astronauts orbiting the moon, and the power of the media's ability to capture america at its most volatile, vulnerable, and vibrant. while shaping the stories they covered. america ineight, turmoil, tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span3. and all nine programs are available on spotify as a podcast, or watch anytime at www.c-span.org on our 1968 page. announcer: this year, c-span is touring cities across the country, exploring american history. next, a look at our recent visit , new mexico.

you're watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, on c-span3. paul: in new mexico, chile peppers is one of our main crops. a lot of times, foods are grown in areas because of the culture. if you look at wisconsin, they grow a lot of sauerkraut because of the german immigrants. here, we have the hispanic population. chile peppers were part of that culture, so it was to grow them -- it was natural to grow them. what people don't realize is chile's are native to the tropical rain forest. they like a 72 degree day, at rain every few days. they are really happy. we have adapted them to this climate. in 1540, francisco vasquez the de coronado came up on an expedition to introduce spanish rule to new mexico and introduced agriculture to the

pueblo indians. in 1598, he came up to establish a presence of the spanish in new mexico. he said the pueblo indians were growing chilies under the spanish agriculture, because before then, the pueblo indians grew them in what we call a waffle system, they had little squares to catch the rainwater. the spanish introduced irrigation to bring water from the river to irrigate fields, and so, they had already incorporated that into their chilies, so we have had chilly e beans growing here for a long time. then, in the late 1800s, when it got founded, we had a professor here named foggy in garcia -- favian garcia that was our very first graduating class and our very first horticulturist. his mission was to find new crops for the farmers to grow, and at that time, they were growing cotton, corn, alfalfa

for cattle, and that was it. he began to look at a lot of different horticultural crops, fruit trees, sweet onions, he brought in seed from spain that was the basis of sweet onions in the united states. he introduced pecans, which are major crop. he introduced chilies which were only grown in home gardens. so he thought if he made chilies milder and more uniform, he would get non-hispanics to eat chilies, so he began a breeding program of interbreeding some of these local chilies, and began to search for a unique paths od type. he released new mexico number nine. he introduced this new pod type. farmers began to grow it. people liked it. it began a new industry and we began to can it so we could ship it back east on the trains so it

the whole process, dehydrating the red chile, and canning and freezing the green chiles. up until that time, if you had made what we would say is a mexican food dish, you use different chilies, like a serrano, but now there was one that fit that niche. we were not as sophisticated so mexican food was anything that had chile spice to it, so you could have this, grow it, process it, and it could be used in what we are calling the mexican food industry at that time. so we didn't have these different kind of chilies. it really became the basis of the mexican food industry in the united states, so it is the father of the mexican food industry. the chile pepper institute was established in 1993. our mission statement is to educate the world about chile peppers. we have a long history of chile pepper research from the founding of the university until today.

one of the things we notice that teaching garden is people from all around the world will come in and see their chilies. that is my chile from my country, and we were trying to export at one point a chile to asia, and the asian markets will -- told us that we did not have good quality. we did not know what that meant because we had the color. we did not have insect parts or anything, disease, mold. we did not understand why. we thought, they are putting up a barrier. what we learned over time through talking to people is the chilies had a different kind of heat and we were not sure what they were talking about, so we began to study what we call today a heat profile, and every chile has five components to a heat profile, so the next time you eat chilies, watch how fast does the heat develop? does it come on quickly or is it a delayed heat? how long does it linger? does it dissipate quickly or

linger for literally hours for some people when they consume it? the third one is where do you sense the heat? tip of your tongue, lips, mid-palate, back of the throat? the fourth one is interesting, i call it sharp or flat. sharp heat is like pins sticking you with the heat, like a prickly heat. a flat heat is like it has been painted, some people call it a broad heat in your mouth. the fifth is the heat level. mild, medium, hot, our heat dashboard scoville heat units. what we have found is asian culture wants the sharp heat, and they want it to be a fast heat that dissipates quickly at a high level. once we knew they wanted the sharp heat, we looked at the new mexico chile varieties, and almost all of them have a flat heat. we found one variety that was hot and had the sharp heat, so we sent some over to asians and said try this one. they said we like this. this is good. now, we literally sent tons of red chile to make kimchi, to do

noodles and stuff, because we realized that is what they meant by quality. they could not explain it to us, but that was it, the heat profile. the reason we were interested in this is that if you think of the food industry, they want a fast heat that dissipates quickly, you eat more product. medicine that chile heat is used income it in a lot of ointments , casaizin, you want a heat that lingers because that is how you kill the pain, so you're putting a little pain, which is the heat, to get rid of a big pain, so we thought we are going to breed chilies that will be a medicinal extract versus the food industry, so that is how we are beginning to look at it. because chile peppers are one of the few agricultural commodities we have with vertical integration, it is worth $500

million annually to our economy. we look at farm gate with the harvest product, it is worth $50 million. it is worth 10 times that much when you look at the processors. people we have to hire at the factories and such. it is a nice, vertical integration industry. the people that are really into chilies are known at chile -- known as chile heads. we have people all over the world who contact us and send us seeds and such, and one time, we had heard about the very hot chile in india that was supposed to be the hottest in the world, and we could not get any seeds to really test it, but one of our members was in india and had said i found this chile here. it is not the naga jolokia, but i think it is very hot. he sent us the seed, and we grew it. the first year we looked at it and said, yes, this looks pretty hot. we should do replicated trials to test us out and see how hot

it really is. the next year, we found out that was the very first chile to ever hit one million scoble heat units. it is how we measure chile heat. like serranoall -- is like 10,000. so this was one million, the very first. that became a whole new class of chile peppers called super hot. bhut jolokia translates to ghost pepper in english. we introduced ghost pepper for good or bad to united states. -- to the united states. it was interesting. after we said the ghost pepper is the world hottest, our friends and colleagues in trinidad said ours is hotter. we said send us the seed and we will test it. we tested the trinidad scorpion and we found one variety off the island called trinidad moruga scorpion, it hit 2 million.

for us at the chile pepper in institute,le pepper guinness has their own way of deciding what is hot. for the institute, being a research-based institute, we have to grow them with controls, replicated trials, and do a scientific way, so some people say guinness says something is the world hottest and you say this other. at the institute, right now, we have found the trinidad moruga scorpion is the world hottest. here in what we call the center of chile pepper knowledge, we have expanded our products, and one of the things we have done over time as we have what we call a public/private partnership. after we had discovered the ghost pepper, the bhut jolokia, they said we want to hope you -- we want to help you make a hot sauce. i said we do not want just a hot sauce that is so hot that people cannot eat it. flavor is really important, and that is the future of chilies, too, is i think flavor. i will talk about that.

we like to make a hot sauce for you to help you raise funds because we are self-supporting here. we get no support for the university per se, except they pay the electric bill. so we have to be self-sufficient, so they said we would like to help you with a hot sauce. they made formulations. we tested it. we said we like this formulation. it's a really good flavor. then we work with university of communications and came up with the holy jolokia hot sauce. it is hot, no question about it, but it has flavor. we are trying to educate people that chilies have flavor. from that product, we have holy jolokia taco sauce, salsa, spice rub, and a whole set of products available here. in new mexico, chilies are more than an economic crop, something we grow. it is part of our culture. people really embrace this. in new mexico, we have an official question.

it is red or green? that is when you go to a question, you will be asked if you want red enchiladas or green enchiladas? will find when people leave the new mech -- they leave new mexico, they miss the green and red chili. they have to have that chile dish. >> our cities tour staff recently traveled to las cruces, new mexico to learn about its rich history. learn more at www.c-span.org/citiestour. you are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend, on c-span3. we don't live in the same part of the country, not the same vocation, we don't have the same outlook, but where we are all the same is men of keller, women of color, is the way we try to instill a sense of fear. you can call it a respect.

but a sense of fear as a sobering consequence of what could happen if i interact with the police and it goes wrong? announcer: tonight on afterwards, comedian and actor d.l. hughley shares his thoughts on race in america with his book "how not to get shot, and other advice from white people." >> how about having a police department is respectful of the public they work for? how about having a police department that is held to a higher standard then the children that are supposed to be respected? there is certain point when children just don't listen. just don't listen. should they die for that? that is what they call teenagers for. should we accept that as a society? is that really the best we can do to tell our children to be more responsible than the adults trained to serve their community? announcer: watch afterwards tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span two's book tv.

after the december 7, 1941 attack on pearl harbor, general george c marshall ordered a series of films to explain the causes of world war ii. under the supervision of academy award-winning director frank capra, the u.s. army signal corps produced seven films between 1942 and 1945. they are known as the "why we fight" series. america," "prelude to war," which is 52 minutes and covers the outbreak of world war ii to the pearl harbor attack. the documentary explores the rise of authoritarianism and paints the conflict between the axis and allies as slavery against freedom. "prelude to war" won the academy award for best documentary in 1943.