>> reporter: documentary filmmaker ken burns found a great, great, great grandfather, a confederate soldier from the record of his application for a pension after the war. >> i know that abraham burns, my great, great, great grandfather stood this high, that he had gray eyes. >> reporter: ken burns thinks these discoveries are not just about the past. >> we see a movement. in this country to learn more and more and more about that essential human question -- who am i. >> and where did i come from. >> and where did i come from. >> reporter: it proves again, as william faulkner wrote, "the past is never even dead. it isn't even past." bill plante, cbs news, washington. >> mitchell: we'll be back. >> mitchell: finally this sunday, the kentucky derby, the first leg of the triple crown, is less than a month away. speculating on which horse will take the coveted price is exciting and frustrating. as tony guida explains, you never know until the horse crosses the finish line. >> like twin pole stars, the spires of venerable churchill downs point the way to glory and 27 days from now in the shadow

. >> reporter: documentary filmmaker ken burns found a great, great, great grandfather, a confederate for his pension after the war. >> i know abraham burns my great, great, great grandfather stood this high and had these gray eyes. >> reporter: ken burns thinks this is just not about a movement of the past. >> we sere more and more in this country to learn more and more about the essential human question, who am i? >> reporter: and where did i come from? >> and where did i come from. >> reporter: it proves again as william faulkner wrote, "the past is never dead, it isn't even past." bill plant, cbs news, washington. >>> fascinating part of history, no doubt. >>> the latest on japan in a deepening nuclear crisis now in the same category as chernobyl, plus more aftershocks. and mitt romney is closer to joining the presidential field. and katie couric reveals it best advice she's ever gotten. that's the "cbs morning news" for this tuesday, thanks for watching everybody. i'm betty nguyen. have a great day. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

so whether it's a ken burns classic or science from "nova," you can explore new worlds and ideas...hen you shop pbs.

everything, this is foote's great line to ken burns.rything we are or will be goes back to the civil war. and in that marvelous phrase, i think in the first ken burns told me in the first eight or nine minutes of the taping of the filmingÑi of foote when fooe said it's the crossroads of our being. i think it's the greatest single homerric tag to the war. >> charlie: so the civil war defined us the kind of country we would be. someone said in the revolutionary war we created the country and the civil war we defined what kind of country it would be. >> yes. and i would say a memory frame and look at the expea asian and a sinewy struggle with. the twin original sins in the country i think were slavery and the removal of native americans. and the civil war was the great fire to use lincoln's image that we came through the fiery trial. and if hadone t oth way, if ourÑi native region had won, lord knows what would have happened. we would have become i think añr playground for european colonial mowers. we would not have been the country we wer

here's an excerpt of how documentary maker ken burns described that moment in his pbs series, "the civil war." it was narrated by historian david mccullough. the civil war began at 4:30 a.m. on the 12th of april, 1861. general pierre gustav beauregard ordered his confederate gunners to open fire on fort sumter. at that hour only a dark shape out in charleston harbor. confederate commander beauregard was a gunner, so skilled as an artillery student at west point that his instructor kept him on as an assistant for another year. that instructor was major robert anderson, union commander inside fort sumter. all the pent-up hatred of the past months and years is voiced in the thunder of these can none, and the people seem almost beside themselves in the ex-al tags of a freedom they deem already won. >> reporter: the signal to fire the first shot was given by a civilian a virginia farmer and editor who had preached secession for 20 years. of course, he said, i was delighted to perform the service. 34 hours later, a white flag over the fort ended the bombardment. the only casualty had been a co

and we got to meet with ken burns and lynn noveck who are putting that together.nd put a lot of the questions that we're facing and sort of a hustle context using prohibition as a case study. one of the questions that seemed to be percolating through all of the folks that are coming for this great weekend, is why has this become such an important issue for america now? we are facing some tough issues that we faced in decades. they all seem to be coming together at one point. we heard the chairman talk about how important civility us. and it seems like america is responding yes, this is very, very important to it is very time and we must discuss it right now. why is that happening? why is civility beginning to crowd out other issues and why are americans seeming to demand us to have this conversation? this is to all of you. congressman, would you want to take a stab at it? >> i'm delighted to be here. at the constitution center. really want other remarkable institutions in the country today. and i commend all of the leadership of the institution including you, davi

around, this country turns around and realizes that we need to operate as americans, and this guy ken burns got the right idea and i think channel 5 is beginning to talk about the same thing. we need to start loving america. host: tom in east lake, ohio. we're going to leave it there. i want to show you some figures that talk about the share of total u.s. manufacturing exports. you were talking about manufacturing our way out of this situation. this chart shows growth in annual compound annual growth rate between 2000 and 2010 for different manufacturing sectors. for example, in textiles and apparel, the growth rate for manufacturing dropped 2.1%. for food and beverages, the manufacturing rate increased over those ten years by 6%. chemical, plastic, rubber and petroleum products up almost 10%. transportation equipment up almost 4%. machinery including appliances, electrical equipment up about 4%. computers and electronic products down about 3%. and other manufactured products up almost 6%. so my question is, where is it that the u.s. needs to increase its manufacturing in order to export to

. >> there is incredible detail from the ken burns film on the civil war that they hanged for five minutesal activism is well known. how much more powerful do you think a work of art can be in analyzing not just history but something that has contemporary resonance? >> well, i don't think a film can change anything. i think it might entertain. maybe fashion changes stuff, but i don't know that a film does. at one time i thought it might and i hoped it might but i learned it didn't. i thought maybe after "the candidate" people might pay attention to how we elect people. ratherer th than cosmetics, substance. i don't think it changed anything. but i think to reveal something that's not known, to me that's a worthy effort. that's what this had. not only that but obviously there are parallels in the film. not parallels that i created. they exist. they are historical record but they are repeated through time. even today like when eric holder announced that -- he didn't seem happy. he was forced to do something i don't think he thought was constitutional. >> exactly. that's the issue in this mov

most of the town's buildings burned to their foundation but not where the seven year-old ken mackey has>> 71 year-old-- >> we just got out of here. >>catherine: not far away, firefighters tracking to make a stand. this rd is appropriately named hell's gate drive. >> difficult to stop. >> the ground attack could reach 3000 degrees. >> with new the ground-tent and reached the amount of 3000 degrees! the ground- temperature can reach 3000 degrees. >>catherine: today that light drizzle helped but they're not contained. bp has the first anniversary by filing more lawsuits. the business partner causing the explosion of the ora oil rig and even countersues. president obama is promising to hold bp accountable. the 11 deaths from the explosion. bp has pledged $1 billion to restore natural resources in the gulf. for rebuilding damage marshes, and helping wildlife. this will be administered by a group of trustees including the seas of alabama, louisiana, mississippi and texas. >>catherine: from new hampshire, that jerry johnson is saying that he's going to run for president. in 2012. johnson suppo

burned at 3 a.m. and also was two alarms. we talked to ken james.evacuated this morning from his home and he says that the pot club owners are pretty good neighbors. >> we never had a problem with them. we knew then they were nice people. and we never had a problem with anything that was going on there. i was just -- but like i said they have been gone for months. that place burned down already like three months ago or more. >> and so here's a look at the grassfire that endangered his home in august. a rough time for the james family in this past year. the cause of all these fire still under investigation. >> all right, kiet do live in san jose. thank you. >>> and 6:58. our royal wedding watchers here shedding tears. we are talking about just kind of choking up and watching the beautiful ceremony. >> i just want to eat. [ laughter ] >> i made some royal scones. >> scones. >> so go right ahead. >> did you make those? >> no. >> sharon made them. >> my lovely wife made those. >> shapes of hearts. >> isn't that nice? >> beautiful. >> thank you. you are

burned the front portion of the house. the owner said he had no idea the tenants were using it as a marijuana dispensary and then last august, a grassfire again near ken's homemade for a few nervous hours. ken blames the homeless encampments nearby and says it's become a way of life. >> i guess i'm getting, unfortunately, used to it. the house fire and then the fire on the freeway side in the summer so it's kind of becoming a normal thing. >> reporter: the other side to the story is response time. because of budget cuts the nearby station lost its engine so firefighters were delayed and couldn't spray water on the fire for four minutes. did four minutes make a difference in this case? >> you know, it would be hard to say if four minutes makes a difference on the fire itself right now. certainly getting water on a fire sooner is better than later. >> reporter: by the way, the first time the club caught fire, it had the same water problem. the new fire chief is working to put a fire engine in every station but with the city facing its tenth straight year of budget cuts and a historic $115 million deficit this year, it won't happen soon. in san jose, kiet

burn down before their eyes. tonight they say that building is more than a vacant car dealership, it's a homeless community. ken pritchett has the story. >> reporter: there is a pause in the action out here. you see that excavator. it made quick work of this former car dealership, essentially turning most of it into rubble. this building was occupied by homeless people. 50