Last Outpost

When Harry Crewe’s father dies, she leaves her Homeland to travel east, to Istan, the last outpost of the Homelander empire, where her elder brother is stationed. Harry is drawn to the bleak landscape of the northeast frontier, so unlike the green hills of her Homeland. The desert she stares across was once a part of the great kingdom of Damar, before the Homelanders came from over the seas. Harry wishes she might cross the sands and climb the dark mountains where no Homelander has ever set foot, where the last of the old Damarians, the Free Hillfolk, still live…

On March 25, 1944, a U.S. Navy bomber disappeared into the fog over the Bering Sea heading for a Japanese target. Fifty-five years later it has suddenly reemerged with a remarkable tale. NOVA travels to the plane's final resting place to unravel the mystery.

In June 1943, Ina Soep, the rich and beautiful daughter of an Amsterdam diamond cutter, met a married couple—a poor accountant named Jack Polak and his vivacious wife, Manja—at a birthday party for a friend. Six months later, the three of them were sharing a barrack at Kamp Westerbork, a Nazi holding camp in the north of Holland. So begins one of the most complex stories of love, hope and transcendent luck to emerge from the Holocaust.

The year is 1837. The American West is untamed, uncivilized, and largely unclaimed. U.S. President Andrew Jackson, in a race with the British and Russians, sends a wagon train of would-be settlers into the uncharted Oregon territory, led by his close friend, mountain man and veteran Sam Brentwood. Teaming up with trail hand Whip Holt, widow Claudia Humphries, and a colorful group of courageous pioneers, Brentwood sets off from New York, heading westward to Independence, Missouri the last outpost of civilization before the unknown and treacherous dangers of a new frontier. Along the way they will form unbreakable friendships, fight unforeseen enemies, and face unimaginable and often fatal odds. But in spite of the hardships and heartaches, the tragedies and triumphs, they will risk their lives to follow their dreams and forge a nation's destiny. This is their story.