The Mega-Brands That Built America

Founding fathers of the biggest retail stores in the world battle to be the first to innovate, build, and revolutionize the industry. And one of the top businessmen of the 20th century, Sam Walton, will construct the world's largest retail empire.

100 years ago, shipping packages was slow, and shipping overnight was impossible, until two Seattle brothers risk everything to reinvent shipping packages for all. And a tenacious Yale graduate creates a world-famous express delivery service that transforms shipping into the essential global industry we rely on today.

The evolution of America's most beloved sports of Baseball, Basketball and Football are made possible by the innovations of sporting goods pioneers named Spalding, Wilson, and the Rawlings brothers.

In the late 1800s Americans rarely bathed, lived in filthy conditions and deadly diseases were commonplace. But James Gamble and Harley Procter invent a revolutionary new soap that revolutionizes America and opens up a market to entrepreneurs including King Gillette and Jacob Schick whose bitter rivalry will birth the shaving industry as we know it, spawning a new billion-dollar industry and changing Americans daily lives forever.

When Motorola introduces the first handheld portable telephone to the world, the futuristic technology sets off a fierce battle among international telecommunications companies to produce the most popular cell phone. The competition for the next great mobile device produces innovations such as flip phones, ringtones, and text messaging. But when a little-known tech upstart from Canada decides to combine the features of a computer with a cell phone to make a smartphone called the Blackberry, the way we use phones will never be the same again.

A database software engineer is inspired to create a bigger, unprecedented family friendly video-store, Blockbuster. But, as the dot com boom explodes an opening appears for two software executives in California to redefine the industry and take on the media giant with their online subscription service, Netflix.