Duel: Hamilton vs. Burr (2004)

In 1804 on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, two key figures in the founding of their young nation, faced off, pistols in hand. When it was all over one of them would be be dead and the other driven out of town and consigned to the dustbin of history. It was a culmination of a friendship gone sour and a bitter political rivalry that took a tragic turn. 200 years later, the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr has taken on mythic proportions. This revealing special separates the facts from the fiction surrounding their fateful encounter. Hosted by Richard Dreyfuss, THE DUEL features a wide-ranging examination of this slice of American history featuring novelist Gore Vidal, biographer Ron Chernow, journalist Richard Brookhiser, historian Joanne Freeman and other Burr-Hamilton experts debating the many facets of the deadly exchange.