NOVA – ATHENS: Birth of Democracy airs Tuesday, June 30 at 9 PM

It’s a system we’ve lived with for 250 years, yet in the sweep of human history, American democracy is still an audacious experiment. But where did this radical idea begin? 

Two-and-a-half millennia ago, the city-state of Athens was reeling—ravaged by civil war and crushed by tyrants. From this chaos, a revolutionary spark ignited: the world’s first government by its citizens. Now, follow a gripping archaeological quest to unearth the gritty, often violent origins of our own political inheritance.

In NOVA’s Athens: Birth of Democracy, we journey to mass graves that whisper of brutal assassinations, and to ruins where murder was a political tool. We see the ingenious fragments of ancient voting machines—clay devices that look startlingly modern, and witness the pivotal moments, from the overthrow of oppressors to the invention of a startling new concept: citizen power.

What lessons from Athens’ precarious experiment echo into our own? This is not a dusty history lesson. It’s a forensic investigation into democracy’s dark secrets and brilliant solutions.