This eight-part, 16?-hour television event explores New York City's rich history as the premier laboratory of modern life. A sweeping narrative covering nearly 400 years and 400 square miles, it reveals a complex and dynamic city that has played an unparalleled role in shaping the nation and reflecting its ideals.

The story concerns two grizzled mountain men -- Bill Tyler and Henry Frapp -- during the dying days of the fur-trapping era. The plot begins when Running Moon runs away from her abusive husband Heavy Eagle and comes across the two seedy fur trappers. The mountain men take her in, unaware that Heavy Eagle has dispatched an army of Indian braves to reclaim her.

A ruthless woman's adulterous affair with a drifter sets in motion a chain-reaction of murder and deception in a remote village in 19th Century Mtsensk.

Spendthrift Willie Hale again returns penniless to the family home in London. His father is none too pleased, but Willie smooth-talks him into letting him stay. At the same time he turns the charm on Dorothy Hope, whose father is big in linoleum and who, before Willie's arrival, was about to become engaged to a Russian aristocrat.

Ayase Shinsuke, a popular writer of a series of girl novels, visits Otaru, the town he grew up in. He meets a strange boy who calls himself by the author's real name.

Five different exploits of Sinbad the sailor where he gets mixed up with the pretty daughters of exotic potentates, with powerful monsters that threaten his existence, and with all sorts of teeming jungle life.