PBS TO AIR KEN BURNS'S THE WAR, A NEW SEVEN-PART EPIC DOCUMENTARY ABOUT WORLD WAR II, IN SEPTEMBER 2007 ~ Burns to Show Highlights at the World War II Conference in New Orleans on November 16, 2006 ~ Promotion for the film to begin this November to Coincide with two Nights of Military History Around Veterans Day PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) announced today that it will air the new Ken Burns documentary series, THE WAR, in September 2007.  The seven-part documentary series, directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, explores the history and horror of the Second World War from an American perspective by following the fortunes of so-called ordinary men and women who get caught up in the greatest cataclysm in human history. Plans call for THE WAR  to air over two weeks beginning on Sunday, September 16 (four nights the first week and then three nights the second week) from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. In addition to the national broadcast on PBS, THE WAR will also air simultaneously on PBS High Definition Channel with surround sound.  PBS will repeat each episode the night it airs, stage marathon viewings on the weekends, and launch the film as a weekly series after its first two-week run.  The series will also be rebroadcast on PBS's World Channel following the original broadcast.  A web page dedicated to THE WAR will also be launched this week at pbs.org/thewar. Burns will show highlights of the film at the International Conference on World War II at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. (The conference dates are November 16 - 19, 2006.) Participants will include: former war correspondent and legendary CBS newsman Walter Cronkite; WWII bomber pilot and former senator George McGovern; war correspondents Andy Rooney and Richard C. Hottelet; James Bradley, author of Flags of Our Fathers; and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who will discuss the liberation of Eastern Europe and the Cold War; British author Sir Max Hastings; and noted World War II historian, Donald L. Miller. Burns will show highlights from THE WAR at a dinner event on November 16. (For more information on the conference visit http://www.ww2conference.org/) Six years in the making, this epic 14-hour film, reminiscent in scope and power of Burns's landmark series THE CIVIL WAR, focuses on the stories of citizens from four geographically distributed and quintessentially American towns - Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; and the tiny farming town of Luverne, Minnesota.  These four communities stand in for - and could represent - any town in the United States that went through the war's four devastating years.  Individuals from each community take the viewer through their own personal and quite often harrowing journeys into war, painting vivid portraits of how the war dramatically altered their lives and those of their neighbors, as well as the country they helped to save for generations to come. The Second World War was so massive, catastrophic and complex, it is almost beyond the mind's and the heart's capacity to process everything that happened and, more important, what it meant on a human level, said Burns.   Every person in the country was deeply affected by this war, whether in battle, at home, at work, or in the case of Japanese-Americans, in internment camps.  By focusing on the personal stories of ordinary Americans who had extraordinary experiences, the film tries to bring one of the biggest events in the history of the world down to a very intimate scale.  And in the end, we all begin to see, I think, that there are no 'ordinary' lives. PBS has a deep and abiding respect for the history, drama and tragedy of war, said John F. Wilson, Senior Vice President, PBS Programming. It's critical that we capture the stories of the generation that fought and lived through World War II before they are lost to us forever.  Serving our mission to educate and inform, PBS's goal for THE WAR is to reach into every home and classroom