A CHANGED WORLD IN 10 DAYS DOCUMENTARIES LOOK AT PIVOTAL AMERICAN MOMENTS.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

Ambitious, enriching and only kind of misleadingly titled, History Channel's documentary miniseries "10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America" offers a straightforward concept. Documentarians who have won or been nominated for Oscars, Emmys, Peabodys and other awards have been recruited to examine a day that caused the axis upon which our country spun to tilt, ever so slightly yet ever so significantly.

At least that's the idea. Susan Werbe, History Channel programming vice president, conceived the project, and the results may be mixed but generally insightful. Some films adhere to one day's impact; others use their "day" to examine broader themes and historical movements.

Perhaps surprisingly, Sept. 11, 2001 is not included here, but then, there's not alot of films on that subject. Then again, a few of the events chronicled here travel well-worn territory themselves.

The series kicks off tonight with "Antietam," about Sept. 17, 1862, the day of the Civil War's bloodiest battle and the one of the most tragic days in American history, when 23,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were killed or wounded. The film has some fun with the Union's fairly ineffectual general, George McClellan. Michael Epstein ("Hitchcock, Selznick and the End of Hollywood") illustrates his film with stylishly grainy, period-looking still photos re-creating the battle. And the upshot: "For all the carnage, there was no decisive victor," yet it did help pave the way for Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.

The most distinctive installment is "Shay's Rebellion: America's First Civil War," from R.J. Cutler ("The War Room," "Black. White."), in which the historical re-creations are (sort of) animated by Bill Plympton. It looks at a Massachusetts rebellion that took place on Jan. 25, 1787, and was summarily quelled, but spurred a Constitutional convention that strengthened the federal government and created the Constitution. I'm not sure the "animation" (which makes some Adult Swim series look like Pixar) elucidates the story, but at least it'll keep kids' attention when shown in classrooms.

"Murder at the Fair: The Assassination of President McKinley," offers a fractured portrait of McKinley's murderer, Leon Czolgosz (cq). This anarchist was so unhinged even other anarchists didn't want to be around him. Director Joe Berlinger's ("Paradise Lost") re-enactments of the events are managed more elegantly than most films of this nature can muster, and its argument on how the day of the shooting Sept. 6, 1901 transformed the country is more nuanced, arguing that the optimism the ushering in of the 20th century had inspired was tamped down with a dawning realization that "new opportunities bring enormous dangers."

Marco Williams' ("Two Towns of Jasper") "Freedom Summer" offers an absorbing look at June 21, 1964, in which three civil-rights workers assisting a get-out-the-vote movement among Mississippi blacks, were murdered by Klansmen. In the search for the three men's bodies, a shocking number of other bodies were discovered in the rural thicket.

Though the initial response was disquieting in that it suggested that white Americans only cared about the fates of other white Americans, the resulting widespread revulsion spurred 1965's Voting Right Act.

Unlike many of the other films in this series, Williams has those who were involved rather than just historians speaking, lending an emotional charge that lingers to this day.

"Einstein's Letter," by Barak Goodman and John Maggio ("The Merchants of Cool"), is more about the emigre Leo Szilard, who prodded the pacifistic Einstein to write the letter advocating creating a nuclear weapon in order to create a stalemate with the Nazis, who were developing their own.

"Scopes: The Battle Over America's Soul" offers a conventional portrait of the trial that seized the nation's imagination, as William Jennings Bryant and Clarence Darrow warred over whether evolution should be taught in school, a battle, oddly enough, that persists 80 years later. Amusingly, the city in which the trial was held treated the whole thing as a bit of a lark, selling all manner of monkey souvenirs.

Other episodes concern the first clash between the English and Indians over American territory, the Gold Rush, a devastating steel-mill strike and, of course, Elvis Presley's first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

10 DAYS THAT UNEXPECTEDLY CHANGED AMERICA - Three stars

What: Esteemed documentarians essay key moments - politically, socially and culturally - in American history.

Where: History Channel.

When: "Antietam," 9 tonight; "Massacre at Mystic," 10 tonight; "Einstein's Letter," 9 p.m. Monday; "Murder at the Fair," 10 p.m. Monday; "When America Was Rocked," 9 p.m. Tuesday; "Gold Rush," 10 p.m. Tuesday; "Scopes," 9 p.m. Wednesday; "The Homestead Strike," 10 p.m. Wednesday; "Freedom Summer," 9 p.m. Thursday; "Shay's Rebellion," 10 p.m. Thursday.

In a nutshell: Ambitious, generally insightful and engaging.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) The bloodiest day of the Civil War is explored in ``Antietam,'' which focuses on the Sept. 17, 1862, battle that left 23,000 killed or wounded.

(2 -- color) ``Shay's Rebellion: America's First Civil War'' follows events that led to the creation of the Constitution.