At the dawn of the 20th century, Indiana Jones discovered the world. From globetrotting family expeditions as a 9-year-old to the battlefields of World War I as a teenager, Indy’s experiences shaped the heroic, whip-cracking archaeologist he would become. At every turn, Indy encounters history in the making, meeting true-life activists, soldiers, writers, artists, and thinkers who helped influence the world we live in today.

While working for a Hollywood movie studio, Indy finds that he is no match for the wily megalomaniacal director Erich von Stroheim when the two lock horns over the ever increasing budget of Stroheim's film Foolish Wives. Though battered by the film industry, Indy decides to give it one more chance and goes on a location shoot with legendary director John Ford. Ford and his cronies, including aging gunman Wyatt Earp, help him see the magic of movies and moviemaking, and when an actor is accidentally killed, Indy pitches in to save the film.

Posing as a dancer for the Ballets Russes in Barcelona, Indy meets old friend Pablo Picasso, and narrowly outwits inept German spies. Dashing off to Prague, he then arranges for a telephone installation to await an important call, which becomes a bureaucratic nightmare until Franz Kafka intervenes.

While visiting Russia on his father’s lecture tour, Indy runs off on his own and meets Leo Tolstoy. Later, on a trip to Athens, Indy and his father are forced together by circumstance when they get into a bind in the monasteries of Meteora, where they share some memorable moments.

On safari at the Masai Mara game preserve in Kenya with Teddy Roosevelt, Indy becomes lost in the vast and dangerous wilderness. Later, in Paris, he explores the fine-art scene and the rather wilder cafe scenes of Montmartre with a young Norman Rockwell.

On safari at the Masai Mara game preserve in Kenya with Teddy Roosevelt, Indy becomes lost in the vast and dangerous wilderness. Later, in Paris, he explores the fine-art scene and the rather wilder cafe scenes of Montmartre with a young Norman Rockwell.

Indy and his girlfriend, Nancy Stratemeyer, whose father created the Nancy Drew mystery series, visit the laboratory of inventor Thomas Edison. The two must contend with dangerous German spies as they struggle to keep Edison's top secret new invention out of the hands of hostile enemy agents. To keep him from getting into any more trouble, Indy is sent to visit his aunt in New Mexico. While there, he is kidnapped by Pancho Villa and swept into the Mexican Revolution. Chaotic, free-wheeling border towns, a "Wild Bunch" style train robbery and a colorful barroom encounter with a young George Patton make for thrilling entertainment in this action-packed movie.

As a young soldier in the Belgian Army, Indy learns firsthand the savagery of warfare while participating in the Battle of the Somme. Almost succumbing to despair as his life becomes an endless round of artillery barrages, nerve gas attacks and decaying corpses, Indy fears that death will be his only way out. Then he is captured by the Germans and confined to a POW camp where he and fellow prisoner Charles de Gaulle hatch a daring scheme to win their freedom in true "Great Escape" style.

In Italy, Indy's espionage work takes him behind enemy lines where he embarks on an important propaganda assignment that he hopes will bring a swift end to the war. Along the way, he engages in a comic rivalry with Ernest Hemingway over the affections of a beautiful Italian girl. After being wounded in action, Indy is transferred to North Africa where he joins the French Foreign Legion. While trying to uncover the identity of a traitor in his own ranks, Indy battles hostile Berber tribesmen and engages in an innocent flirtation with author Edith Wharton.

Indy's work with the Belgian Army takes him to the front lines of Verdun in 1916, where officers' callous stupidity sends thousands of men to their deaths for virtually no territorial gain. In Paris, Indy falls in love with the seductive German spy Mata Hari, only to suffer the pains of deceit.