WEEKEND TV : Demjanjuk, Pearl Harbor, Baseball Legends and Gates

American History 101 is in session on TV this weekend.

“Ivan the Terrible,” airing Sunday at 5 p.m. and again at 9 p.m. on A&E;, examines the case of former Ukranian-American auto worker John Demjanjuk, the infamous “Butcher of Treblinka,” who was convicted of Nazi atrocities during World War II.

A 10-part documentary series, “American Goes to War: The Home Front--WWII,” premieres with two half-hour episodes beginning at 10 p.m. Sunday on Channel 28. Hosted by Eric Sevareid, the first installment remembers the debate over isolationism, while the second examines the country’s swift mobilization for war in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Discovery Channel takes a whack at baseball lore in “The Glory of Their Times,” 7 p.m. Sunday, a documentary saluting such legends of the game as Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Cy Young and Babe Ruth.

“Separate but Equal,” at 9 p.m. Sunday on ABC (7)(3)(10)(42), dramatizes the events leading up to the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown vs. Board of Education that resulted in the desegregation of the nation’s schools. Sidney Poitier stars as Justice Thurgood Marshall.

And a very contemporary chapter of local history is sure to be addressed when L.A. Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, forced Thursday to take a two-month leave of absence, is interviewed on “Midday Sunday,” Sunday at 11 a.m. on Channel 11.