Arms Race • 2013 • episode "1/12" Mankind Decoded

Category: History

About 10,000 years ago we discover farming. But when crops fail, early farming communities face a new threat. War. It's the birth of the arms race.

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Mankind Decoded • 2013 • 12 episodes •

Arms Race

About 10,000 years ago we discover farming. But when crops fail, early farming communities face a new threat. War. It's the birth of the arms race.

2013 • History

Lust for Luxury

When ordinary people desire the luxuries of the rich, ingenuity and innovation come together to take history in a new direction. From the obsession with silk to the fall of Constantinople, our desire for luxury has shaped our history and evolution.

2013 • History

Violent Planet

Over millions of years, mankind has evolved from a puny, vulnerable creature to become a dominant force on the planet. Occasionally the planet bites back--with terrifying consequences that have shaped our evolution.

2013 • History

Connecting the World

The world is linked like never before. Modern transport and communications have resulted in a world that is wealthier, healthier, more mobile and better informed than ever before.

2013 • History

Rise of the Machines

Tools and machines have allowed us to overcome our physical limitations, and become the most successful species on Earth. But tools are also transforming what it means to be human.

2013 • History

Eat It, Drink It, Smoke It

Man uses plants to feed, heal and clothe himself, to build his world and even to alter how he feels. The use of plants like corn, tobacco and cotton become such an important part of our lives that they play a central role in our evolution.

2013 • History

Fire, Coal and Oil

Early man rubbed two sticks together and created fire. We learn to cook our food, saving vital energy. As a result, our brains expand--making us the most intelligent species on the planet.

2013 • History

Man and Metals

Five thousand years ago man first throws a handful of rocks into a campfire and stumbles upon a discovery that changes the world: Metal. Copper, Tin and Bronze empower the ancient world and allow empires to expand, armed with sharp, hard-wearing weapons.

2013 • History

Man and Beast

15,000 years ago man and the wolf form a partnership that shapes the future of Mankind. With the help of man's new best friend we domesticate more animals, sowing the first seeds of farming and civilization.

2013 • History

Information is Power

Communication is the vital ingredient in the building of civilization. The ability to share complicated ideas allowed early man to hunt, farm and build communities.

2013 • History

Building Earth

Mankind is a building species. Inspired by the divine we create monuments to its power (Stonehenge, the Great Pyramid). New challenges create new sciences and when the Romans mixed volcanic ash with water they created a new super-material: concrete.

2013 • History

Need for Speed

No prizes for second place! In this episode we learn how being the fastest enabled empires to be born and capitalism to thrive.

2013 • History

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Destiny

Vlad and Mehmed face off. Maria and Gülbahar foil the Wallachian plot. Ottoman troops march into an abandoned Târgoviste and face a gruesome sight.

S2E6Rise of Empires: Ottoman • 2022 • History

The Great Famine

The little-known story of the American effort to relieve starvation in the new Soviet Russia in 1921, The Great Famine is a documentary about the worst natural disaster in Europe since the Black Plague in the Middle Ages. Five million Russians died. Half a world away, Americans responded with a massive two-year relief campaign, championed by Herbert Hoover, director of the American Relief Administration known as the ARA. In July of 1921, Herbert Hoover, received a plea for international aid by Russian novelist Maxim Gorky. "Gloomy days have come for the country of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Mendeleyev," Gorky warned. He made a similar request to other Western nations, but it was Hoover who responded immediately with a promise of support. The first American relief ships arrived in Petrograd in September 1921, as the embers of the 1917 Russian revolution still smoldered. American relief workers were among the first outsiders to break through Russia's isolation and to witness and record the impact of the Bolshevik Revolution. They would be tested by a railroad system in disarray, a forbidding climate, a ruthless government suspicious of their motives, and the enormous scale of death and starvation. The initial plan called for feeding one million children by delivering bread, rice, grits, sugar, corn and milk to the most hard hit regions. Almost immediately, Hoover encountered formidable obstacles. Vladimir Lenin's new communist government was skeptical of American aid and sabotaged the relief effort by planting spies in local American Relief Administration offices. When trains stuck on the tracks prevented food from being transported, Russian officials were uncooperative, resulting in delays that contributed to an estimated 50,000 deaths. New estimates in the fall of 1921 revealed that at least 16 million Russians would be impacted by the famine. Hoover's initial plan to feed just the children would not be sufficient. That winter, cannibalism became widespread across Russia as the people continued to starve. In the U.S., Hoover managed to double the project's funding, arguing that by providing food famine relief, Americans could demonstrate the strength, kindness and efficiency of American society to a Communist culture. After a spring thaw, hundreds of American relief workers — nicknamed "Hoover's boys" — were finally able to deliver food. In August 1922, a full five months after the initial shipments of corn were sent to Russia, American Relief Administration officials were still feeding almost 11 million Soviet citizens each day in 19,000 kitchens. By the end of the famine that fall, five million Russians had starved to death, but the toll would have been significantly higher without Hoover's unprecedented humanitarian commitment. Known as "the Great Humanitarian" for his relief work during and after World War I, Hoover is said to have saved more lives than any person in history. "Lenin's government never recognized America's humanitarian motives," says producer Austin Hoyt (George H. W. Bush, Victory in the Pacific, Reagan). The Soviets always saw the relief workers as exploiters and spies." The Cheka, Lenin's secret police, kept a watchful eye on the Americans and especially on the 120,000 Russians the ARA hired to do the work. White Russians and aristocrats, the losers in Russia's brutal civil war, were hired because they were educated. The Bolsheviks feared the ARA was training them as counter-revolutionaries. The tensions the Americans experienced in the early 1920s would come to dominate U.S. Soviet relations for much of the century.

2011 • History

Collapse of France

The story of Hitler's lightning invasion of France and its rapid collapse, of the evacuation from Dunkirk, and of the summer of 1940 when Britain fought on alone. In new digital colour, this episode shows the Battle of Britain and the Blitz.

S1E2Apocalypse: The Second World War • 2009 • History

The Trap

1940. Nine months after the outbreak of World War II, Hitler attacks in the West, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Great Britain. The "phoney war" ends, the real war begins, in an unleashing of violence never seen before. The devastating blitzkrieg exceeds all expectations in intensity and its soldiers push back all human limits by consuming Pervitine, a synthetic drug that prevents them from sleeping. After a four-year-long First World War, Hitler's feat was to defeat Belgium and the Netherlands in 18 days and France in barely 45 days... The Nazi apocalypse swept through Sedan, on the Somme and to the English Channel, the last rampart of Great Britain. At Dunkirk, which had become a bottleneck, the British fled en masse under enemy fire. Can Churchill save them?

S1E1Apocalypse: Hitler Takes on the West • 2020 • History

The Real Inglorious Bastards

This is the incredible true story behind Quentin Tarantino's film Inglourious Basterds; a group of Jewish-American refugees of Nazi Germany who boldly went behind enemy lines for vengeance. As a teenager, Hans Wijnberg is sent to America from Holland to escape Nazi aggression; Fred Mayer and his family flee Germany at the onset of war. Both enlist in the U.S. army and are recruited by the OSS. But for their daring mission 'Operation Greenup', investigating the Nazi stronghold of Tyrol in the Austrian alps, they need an inside man – POW and Tyrol native Franz Weber, a former officer and conscientious deserter from the Austrian Wehrmacht… "The truth is way stranger than fiction," muses one interviewee in this unbelievable true account of an incredible war time saga. As the Second World War was coming to a close, the US Office of Strategic Services trained and parachuted two Jewish refugees and a German deserter deep into Nazi occupied Austria. The film reveals how their efforts disrupted a vital supply route between Germany and the Italian front to bring about the surrender of Innsbruck to Allied Forces. Their unbelievable adventure has a finale that beats any Hollywood movie hands down — but a story so powerful that it became the basis for Quentin Tarantino's mega hit. Through vivid first-person accounts from the extraordinary OSS veterans, gripping dramatic reconstructions, CGI and archive, the intrepid trio's hair-raising 'Operation Greenup' is brought to life, revealing one of the most successful and daring covert operations of World War Two. Hear directly from two of the men on the missions, Hans Wijnberg and Fred Mayer as they detail their amazing exploits. Both Fred and Hans were interviewed extensively, however Hans died from heart problems the day after the interviews with him were recorded. Written and Directed by Min Sook Lee ; Produced by 2271120 Ontario Inc. for Storyline Entertainment with Shaw Media, CMF Canada Media Fund, Rogers Cable Network Fund, History Television and TVF International

2012 • History

Easter Island: Mysteries of a Lost World

The contrast between the majestic statues of Easter Island and the desolation of their surroundings is stark. For decades Easter Island, or Rapa Nui as the islanders call it, has been seen as a warning from history for the planet as a whole - wilfully expend natural resources and the collapse of civilisation is inevitable. But archaeologist Dr Jago Cooper believes this is a disastrous misreading of what happened on Easter Island. He believes that its culture was a success story not a failure, and the real reasons for its ultimate demise were far more shocking. Cooper argues that there is an important lesson that the experience of Easter Island can teach the rest of the world, but it doesn't begin by blaming its inhabitants for their own downfall. This film examines the latest scientific and archaeological evidence to reveal a compelling new narrative, one that sees the famous statues as only part of a complex culture that thrived in isolation. Cooper finds a path between competing theories about what happened to Easter Island to make us see this unique place in a fresh light.

2014 • History