Capital of a New Empire • 2013 • episode "Part 3" • Byzantium: A Tale of Three Cities

26:00

In July 1799, during the French Campaign in Egypt and Syria, the French soldiers of lieutenant Bouchard discover by chance at Rosetta a large black stone. It is, in fact, the fragment of a stele engraved in honor of King Ptolemy V, including three writing systems: Greek, Demotic, and hieroglyphs.

S3E5 • Butterfly Effect • 2018 • History

51:57

In the subsequent 65 million years, mammals are part of Europe’s history. Sea mammals conquered the oceans while herds of herbivores crisscrossed the land. It was 600,000 years ago that Homo Heidelbergensis first began hunting. Seen from a geological perspective, human beings have been on the earth for only a few short moments, but within this brief time we have already fundamentally transformed the planet. Rivers have been straightened, forests cleared and roads laid down across the natural habitats of nearly all the earth’s animals.

S1E2 • 300 Million Years: Where Life Began • 2015 • History

25:14

The World's Longest Motor Journeys Long distance car rallies, including the London-Sydney and the Pan African rallies, and attempts to drive round the world (by Kegresse half-tracks in the 1920s) and the length of the Americas. Epic footage of speed and endurance. With the development of the motor car man soon turned his attention from using it as a means of travel to using it for his sporting aspirations, to driving around the world, to remote corners, to those places where few men have ventured before. Driving in these early days was always a challenge. Dirt roads that the horse found perfectly acceptable became impassable quagmires of mud for the automobile. Despite these challenges, it was not long before the automobile transformed itself from novelty to necessity. The advent of the world's longest motor journeys took place with the London-Sydney and Pan Africa car rallies, in deserts and at tropical jungles. These were then followed by epic attempts of endurance to drive round the world and across the length of the Americas.

2/20 • The True Action Adventures of the Twentieth Century • 1996 • History

176:44

Chapter 1: Who Will Betray Him? In the winter of 1944, Germany is losing the war on all fronts, but Hitler refuses to contemplate surrender. Instead, he calls leading military generals to a secret location and orders them to start preparing a massive surprise attack against the Western Allies as part of his policy of total war. It's an attack he believes will finally break them. Chapter 2: Hitler's Birthday At the end of March 1945, with the German army utterly depleted and his circle of trust rapidly shrinking, Hitler invites a group of Hitler Youth to the Reich Chancellery gardens to be congratulated. These are the people upon whom he now relies – children. Nazi Germany is on the brink of collapse, and with Berlin under daily bombardment, Hitler has permanently retreated to his bunker, a series of 30 cramped rooms under the Reich Chancellery where night and day merge into one. As his life becomes increasingly bizarre, Hitler and Joseph Goebbels look for signs from German folklore that fate will intervene. Chapter 3: Into the Abyss In April 1945, the Nazis organise one of the final acts of the Third Reich - a concert by the Berlin Philharmonic, including the last scene of the opera Gotterdammerung, which features a suicide at its centre. It's a clear sign that Hitler and many of his supporters are going to end it all. Most of Germany is occupied by invading Allied forces. A two million-strong Soviet army is now just a mile from Hitler's hiding place. With the Nazi regime disintegrating, most of Hitler's deputies are busy making plans to try to survive the end of the war. Only his most die-hard loyalists stay by his side.

S3 • Rise of the Nazis • 2019 • History

50:02

The Scorpion King was a mythical Egyptian ruler who predated the pharaohs. Recent developments, such as the excavation of the king's tomb, have revealed surprising new details about early Egyptian civilization. This program details the continuing research into the earliest period of Egyptian history that was inspired originally by discoveries such as the Narmer palette and the Scorpion mace head. The combined efforts of a number of archaeologists have pushed the boundaries of Egyptian civilization back into a period previously considered prehistoric. As a result some of the most fundamental beliefs about Egyptian civilization require a re-think. Is there more behind the mythical and violent leader known simply as the Scorpion King? New evidence suggests that his achievements may have layed the foundations of Egypt. Learn more about the king who likely united ancient Egypt, organized the world's earliest phonetic writing system, and inspired the creation of the pyramids.

Part 6 • Egypt Unwrapped • 2008 • History

220:41

Henry Louis Gates Jr. explores the transformative years following the American Civil War, when the nation struggled to rebuild itself in the face of profound loss, massive destruction, and revolutionary social change. The twelve years that composed the post-war Reconstruction era (1865-77) witnessed a seismic shift in the meaning and makeup of our democracy, with millions of former slaves and free black people seeking out their rightful place as equal citizens under the law. Though tragically short-lived, this bold democratic experiment was, in the words of W. E. B. Du Bois, a 'brief moment in the sun' for African Americans, when they could advance and achieve education, exercise their right to vote, and run for and win public office.

2019 • History