Cities of the Sky • 2018 • episode "S1E3" • Native America

58:34

In this episode, Ella Al-Shamahi explores the fate of the Neanderthals - asking why they became extinct, and discovering how they live on inside of us today. The programme starts in the caves of Gibraltar, which may have been the last place the Neanderthals survived. Discoveries here have shown the Neanderthals lived a good life - feasting on seafood and wild game. These were a people who were supremely well adapted to their environment. But about 40,000 years ago they disappeared. Why? One of the reasons might have been that they lost out in a physical showdown with modern humans. Ella investigates one of the world's oldest murder mysteries.

S1E2 • Neanderthals: Meet Your Ancestors • 2018 • History

26:00

In 1415, the Portuguese launch an era of explorations that will lead to the European discovery of the world. The competition is intense between France and the United Kingdom for the possession of North America and the West Indies for the Indian colonies, but also for Science.

S3E4 • Butterfly Effect • 2018 • History

44:11

September 1950. On the banks at Incheon, 30 miles from Seoul, General MacArthur is victorious. The landing he planned, to rescue his men stuck in Pusan, was a success. But the war isn't over. In the North, the Americans will have to face an unexpected enemy. On the other side of the frozen Yalu river, Mao, covert as always, has stationed 300,000 of his men. On Thanksgiving Day, the Chinese and North Koreans attack the US army, whose only choice is to fall back. Faced with his army's defeat and Chinese intervention, Truman considers the atomic bomb... Further south, in Indochina, the French are also suffering setbacks. An ambush set by the Vietminh on the road Route Coloniale 4 annihilates them. To relieve the situation, the French government sent as a last resort one of its most famous generals: Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. French win a victory in Vinh Yen , but suffer heavy losses too. The parallel between Korea and Indochina is striking: the same hidden operators, frightened civilians, bomb blasted regions, columns of emaciated prisoners... For De Lattre, it is indeed one and the same war: the war for freedom, against communism. And the real enemy is Stalin, who sends North Koreans weapons and MIG-15 planes, and struts in front of his people with a super bomber capable of carrying his brand new atomic bomb. Will Stalin conquer the world?

S1E3 • Apocalypse: War of Worlds 1945-1991 • 2019 • History

46:04

Gold from Africa kick-starts the rebirth of Europe. Money flows into Venice – creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs willing to take risks. In China, a new weapon – the gun – allows a peasant uprising to unify the country. Chinese innovations inspire Europe – leading to the printing press. Millions of books are printed. One of them will inspire a journey to the New World. America beckons.

6/12 • Mankind: The Story of All of Us • 2012 • History

54:10

In this Episode discover the secret to the stability and cohesion of Ancient Egypt—religion. When people share a core set of beliefs, they are more likely to identify as one. That was true for the first civilizations and it's just as true today.

Part 2 • First Civilizations • 2018 • History

51:45

Between 1931 and 1933, 4 million Ukrainians were to die of hunger. This famine was not preceded by any cataclysmic weather event, nor by a war. This was an ideological crime: decided by Stalin and approved by the Politburo, with the aim of punishing Ukrainian peasants who refused the collectivization of the countryside, cultivated a strong form of nationalism and showed resistance to communist ideology. The purpose of this famine, unprecedented in Soviet history, was to break all forms of opposition. How was it implemented? What was known at the time? What was said? What was seen? The most important event in pre-war Soviet history is taboo: all traces of it were immediately erased, and the evidence drowned in a flood of lies. And yet, within just two years, this famine killed twice as many Ukrainians as the gulag did Soviets in half a century. This state secret was particularly well-kept for more than fifty years and only revealed in its full magnitude after the disintegration of the USSR, when the archives were revealed. Drawing on previously unpublished material, on many Soviet films and on a number of particular points of view, including that of Welsh journalist and whistleblower Gareth Jones, this film retraces the story of that famine.

2022 • History