Crush Your Rivals • 2021 • episode "S1E2" • How to Become a Tyrant

73:37

Showcases five of Soviet Europe's most grandiose architectural enterprises. Created to embody the 'collective good', the buildings, made with courage and a bit of lunacy, were used to remind the people of the power and brighter future that awaited them. Each building was designed to be either the tallest or the largest, or to have the biggest clock on earth or the most advanced technology of its time. Now that socialism is over, film-makers Missirkov and Bogdanov revisit five of communism’s most splendid palaces to reveal their hidden secrets through the eyes of the people who designed, built and worked in them. Featuring the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, Moscow State University, the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, the Palace of Serbia in Belgrade and the Palace of the Republic in Berlin.

2019 • History

44:02

Was he an incompetent ruler, a brutal tyrant, or a great leader? 2,000 years after his death, the legacy of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, remains a point of debate. His role in ending centuries of conflict between warring factions and creating China's first imperial dynasty is indisputable, yet he has questionably been portrayed as a violent oppressor. Through ancient texts, artifacts, and expert insights, revisit the life of this complicated and influential figure.

S1E1 • China's Dragon Emperor • 2019 • History

51:59

This episode we count down from 88 to 74 events that have shaped and influenced thought, marked wars, changes fashion, and rebuilt economies

S1E2 • 101 Events that Made the 20th Century • 2018 • 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

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

58:33

Putting the Orient Express – also called „the train of trains“ – on its tracks called for considerable stamina. Several times, the ambitious project of Georges Nagelmackers was on the brink of failure as the Belgian entrepreneur was facing the bankruptcy of his sleeping car company.

S1E10 • History By The Numbers • 2021 • History