Marco Polo: World's Greatest Overland Explorer? Or World's Biggest Liar? Perhaps no land journey in human history is more famous than Marco Polo's legendary 24 year trek across Asia. But was it all just a big lie? As described in his 1299 book, the peripatetic Venetian merchant encountered such wonders as the "singing sand dunes" of Dunhuang, China, "mountains of salt" in present-day Afghanistan, and the glories of the Mongol court of Kublai Khan. Generations of Europeans were spellbound by Polo's account, yet in recent years some scholars have questioned its authenticity. National Geographic Photographer Mike Yamashita sets out to visually document one of the greatest overland journeys ever made: the 24-year odyssey of Marco Polo. 700 years ago a young Venetian set out on what was to become one of the most influential journeys ever made. His adventures took him well beyond the boundaries of the known world of Persia to a land that was almost completely unexplored - the mysterious Middle Kingdom. But ever since he returned there were those who doubted Marco Polo. Did he really see what he described in his legendary book, 'Description of the World' or did he merely describe what others told him. In this film, Mike Yamashita follows Marco's book from the lofty heights of the Pamir Mountains to the fabled city of Xanadu in Mongolia. In so doing he attempts to unravel some of the age old mystery: Did Marco Polo really go to China? In the course of this incredible journey Mike stumbles onto a nomadic Kazak wedding in Aksai and investigates the controversy of the Great Wall - why did Polo never mention this in his famous travelogue "The Description of the World"? And why did he never mention tea or chopsticks? Yamashita talks to noted Chinese historian Professor Liu Yingsheng about these and many other Polo conundrums. In Yunnan province, he visits the bound feet women, and travels to inner Mongolia to film the famous herds of the Mongolian horsemen. As Yamashita reaches Xanadu he ponders on how Polo became a trusted confidant to the Khan and spent 17 years in his service. What sights he must have seen. But did he? The mystery slowly but surely reveals itself.
Hope you're finding these documentaries fascinating and eye-opening. It's just me, working hard behind the scenes to bring you this enriching content.
Running and maintaining a website like this takes time and resources. That's why I'm reaching out to you. If you appreciate what I do and would like to support my efforts, would you consider "buying me a coffee"?
BTC: bc1q8ldskxh4x9qnddhcrgcun8rtvddeldm2a07r2v
ETH: 0x5CCAAA1afc5c5D814129d99277dDb5A979672116
With your donation through , you can show your appreciation and help me keep this project going. Every contribution, no matter how small, makes a significant impact. It goes directly towards covering server costs.
Many technologies have promised to revolutionize education, but so far none has. With that in mind, what could revolutionize education?
After finding a broken surfboard on his local beach, Jhonny Guerrero, a teenager from one of Peru's toughest barrios, sets his heart on becoming a professional surfer. With his father in prison for armed robbery and a mother struggling to feed and clothe his younger brother, the sea is his escape. When Jhonny is spotted by Peru's most successful surf champion, Sofia Mulanovich, he is taken under her wing and given a chance to succeed. Yet the pressure to do so weighs hard. Without his dad around, the lure of his friends and the risks of life in the barrios threaten to jeopardise everything he has worked for. When he's injured outside a nightclub in a drive-by shooting, Jhonny is forced to decide once and for all which path to take. AKA En La Tormenta.
2021 • People
Picasso's Last Stand reveals the untold story of the last decade of the great artist's life, through the testimony of family and close friends - many of them the people he allowed into his private world in the 1960s. As his health declined in these final years, Picasso faced damaging criticism of his work and intimate revelations about his bohemian lifestyle for the first time. And yet, in the midst of disaster, he rediscovered his revolutionary spirit with a creative surge that produced some of his most sexually frank and comic work. Exhibitions of the new style horrified and disappointed contemporaries. But now his biographer Sir John Richardson and granddaughter Diana Widmaier Picasso argue that this last enormous effort produced some of his greatest and most profound art: the stunning counter-attack of a protean genius coming to terms with old age.
2018 • People
The extraordinary and dramatic story of Gertrude Bell, the most powerful woman in the British Empire in her day. She shaped the modern Middle East after World War I in ways that still reverberate today. More influential than her friend and colleague Lawrence of Arabia, Bell helped draw the borders of Iraq and established the Iraq Museum. Using never-seen-before footage of the region, the film chronicles Bell's extraordinary journey into both the uncharted Arabian desert and the inner sanctum of British male colonial power. With unique access to documents from the Iraq National Library and Archive and Gertrude Bell's own 1,600 letters, the story is told entirely in the words of the players of the day, excerpted verbatim from intimate letters, private diaries and secret communiques. It is a unique look at both a remarkable woman and the tangled history of Iraq.
2017 • People
Join experts as they uncover the truth behind the find of the century; an alleged proof copy of Galileo’s “Sidereus Nuncius” with the astronomer’s signature and seemingly original watercolor paintings that changed our understanding of the cosmos.
Secrets of the Dead • 2019 • People
The second episode delves into the moral framework that religions are often cited as providing and argues against the indoctrination of children. Dawkins compares religious faith to a virus, being passed from parents to offspring and teachers to pupils. He visits a London Hasidic Jewish school, where students are largely isolated from outside ideas, and Phoenix Academy, a semi-independent city academy following the American Accelerated Christian Learning curriculum. Dawkins interviews the headteacher about the integration of biblical stories into various academic subjects and explores the differences between secular ethics and morality based on religious law. He also discusses concepts from evolutionary biology, such as reciprocal altruism and kin selection, as explanations for morality.
S1E2 • The Root of All Evil • 2006 • People