The Real Inglorious Bastards • 2012

52:49

Based on the book The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies, The Codebreaker reveals the fascinating story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, the groundbreaking cryptanalyst whose painstaking work to decode thousands of messages for the U.S. government would send infamous gangsters to prison in the 1930s and bring down a massive, near-invisible Nazi spy ring in WWII. Her remarkable contributions would come to light decades after her death, when secret government files were unsealed. But together with her husband, the legendary cryptologist William Friedman, Elizebeth helped develop the methods that led to the creation of the powerful new science of cryptology and laid the foundation for modern codebreaking today.?

2021 • History

21:45

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.

11/12 • Mankind Decoded • 2013 • History

46:46

How Britain planned for a Nazi invasion - from tank traps and sticky bombs, to the Home Guard and tragic story of heroism. Alice Roberts looks for visible traces of Britain's rearmament in preparation for a German invasion. How did the Home Guard come about and what was the role of women in the offensive defense? We meet Indian-American Noor Inayat Khan, a special agent who worked with sabotage activities in German-occupied France, and hear her tragic story as one of the war's forgotten heroines. Alice learns about the deployment of the Home Guard, and Danielle travels to the Channel Islands, the only part of the British Isles under German control, to visit the only concentration camp built on British soil in Alderney. She explores life under occupation and visits the underground hospital Festung Guernsey.

S1E2 • Fortress Britain • 2022 • History

19:32

The Bronze Age had the first large urban centers, powerful kingdoms and armies, writing, and trade routes across vast areas. What led to the collapse of the city-state entities and the end of the Bronze Age? Possibly a perfect storm of uncontrollable factors that are still being researched.

S1E3 • Bronze Age • 2016 • History

26:00

The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the defining moments of the mid-twentieth century and of the presidency of John Kennedy. How did the two Cold War powers of the USSR and the USA come to the point of threatening nuclear war?

S2E5 • Butterfly Effect • 2017 • History

26:01

The Story of the Special Air Service A young Commando officer conceived the idea in Egypt in 1941. Since then the SAS has grown to become the world’s most feared and prestigious Special Forces unit. The Special Air Service was created in 1941 by a young Commando officer, David Stirling, after a disastrous parachute jump whilst on duty in the Middle East. Since then the SAS has become the world's most feared and respected Special Forces unit. Only ten percent of those who apply for entry into SAS detachment are accepted to begin training--and few survive that. An SAS soldier must live off the land, crouch concealed for days at a time, live for months in the jungle or desert--and accompish the impossible. Since their creation, SAS forces have have completed missions in Egypt, Libya, the Falkland Islands and Borneo. Anywhere that Britain's interests are threatened, the SAS can be found...but not easily. Their history and most famous achievements, such as the Iranian embassy siege in 1980, are captured in this startling documentary.

4/10 • The True Action Adventures of the Twentieth Century • 1996 • History