Show Documentary
Secret History was a long-running British television documentary series. Shown on Channel 4, the Secret History brandname was used as a banner title in the UK, but many of the individual documentaries can still be found on US cable channels without the branding. It can be seen as Channel 4's answer to the BBC's Timewatch.
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Victoria Cross: For Valour
A 2003 BBC television historical documentary presented by Jeremy Clarkson who examines the history of the Victoria Cross, and follows the story of one of the 1,358 men who were awarded it: Major Robert Henry Cain.
In Search of Noah's Ark
An investigation into the theory that Mt. Ararat in Turkey is the final resting place of Noah's Ark.
Nefertiti: Resurrected
Has the famed Egyptian beauty, Queen Nefertiti, been found in a secret chamber deep in the Valley of the Kings? A Discovery Channel Quest expedition led by Dr. Joann Fletcher and a team of internationally renowned scientists from the University of York Mummy Research Team hopes to find out. If they find her, it will be one of the greatest archaeological discoveries since Nefertiti's stepson, King Tutankhamen, was discovered in 1922. The "Great Royal Wife" of the renegade Akhenaten, Nefertiti was a mother of six who helped lead a religious revolution that changed Egypt and the world forever. Yet after her death, her enemies destroyed all evidence of her life. Now, drawing on 13 years of research, Fletcher and her team bring Nefertiti's turbulent reign to life like never before with cutting-edge computer animations to recreate ancient Egypt's great temples, x-rays to reveal the telltale signs of foul play on her mummy, and forensic graphics to recreate the mummy's face.
The Real George Washington
Founding father, commander of the Continental Army and America's first president—George Washington's face is as familiar as the dollar bill. Today, archaeologists, scientists and historians are applying innovative forensic techniques to reveal the man behind the myth. We join a team, funded by the National Geographic Society, that has discovered the ruins of George Washington's childhood home—its exact location had been a mystery until now. As they comb the site, they unearth two cellars and a collection of incredible artifacts that help set the record straight on his fabled youth.
Letters from Baghdad
Gertrude Bell, the most powerful woman in the British Empire in her day, shaped the destiny of Iraq after WWI in ways that still reverberate today.
Bones of the Buddha
Bones of the Buddha is a 2013 television documentary produced by Icon Films and commissioned by WNET/THIRTEEN and ARTE France for the National Geographic Channels. It concerns a controversial Buddhist reliquary from the Piprahwa Stupa in Uttar Pradesh, India. It was released in May, 2013, and was broadcast in July 2013 in the US on PBS as part of the Secrets of the Dead series.
Life on Air: David Attenborough's 50 Years in Television
Life on Air: David Attenborough's 50 Years in Television is a BBC documentary film that recounts David Attenborough's television career. It is presented by Michael Palin and produced by Brian Leith. The BBC first transmitted the documentary in 2002 and is part of the Attenborough in Paradise and Other Personal Voyages collection of 7 documentaries. It includes interviews with Attenborough and several of his former colleagues, along with archival footage.
Richard III: The Unseen Story
In this special follow-up programme, the only television team with access to the dig and the scientific tests on the skeleton uses unseen footage and conducts two days of additional interviews to tell this extraordinary forensic detective story in even greater scientific and archaeological detail.
First Invasion: The War of 1812
First Invasion: The War of 1812, a History Channel documentary that first aired in 2004, portrays a young United States of America "on the brink of annihilation" as it battles the largest and most powerful empire on earth. Critics say the documentary is far too pro-American, and that it ignores or downplays crucial elements of the War of 1812. Others praise First Invasion for its compelling presentation of a far too neglected period of history.
Egypt's Treasure Guardians
Egypt is home to many of the most famous archaeological treasures on Earth, but over the last five years, Egypt has suffered a tumultuous revolution and tourist numbers have plummeted. This program follows a select cast of individuals, determined to bring Egypt back from the brink of disaster: to discover more of Egypt’s history, to keep its heritage safe and to get tourists to visit the country again.
Directed by Alan Smithee
This documentary on the elusive director Alan Smithee was first shown on the American Movie Classics (AMC) cable channel. We learn where the name came from and why the Directors Guild of America (DGA) first allowed his name to be used on Richard Widmark's western Death of a Gunfighter. The film follows the numerous problems that director Tony Kaye had during the production and post-production of the film American History X and why the DGA refused to allow Alan Smithee to be credited for that film.
Decoding the Past: Doomsday 2012 - The End of Days
It is a doomsday that is foretold in the Mayan calendar, the Chinese oracle of the I Ching - even in an internet-based prophetic software program: December 21, 2012. This History Channel documentary examines the myths and offers a fact-based examination of this historic event. The DVD also includes a bonus Documentary: Mayan Doomsday Prophecy, which digs even deeper in the prophecy that surrounds this date in history.
Newton: The Dark Heretic
A BBC documentary uncovers, for the first time, the original manuscript where Newton forecast the date of the end of the world. Newton, the father of modern mathematics, dedicated a large part of his life to a quest to decode the Bible which he believed to be the word of God. For over 50 years, he studied the Bible trying to unravel God's secret laws of the Universe. He was fanatical in his quest to discover the date for the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world. Scholars have spent years trying to unravel Newton's writings on the Book of Revelation to establish when he thought the apocalypse was coming.
Television's Opening Night: How the Box Was Born
TV presenter Dallas Campbell, engineer Professor Danielle George and engineer Dr Hugh Hunt re-create the opening of the BBC's television service on 2 November 1936. This involves building the mechanical flying-spot cameras that were used by Baird's system.
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Mobsters
Mobsters is an American documentary television series that profiles the lives of infamous individuals in history; the series puts the spotlight on some of history's most infamous gangsters and all that went on during their reigns. The series airs on The Biography Channel. Some episodes of Mobsters are rehashes of the similar TV Series American Justice as well as Notorious (TV series), both series that were originally broadcast on Biography Channel's sister channel, A&E Network; some episodes also rehash segments from another A&E series American Gangster, which began airing on the Black Entertainment Television channel. The only differences are the intro of the episodes and the lead-in's after commercials. Besides this, the rehashed episodes are no different in any way.
MysteryQuest
MysteryQuest is an American Paranormal television series that premiered on September 16, 2009 on the History channel. Produced by KPI Productions, the program is a spin-off of MonsterQuest. The tagline of the show is: "What if everything you believe is wrong?"
Omnibus
Omnibus was an arts-based BBC television documentary series, broadcast mainly on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. The programme was the successor to the long-running arts-based series 'Monitor'. It ran from 1967 until 2003, usually being transmitted on Sunday evenings. During its 35-year history, the programme won 12 Bafta awards. Among the series' best remembered documentaries are Cracked Actor, a profile of David Bowie, and Rene Magritte, a graduate film by David Wheatley, 'Madonna: Behind the American dream', a film produced by Nadia Hagger, and a profile of the British film director Ridley Scott. For a season in 1982, the series was in a magazine format presented by Barry Norman. The series was replaced by 'Imagine' hosted by Alan Yentob.
Timewatch
Timewatch is a long-running British television series showing documentaries on historical subjects, spanning all human history. It was first broadcast on 29 September 1982 and is produced by the BBC, the Timewatch brandname is used as a banner title in the UK, but many of the individual documentaries can be found on US cable channels without the branding.
Dispatches
Dispatches is the British TV current affairs documentary series on Channel 4, first transmitted in 1987. The programme covers issues about British society, politics, health, religion, international current affairs and the environment, and often features a mole inside organisations under journalistic investigation.
Lost Worlds
Lost Worlds is a documentary television series by The History Channel that explores a variety of "lost" locations from ancient to modern times. These "great feats of engineering, technology, and culture" are revealed through the use of archaeological evidence, interviews with relevant experts while examining the sites, and CGI reproductions. These visual re-creations take the form of rendered 3D environments and photo manipulated overlays, allowing the "lost world" to be seen over its present-day state. The pilot episode "Palenque: Metropolis of the Maya" was first aired on April 4, 2005. It was followed by 12 more episodes in 2006, and a further 19 episodes in 2007.
Monarchy
Monarchy is a Channel 4 British TV series, 2004-2006, by British academic David Starkey, charting the political and ideological history of the English monarchy from the Saxon period to modern times. The show also aired on PBS stations throughout the United States, courtesy of PBS-member station WNET. In Australia, all four seasons were broadcast on ABC1 from May 2005 onwards.
America: The Story of Us
America: The Story of Us is a six-part, 12-hour documentary-drama television miniseries that premiered on April 25, 2010, on History channel. Produced by Nutopia, the program portrays more than 400 years of American history. It spans time from the successful English settlement of Jamestown beginning in 1607, through to the present day. Narrated by Liev Schreiber, the series recreates many historical events by using actors dressed in the style of the period and computer-generated special effects. The miniseries received mixed reviews by critics; but it attracted the largest audiences of any special aired by the channel to date.
Chasing Mummies
Chasing Mummies: The Amazing Adventures of Zahi Hawass is a reality television series which is airing on The History Channel in the United States. Produced by Boutique TV, this series depicts the adventures of archaeologist and Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass and his discoveries in Egypt as he is followed by young archeological fellows and a camera crew. The series began on Wednesday, 14 July 2010 and aired Wednesdays at 10pm on the History Channel. The shows illustrates the complexities in the almost never-ending quest to preserve and discover artifacts from ancient Egypt.
The Roman Invasion of Britain
The Roman Invasion of Britain is a British documentary television series. It was first aired in 2008 on the History channel. The three-part series explores the history of Roman Britain by tracing the interaction of Roman conquerors with the native population of Britannia.
Museum Secrets
Museum Secrets is a TV series on History Television in Canada and a website with videos and games
Andrew Marr's History of the World
Andrew Marr's History of the World is a 2012 BBC documentary television series presented by Andrew Marr that covers 70,000 years of world history from the beginning of human civilisation, as African nomadic peoples spread out around the world and settled down to become the first farmers, up to the twentieth century.
Forbidden History
Jamie Theakston uncovers the startling truth behind great myths, historical legends, conspiracy theories, ancient treasures, lost civilisations and war time secrets.
A Timewatch Guide
Series looking at how the BBC has revealed and interpreted monumental moments in our history. Using the BBC archive, the programmes examine changes in research covered in documentary television.
Secrets in the Ice
Mysterious frozen lakes filled with bones, mummified bodies hanging from inside a glacier, and a 30,000-year-old virus frozen in ice brought back to life in a laboratory. In an all new Science Channel series, SECRETS IN THE ICE, experts and scientists are exposing dark secrets, forgotten treasures and lost relics from some of the coldest places on Earth. Using state of the art archaeological technologies and cutting-edge CGI animation, SECRETS IN THE ICE spotlights the mysteries that have been locked away in icy tombs all over the world for centuries. At the base of a massive glacier in Southern Greenland, Danish archeologists have discovered the remains of an ancient stone hut. Was this site the home to a Viking seer practicing black magic? In Siberia, archeologists have excavated a mummy with fantastical tattoos against the many warnings of locals. Have they uncovered buried treasure, or unleashed an ancient curse?
Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession
A documentary on the Z Channel, one of the first pay cable stations in the US, and its programming chief, Jerry Harvey. Debuting in 1974, the LA-based channel's eclectic slate of movies became a prime example of the untapped power of cable television.