History Channel Documentaries
Season 1999
TV-PG
The History Channel is a satellite and cable TV channel, devoted mainly to historical events and persons. Programming covers a wide array of periods and topics, while similar topics are often organized into themed weeks or daily marathons. Subjects include military history, medieval history, the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, modern engineering, and historical biographies.
Where to Watch Season 1999
10 Episodes
- Secrets of Soviet Space DisastersE2
Secrets of Soviet Space DisastersIt was a centerpiece of the Cold War. The space race between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. resulted in some of the most significant scientific and engineering advances in human history. But it was also marred by tragedy. And while the stories of American mishaps--such as the fire that claimed the lives of three Apollo astronauts in 1967--are well documented, the failures of the Soviet space program remained closely guarded secrets until only recently. Filled with rare, never-before-seen footage from Soviet archives and interviews with insiders like Ronald Sagdeev, Mikhail Gorbachev's science advisor, SECRETS OF SOVIET SPACE DISASTERS brings these long-hidden stories to light. See how personal rivalries, shifting political alliances and bureaucratic bungling led to the more than 150 deaths as well as the eventual failure of the Soviet space program itself. - Time Machine: The True Story of the Screaming Eagles - The 101st AirborneE3
Time Machine: The True Story of the Screaming Eagles - The 101st AirborneDocumentary that tells the story of the 101st Airborne, one of the Army's most decorated divisions. First formed during World War I as the 101st division, it became the 101st Airborne in World War II. The 101st stormed the beaches at Normandy, fought in Operation Market Garden and was instrumental in the Battle of the Bulge. It was involved in the integration of Central High School in Little Rock in 1957. During Vietnam it was renamed the 101st Air Cavalry Division as it went to battle in the attack helicopters that have become their trademark in succeeding conflicts such as the Persian Gulf War, Somalia and the Balkans. - Turning the Axis Tide: The Battles that Doomed JapanE5
Turning the Axis Tide: The Battles that Doomed JapanDrawing on one of the largest libraries of combat footage on earth, this program details how the Allies finally won the Pacific War. The stunning sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and the European colonies in Southeast Asia was the beginning of six months of unbroken conquests for the forces of Imperial Japan. But finally the Allied forces rallied, and they began the long fight to win back the Pacific. The Allies began their first strategic offensive against Japan with landings on the Solomon Islands and Admiral Halsey's Battle of the Bismarck Sea helped neutralize the Japanese Offensive. These along with millions of small triumphs in bloody foxholes, in flaming cockpits, in blasting gun turrets all helped bring victory to the Allied Forces during WWII. THE BATTLES THAT DOOMED JAPAN chronicles the bloody island hopping campaign that eventually turned the tide of World War II. Stunning combat footage captures the brutality of the fight for the Solomon Islands, the epic engagement at Midway and the crucial campaign fought by the British forces in Burma. We'll also see what happened in overlooked encounters like the battle for Port Moresby and the short-lived Japanese attack on the Aleutian islands! And we'll examine the increasingly desperate tactics that marked Japan's final effort to deny the inevitable as the end drew near. From the cockpits to the foxholes, this is a detailed look at the pivotal moments that helped bring World War II to a close. - Little Big Horn - The Untold StoryE8
Little Big Horn - The Untold StoryThe battle of the Little Big Horn -- "Custer's Last Stand" -- has been examined and re-examined so many times that it would seem the subject has been exhausted. But LITTLE BIG HORN: THE UNTOLD STORY proves otherwise. The product of over twenty years of research by Dr. Herman J. Viola, Curator Emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution, this study draws on some of the most impressive source material imaginable, including restored footage of the first-ever reconstruction of the battle, filmed in 1908 with many of the Native Americans who took place in the real fight. The Red Horse drawings--40 vivid color portraits made by an eyewitness--offer another privileged view of the famous battle. But perhaps most intriguing are the on-camera accounts of Dr. Medicine Crow, who as a young man knew five of the six Crow scouts in Custer's employ, as well as Sioux and Cheyene. - The Underground RailroadE10
The Underground RailroadThe Underground Railroad, "the first civil rights movement," was no mere act of civil disobedience. The secret network of guides, pilots, and safe-house keepers (the Railroad's "conductors") was built by runaway slaves who, over the decades, communicated their experiences through songs and secret gestures, and were supported by abolitionists (many of them former slaves) who risked their own freedom to help free the enslaved. The "passengers" risked their lives. A wealth of photos, documents, and commentary by modern historians provides the broad lines of history, but it comes alive in the individual stories of conductors and passengers, among them abolitionist and historian William Still, called the "Father of the Underground Railroad," and Henry "Box" Brown, who mailed himself to freedom in a cargo crate. They (and many others) take their place beside Harriet Tubman ("the Moses of her people") and Frederick Douglass as courageous heroes in America's first integrated social movement. - The Mountain MenE11
The Mountain MenDocumentary based on a book by Robert Utley, the former chief historian of the National Park Service, that looks at the American mountain men of the early 19th century. The small but distinctive group included trappers and traders such as Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Tom Fitzpatrick and Jedediah Smith. By the 1830s, they helped map the Rockies, the Great Plains, the Mexican Southwest, the disputed Oregon territory and California.