Raised in the small all-Black Florida town of Eatonville, Zora Neale Hurston studied at Howard University before arriving in New York in 1925. She would soon become a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, best remembered for her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. But even as she gained renown in the Harlem literary circles, Hurston was also discovering anthropology at Barnard College with the renowned Franz Boas. She would make several trips to the American South and the Caribbean, documenting the lives of rural Black people and collecting their stories. She studied her own people, an unusual practice at the time, and during her lifetime became known as the foremost authority on Black folklore.
For many Americans, the journey of the Mayflower symbolizes the birth of their nation. To this day, the Pilgrim Fathers are a glorified symbol of American virtue. In search of autonomy and with the desire to preserve their cultural identity, a group of English Puritans left their Dutch refuge in 1620 to set off for the New World. That voyage is not just a tale of a religious community bravely going their own way; the events of those days would have a major impact on the course of modern history. The rules and regulations of the Mayflower Compact that the Pilgrim Fathers, religious sectarians, abided by, became the secular prototype for the constitution of the United States of America; a social contract that would serve as an example for many other national constitutions during the European age of civil society and thereafter.
Ascent of Evil: The Story of Mein Kampf is an autobiographical manifesto written by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler while imprisoned following his 1923 failed coup attempt in Munich. In Mein Kampf, Hitler outlined his political ideology and goals for Germany. Today, Mein Kampf is still available in libraries, on the Internet, at universities and even at bookstores worldwide. Yet much of the history of this 720-page, two-volume screed is now forgotten. Using historical footage, photographs and interviews with scholars, Ascent of Evil plunges deep into the infamous blueprint for evil’s dark secrets and reveals how this book came to be written and its impact on world.
The ancients hid the secrets of their incredible knowledge of astronomy in their temples and palaces, built to align with the sun, on the same day, all over the world. Revealing our species' obsession with the sun, across thousands of years and every continent, this is architectural magic on a cosmic scale.
Throughout history, Pontius Pilate has been portrayed as a weak ruler-the man who allowed Jesus Christ to be crucified at the demand of the Jews. But this documentary portrays a very different Pilate, one who had his own motives for allowing Jesus' fate.
Crown of Castile, 1520. The Comuneros rise up against Charles I, king of Castile and Aragon and emperor of the Hispanic Monarchy. While Juan de Padilla, leader of the uprising, and his captains, Juan Bravo and Francisco Maldonado, fight against the imperial armies, his wife, María de Pacheco, rules the city of Toledo, capital of the rebels.
After surviving the Death March, Martial Law and the loss of his legs, Justino became an atheist. But when his wife dies, a part of him is yearning to believe in life beyond death; just for a chance to be with her again. Searching for parts of her he can still hold on to, he devours her diaries for information into their past --opening a Pandora's Box of secrets.
A chronicle of the Russian Revolution of 1917, from the bourgeois democratic February Revolution to the great socialist October Revolution and the final triumph.
In early spring of 1833, the smoldering resentment of American settlers in Texas against their oppression by Mexico dictator General Santa Anna/Ana coming to a head. When a decree is issued that no more Americans may enter Texas, William H. Wharton, fiery head of a faction determined on independence or nothing, warns Stephen F. Austin that the time for half-measures is past. Austin, responsible for bringing the Americans to Texas as colonists, reminds Wharton that a settler's revolt against Mexico would dishonor his name and the arrangements he had with the Mexican government. He gets the "Whartonites" to agree to a general convention of all colonists. Almerian Dickinson, biggest land owner in the settlement of Gonzales, deeply in love with his wife Anne, warns Wharton that a bloody revolt would endanger every wife and mother in the colony. He proposes they send Austin to Mexico City to ask Santa Anna to grant Texans a voice in their own government.
Port Royal, Jamaica, home to the real Pirates of the Caribbean. Once the world's wickedest city - until an earthquake swept into the sea. Now a dive team is using new technology to bring the sunken city to life; and to walk in the footsteps on pirates.