Dated to the late Stone Age, Stonehenge may be the best-known and most mysterious relic of prehistory. Every year, a million visitors are drawn to England to gaze upon the famous circle of stones, but the monument's meaning has continued to elude us. Now investigations inside and around Stonehenge have kicked off a dramatic new era of discovery and debate over who built Stonehenge and for what purpose. How did prehistoric people quarry, transport, sculpt, and erect these giant stones? Granted exclusive access to the dig site at Bluestonehenge, a prehistoric stone-circle monument recently discovered about a mile from Stonehenge, NOVA cameras join a new generation of researchers finding important clues to this enduring mystery.
On a stormy day in May of 1889, the South Fork Dam impounding Conemaugh Lake exploded, unleashing a 40-foot wall of water. The bustling industrial city of Johnstown, PA, in the valley below was reduced to a wasteland, killing more than 2,200. This heavily dramatized documentary reviews the factors that led to the dam's collapse, while dramatic reenactments and survivors' personal testimonies detail the horror.
CHINA: A CENTURY OF REVOLUTION is a six-hour tour de force journey through the country's most tumultuous period. First televised on PBS, this award-winning documentary series presents an astonishingly candid view of a once-secret nation with rare archival footage, insightful historical commentary and stunning eyewitness accounts from citizens who struggled through China's most decisive century. Mao's death begins BORN UNDER THE RED FLAG, which follows the country's new leadership of Deng Xiaoping and its unlikely transformation into an extraordinary hybrid of communist-centralized politics with an ever-expanding free market economy.
CHINA: A CENTURY OF REVOLUTION is a six-hour tour de force journey through the country's most tumultuous period. First televised on PBS, this award-winning documentary series presents an astonishingly candid view of a once-secret nation with rare archival footage, insightful historical commentary and stunning eyewitness accounts from citizens who struggled through China's most decisive century. CHINA IN REVOLUTION charts the country's most violent era where decades of civil war and foreign invasions led to the bloody battle for power between Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek.
CHINA: A CENTURY OF REVOLUTION is a six-hour tour de force journey through the country's most tumultuous period. First televised on PBS, this award-winning documentary series presents an astonishingly candid view of a once-secret nation with rare archival footage, insightful historical commentary and stunning eyewitness accounts from citizens who struggled through China's most decisive century. THE MAO YEARS examines the turbulent era of Mao's attempts to forge a "new China" from the war-ravaged and poverty-stricken nation.
This film follows the path of the Jonah Family in remembrance of the loss of their son, Jack, to a heroin overdose. The film brings awareness to the drug/opioid crisis in Massachusetts and the world itself. Focusing on Jack's Family and people they meet along the way, it shows different types of grief, the signs of an addiction we may miss, and how we can inspire courage to be contagious.
Over the course of two centuries, seven million men, women and children abandoned their homeland for America's shores. In just one horrifying decade, two million left to escape a famine that left another million dead. This is the moving chronicle of the Irish immigrant experience.
How U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson used his political prowess to make the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 happen. The story is told using rarely-seen footage, interviews and secret White House tapes.
In the middle of a broadcast about Typhoon Yolanda's initial impact, reporter Jiggy Manicad was faced with the reality that he no longer had communication with his station. They were, for all intents and purposes, stranded in Tacloban. With little option, and his crew started the six hour walk to Alto, where the closest broadcast antenna was to be found. Letting the world know what was happening to was a priority, but they were driven by the need to let their families and friends know they were all still alive. Along the way, they encountered residents and victims of the massive typhoon, and with each step it became increasingly clear just how devastating this storm was. This was a storm that was going to change lives.
The first biographical film on the famed Mexican artist, traces his life from childhood through his Cubist period, his leading role in the Mexican mural renaissance, his fame as a muralist in the USA, and his later years. The film explores Rivera's life and work, including his stormy relationship with Frida Kahlo and the destruction of his famous mural at Rockefeller Center. Shot on location in Mexico and the United States, the film includes a remarkable collection of archival film and photographs, much of which has not been seen before. The text is drawn from the writings of Rivera and Kahlo and from other historical texts. Using Rivera's own words, this richly detailed film brings to life the difficulty he faced in his transition from studio artist to public and political artist, and the conflicts that arose from that point onward.
Professor Niall Ferguson argues that Britain's decision to enter the First World War was a catastrophic error that unleashed an era of totalitarianism and genocide.
A film essay contrasting the modern metropolis with its "golden age" from 1830-1930, with the participation of some of New York's leading political and cultural figures. Made at a time when the city was experiencing unprecedented real estate development on the one hand and unforeseen displacement of population and deterioration on the other. Empire City is the story of two New Yorks. The film explores the precarious coexistence of the service-based midtown Manhattan corporate headquarters with the peripheral New York of undereducated minorities living in increasing alienation.
Journey back in time to a different age, when the sun never set on the British Empire and her armies were great in number. The Boer War: 1899-1902 was a turning point in British military history and would revolutionize tactics, battlefield strategy, equipment, and training. Well known participants in the Boar Wars include: Harry "Breaker" Morant, Winston Churchill and Mahatma Gandhi.
From 1989 to 1991 a string of unpredictable events happened that brought to light the rivalry between two men: Gorbachev, hindered by the economic results of his perestroika, and Yeltsin, embodying the hopes of the Russian people. Illustrated with interviews of top protagonists such as Mikhail Gobachev himself, the documentary recounts the critical last two years of the former USSR.
John Newton was a troubled young man with a violent temper and a penchant for vulgarity that literally made his fellow sailors blush. Whipped for desertion and sold into slavery, it seemed his life would end early in a West African grave...until he was rescued by a ship captain sent by his father. Following a powerful conversion experience during a storm at sea, Newton would eventually become a pastor in the Church of England and the writer of several of the church's most beloved hymns, including "Amazing Grace".