mawmawmaw {!T}A Portrait of Leslie Phillips (2013){:}

{/T}An intimate glimpse into the life of Leslie Phillips, the legendary actor, writer and veritable British institution. Leslie invites the audience into his home for a frank and open conversation about his career, his family background and his beloved late wife. The informal yet revealing chat is interwoven with personal insights from some of the greats who have worked with him. From his first professional appearance at the newly built Pinewood - both the studios and Leslie having recently celebrated their 75th anniversary in the industry - up to the international phenomenon of Harry Potter, this heartfelt documentary shows how he gained not only an ardent film and television fan base, but also the love of his 'Twittersnappers', the affectionate moniker for his legion of online followers.

mawmawmaw {!T}A History of Syria (2013){:}

{/T}Dan Snow travels to Syria to see how the country's fascinating and tumultuous history is shaping the current civil war. For thousands of years empires and despots have fought for control of the strategically vital region, leaving behind stunning temples, castles and mosques, as well as a diverse cultural heritage. Those conflicts - from the Roman conquests to the crusades, from the French colonial invasion to the military coups of the 1960s - loom large in today's conflict. For those confused by the seemingly random nature of the bloodshed and slaughter, Dan Snow unpicks the historic divisions between Sunnis and Alawites, Islamists and secularists, east and west.

mawmawmaw {!T}A History of Christianity (2009){:}

{/T}Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch - one of the world's leading historians - reveals the origins of Christianity and explores what it means to be a Christian.

Part 1: The First Christianity
In the first of a six-part series sweeping across four continents, Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch goes in search of Christianity's forgotten origins. He overturns the familiar story that it all began when the apostle Paul took Christianity from Jerusalem to Rome, showing that its origins lie further east, and that at one point it was poised to triumph in Asia. The headquarters of Christianity may well have been Baghdad not Rome, in which case western Christianity would have been very different.

Part 2: Catholicism - The Unpredictable Rise of Rome
In a series tracing Christianity's roots, Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch explores the rise of the Roman Catholic Church. Over one billion Christians look to Rome, but how did a small Jewish sect from the backwoods of 1st century Palestine, which preached humility and the virtue of poverty, become the established religion of western Europe? MacCulloch tells how confession was invented by monks in a remote island off the coast of Ireland, and how the Crusades gave Britain the university system.

Part 3: Orthodoxy - From Empire to Empire
Diarmaid MacCulloch explores Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which flourishes in the Balkans and Russia but has had to fight for its survival. After its glory days in the Roman Empire, it stood in the path of Muslim expansion, suffered betrayal by crusading Catholics, was seized by the Russian tsars and faced near-extinction under communism. MacCulloch visits a collection of icons in the Sinai desert, a relic of the iconoclastic crisis in Istanbul and Ivan the Terrible's cathedral in Moscow.

Part 4: Reformation - The Individual before God
Diarmaid MacCulloch makes sense of the Reformation, revealing how a faith based on obedience and authority gave birth to one based on individual conscience. He shows how Martin Luther wrote hymns to teach people the message of the Bible, and how a tasty sausage became the rallying cry for Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli to tear down statues of saints, allow married clergy and deny that communion bread and wine were the body and blood of Christ.

Part 5: Protestantism - The Evangelical Explosion
Diarmaid MacCulloch traces the growth of an exuberant expression of faith that has spread across the globe - Evangelical Protestantism. Today associated with conservative politics, it is easily forgotten that the Evangelical explosion has been driven by a concern for social justice and the claim that one could stand in a direct emotional relationship with God. MacCulloch shows how it allowed the Protestant faith to burst away from its homeland in Europe to America, Africa and, recently, Asia.

Part 6: God in the Dock
Diarmaid MacCulloch examines a distinctive feature about Western Christianity - scepticism, the tendency to doubt. He challenges the simplistic notion that faith in Christianity has ebbed away before the advance of science, reason and progress, and shows instead how the tide of faith perversely flows back in. Despite the damage inflicted to its moral credibility by the two great wars of the 20th century, it is during crisis that the Church has rediscovered deep and enduring truths about itself.

mawmawmaw {!T}A History of Ancient Britain (2011){:}

{/T}A History of Ancient Britain will turn the spotlight onto the very beginning of Britain’s story. From the last retreat of the glaciers 12,000 years ago, until the departure of the Roman Empire in the Fifth Century AD this epic series will reveal how and why these islands and nations of ours developed as they did and why we have become the people we are today. The first series transmits in early 2011 and there will be a following series in 2012.

Episode 1: Age of Ice

Neil Oliver travels back to ice age Britain as he begins the epic story of how our land and its people came to be over thousands of years of ancient history. This week sees a struggle for survival in a brutal world of climate change and environmental catastrophe.

Episode 2: Age of Ancestors

Neil Oliver continues the story of how today's Britain and its people were forged over thousands of years of ancient history. It's 4,000 BC and the first farmers arrive from Europe, with seismic consequences for the local hunter-gatherers.

Episode 3: Age of Cosmology

Neil Oliver continues his journey through the world of Ancient Britain as he encounters an age of cosmological priests and some of the greatest monuments of the Stone Age, including Stonehenge itself. This is a time of elite travellers, who were inventing the very idea of Heaven itself.

Episode 4: Age of Bronze

Neil Oliver reaches the end of his epic tour of our most distant past with the arrival of metals and the social revolution that ushered in a new age of social mobility, international trade, and village life.

mawmawmaw {!T}A Boy in Harris (2011){:}

{/T}Donnie MacSween was a schoolboy when the BBC made 'A Boy in Harris' in the 1960s. This programme looks at his life since then, plus an opportunity to see the original acclaimed documentary once more.

mawmawmaw {!T}50 Shocking Facts About Diet and Exercise (2013){:}

{/T}A countdown show looking at the shocking truth behind what we eat and the often dangerous and misguided methods we adopt in order to lose weight. Scientists, industry experts and exponents discuss the pros and cons of fad diets, 'healthy' foods and extreme exercise regimes. We all know about the benefits of exercise, good diet, looking good and living a healthy lifestyle, but most of the things that are good for us can bring side-effects that are precisely the opposite. Incontinence, infertility, infected genitalia, energy drink madness, hip replacements and even death are commonplace among the beautiful people – as are botched surgeries, extremely dangerous self-harming diets and bizarre exercise programmes.

mawmawmaw {!T}42nd Street: River To River (2009){:}

{/T}A graphic history of one of the world's most infamous streets: Manhattan's 42nd Street. Likened to a DNA strip of New York City, the street has ranged from the glamorous to the derelict, housing everything from peep shows to such international institutions as the United Nations. The documentary is an exploration of the street's expansion from the farmland where Washington bivouacked his troops to the flashy, commercial center that it is today. With historical information, musical performances and personal narratives, the film traces the rise, subsequent dilapidation, and eventual resurgence of a street that has come to represent a place where, notoriously, anything may and has happened.

mawmawmaw {!T}1959: The Year that Changed Jazz (2009){:}

{/T}1959 was the seismic year jazz broke away from complex bebop music to new forms, allowing soloists unprecedented freedom to explore and express. It was also a pivotal year for America - the nation was enjoying freedom and wealth; social, racial and upheavals were just around the corner; and jazz was ahead of the curve. Four major jazz albums were made, each a high watermark for the artists and a reflection of the times - Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, Dave Brubeck's Time Out, Charles Mingus's Mingus Ah Um and Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come. Each opened up dramatic new possibilities for jazz which continue to be felt. Rarely seen archive performances help bring the era to life and explore what made these albums vital both in 1959 and the years since. The programme contains interviews with Lou Reed, Dave Brubeck, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Haden, Herbie Hancock, Joe Morello and Jimmy Cobb, along with a host of jazz movers and shakers from the 50s and beyond.

mawmawmaw {!T}1929 (2009) _wiki{:}

{/T}Director William Karel examines the biggest stock market crash in history, which occurred on the New York Stock Exchange 80 years ago -- Black Thursday, October 24, 1929. In this film, a wide range of economists and historians take turns discussing the causes of the crash and its economic and political consequences. These included acute poverty and the rise of the extreme right, both of which were to have a considerable impact on the decade to come. 1929 uses a wealth of black-and-white archive footage to illustrate what the experts have to say.

Episode 1: The Crash
Mass consumption is on the rise, with the automobile, the washing machine, and the refrigerator symbolizing a new age of wealth. The middle class has also plunged into stock trading, and the economy seems more prosperous than ever. All is well, until that fateful day. "The crisis of 1929 was like the perfect storm, in which all these improbable things came together in the wrong time in the wrong way."

Episode 2: The Great Depression
The Depression, looks at the 1930s, focusing particularly on President Franklin D. Roosevelt's role. 1929 concludes by connecting these past events to the current financial crisis.

mawmawmaw {!T}Richard Hammond Builds a Planet (2013){:}

{/T}It's the ultimate engineering project: how do you build a planet? And what happens if you get anything wrong? With stunning CGI, Richard Hammond is about to find out.

Part 1: Richard Hammond Builds a Planet

With his trademark wit, Richard Hammond takes on the ultimate engineering project: how on earth do you build a planet that is just right for life? What do you need to build a planet like ours, and what happens if you get anything wrong? With eye-popping graphics, Richard Hammond opens up a cosmic toolbox to work it out. He's going to build the whole thing, piece by piece, from the top of a two-mile high tower in the Californian desert.

Part 2: Richard Hammond Builds a Universe

Richard Hammond takes on the ultimate engineering project. How on earth do you make a planet, or a solar system, a galaxy or even... a universe? To find out, he opens up his cosmic toolbox and builds each one piece by piece, from the top of an impossibly high tower. What does he need to construct the cosmos, and what happens if he gets it wrong? With eye-popping computer graphics, Richard discovers that it takes an entire universe to make our planet just right for us.

mawmawmaw {!T}Building the Great Cathedrals (2010){:}

{/T}Take a dazzling architectural journey inside those majestic marvels of Gothic architecture, the great cathedrals of Chartres, Beauvais and other European cities. Carved from 100 million pounds of stone, some cathedrals now teeter on the brink of catastrophic collapse. To save them, a team of engineers, architects, art historians, and computer scientists searches the naves, bays, and bell-towers for clues. NOVA investigates the architectural secrets that the cathedral builders used to erect their towering, glass-filled walls and reveals the hidden formulas drawn from the Bible that drove medieval builders ever upward.

* Amazing Journeys (1999)

   [Info]Nature
Documentary hosted by
   [Info]Robert Foxworth
   [Info]IMAX
[Date]1999[/Date]

Amazing Journeys takes audiences on six extraordinary journeys of survival and migration. Depicting migration as an endless search for the best conditions in which to thrive and successfully adapt, the film explores the wonders and mysteries surrounding some of earth's most spectacular wildlife and native people.
Witness the mysterious migration of more than 120 million red crabs on tiny Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. In order to to mate and spawn, millions of crabs must scuttle through the island's only town to reach its shores. Female crabs are unable to swim, yet march bravely to the shore's edge to release their eggs. Watch as so many crabs skitter sideways that the land itself seems to pulsate and quiver.

Experience the longest and largest insect migration as monarch butterflies travel 2,500 miles through North America. Witness up close the birth of a butterfly and the various stages of the life of a monarch. Enter a golden blizzard as tens of millions of monarch butterflies fill the sky in the hidden highlands of Mexico. Feel the hushed, sublime wonder of being surrounded by a myriad of these air-dancing creatures.

Take flight alongside migratory birds who possess the most varied display of navigational abilities. Feel the exhilaration from an arm's-length-view of the race down the runway, then the takeoff and ascent of sleek and powerful Canadian geese as they begin their journey south. Navigating by sun, stars and instinct, these birds instinctively know when to begin migrating by sensing seasonal signals of changing temperatures and day lengths. They possess a genetically imprinted "flight manual" which allows them to respond to their surroundings and recognize their destinations.

Watch as hundreds of migrating zebras travel over 500 miles through the vast plains of East Africa. Experience the life and death dramas as we follow them through their encounters with ambushing packs of lions and hyenas. Join the sweeping spectacle as they lead the Great Migration of Africa's greatest predators through crocodile-filled rivers.

* Dambusters Declassified (2013)

Martin Shaw takes a fresh look at one of the most famous war stories of them all. The actor, himself a pilot, takes to the skies to retrace the route of the 1943 raid by 617 Squadron which used bouncing bombs to destroy German dams. He sheds new light on the story as he separates the fact from the myth behind this tale of courage and ingenuity.Using the 1955 movie The Dam Busters as a vehicle to deconstruct the raid, he tries to piece together a picture of perhaps the most daring attack in the history of aviation warfare.Along the way, Shaw hears from the last RAF veteran of the raid, as well as a German survivor of the tsunami which resulted from the Moehne dam's destruction.

* Da Vinci: The Lost Treasure (2011)

Fiona Bruce uncovers the story of Leonardo da Vinci, who is considered by many to be one of the greatest artists who ever lived. Yet his reputation rests on only a handful of pictures - including the world's most famous painting, the Mona Lisa. As the National Gallery in London prepares to open its doors on a remarkable exhibition of Leonardo's work, Fiona travels to Florence, Milan, Paris and Warsaw to learn more about this enigmatic genius - and to New York, where she is given an exclusive preview of a sensational discovery: a new Leonardo.

* Cursed for Gold (2008)

A new gold rush is sweeping through the Amazon rainforest where scores of women and men hunt for nuggets and specks of gold. But this race for gold is bringing on the destruction of one of the last earthly paradises, the world?s largest tropical forest, the lungs of our planet, where everything and anything can be paid in gold.

As a result, a gold ingot cycle has developed with its batch of insolvents, prostitutes, godfathers, traffickers, whether in French Guiana, Brazil or Suriname. Gold has brought upon disease, mercury, crime, alcoholism. Gold has turned creeks and rivers into dumping grounds.

This cycle is that of the destruction of men by men. Whereas the Amazonian rainforest releases 300 tons of gold each year, it receives 120 tons of mercury. An uneven trade: treasure against poison. And as the backdrop, all sorts of traffics are arising: people, weapons, drugs.

In the depths of this borderless jungle also lies the tragedy of the Wayanas, a Native American tribe from Guiana, who are being poisoned by mercury, the element essential to gold mining. The Wayanas are doomed by a looming disappearance. Congenital malformations have already been observed in children. The elderly are developing neurological disorders and cancers. Along with the outrage that is mercury comes another massacre of Indians.

The New Eldorado is enduring one of the world's worst globalization disasters.

* Crash For Cash (2013)

In recession-hit Britain, more and more people are tempted by the lure of insurance cash. While our roads have never been safer, personal injury claims relating to road traffic accidents have shot up 60% in less than a decade.Although some of the culprits are organised criminals, many are just ordinary people.This documentary tells the inside story of Britain's biggest ever crash for cash insurance ring.The long-running scam involved more than 60 people in rural County Durham and put up the annual cost of car insurance in the area by £100.

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* Congo - The Grand Inga Project (2012)

INGA:  They are the world's biggest rapids, 1.6 million cubic feet of water per second, thundering down the final pitch of the mighty Congo River.  They are twice as steep and 100 times the average volume of those found on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon.  Explorers have tried to conquer these rapids for generations, but none have succeeded.  "It would be insanity in a successor," wrote famed explorer Henry Morton Stanley in 1877, after his right-hand man drowned. "There's nothing shameful in portaging," declared Col. John Blashford-Snell during his multinational team's highly publicized attempt in 1974.  And popular French TV Adventurer Philippe De Dieuleveult never had the chance to comment, as the entire team who attempted the rapids with him, mysteriously vanished in 1985.  The Inga rapids have remained the "the choking stone of navigation" up or down the Congo River for centuries!

After years of planning and research, kayaking icon Steve Fisher first visited the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2007, to initiate his attempt.  He and his logistical team of Pete Meredith and Boston Ndoole, quickly encountered the insurmountable obstacles that come with the maddening politics of a broken country, and it wasn't until 2011 that the team finally got the go-ahead to mount their expedition.  For this mission, Fisher handpicked an elite team of top paddlers including Tyler Bradt of Missoula, Montana; Benny Marr of Ottawa, Canada; and Rush Sturges from Forks of Salmon, California.

"The Grand Inga Project" is the riveting 80-minute documentary that follows the expedition as the team struggles to navigate complicated logistical challenges, and then the historic first descent of a 50-mile section of the Congo River.  No effort is spared in telling the story of what really happens when you decide to take on the deadliest rapids on earth.  "This is a river like no other," recalls Fisher, who's logged dozens of major first descents, "We may have survived, but somehow we feel more humbled than proud."

* Colditz: The Legend (2010)

Colditz ? The Legend tells the exciting stories of some of most daring escapes from Oflag IV C, including the first British home run by Airey Neave and the incredible ?Naked Escape? which saw Pat Reid (on whose story the Colditz series was based) finally make it back to Blighty. The documentary gets first hand insight of day-to-day life inside the camp from Colditz veterans Corran Purdon, Micky Burn and Peter Parker, as well as hearing from the relatives of Pat Reid, Airey Neave, Peter Storie-Pugh, Dougie Moir and Jock Hamilton-Baillie, who share their memories, photographs and memorabilia.

* The Falcon's Swoop (2005)

Jeff bungee jumps off a bridge with a peregrine falcon, is chased by a deadly black mamba, puts a cheetah through its paces and races with basilisk lizards.

* Corner Store (2010)

Produced in San Francisco, Corner Store introduces audiences to Yousef Elhaj - beloved Shop Owner, Palestinian immigrant, long-distance father and his struggle to make good on the promise of a better life for his family. Ten years ago during the second Intifada, Yousef left his wife and small children in Bethlehem to start a new life for them in San Francisco. For the past decade he has worked day and night to build a small business, save money, and become part of his adopted community while trying to stay connected from afar. Corner Store follows Yousef's journey back to his fractured homeland to finally reunite with his wife and now-grown kids. But a lot has changed, and Yousef must confront the current realities in both his family and his country and decide if a new life in America is really still the right path for them to take. Maybe staying in Palestine is the best option after all. Stay or go? It is an age-old choice that will decide their future, and one they ultimately make together as a family.

* Clash Encounters of Bears and Wolves (2010)

The wilds of Yellowstone National Park are a world of predators, scavengers and opportunists. In this vast and complex kingdom, two dominant predators reign supreme the grizzly bear and the wolf. Though these two fearsome hunters would normally rule their ranges uncontested, in Yellowstone they must share resources, or face starvation.

* Chivalry and Betrayal: The 100 Years' War (2013)

Dr Janina Ramirez explores the lengthy conflict between England and France when little England dared to take on the superpower France in the 14th and 15th centuries. She begins by examining how Edward III led a crushing English victory at the Battle of Crecy in 1346, focusing on the role played by low-born archers, before moving on to the Black Prince's campaign of terror.

Dr. Janina Ramirez explores the fall-out of the longest and bloodiest divorce in history, when little England dared to take on the superpower France.

Episode 1: Trouble in the Family: 1337-1360

Edward III rips up the medieval rule book and crushes the flower of French knighthood at the Battle of Crecy with his low-born archers. His son, the Black Prince, conducts a campaign of terror, helping to bring France to her knees.

Episode 2 Breaking the Bonds: 1360-1415

England, wracked by plague and revolt, loses the upper hand until Henry V, determined to prove his right to be king, turns the tide at the battle of Agincourt.

Episode 3 Agents of God

Henry V has claimed the French crown for his heirs, but to secure it the English must conquer all of France. Potent French resistance comes in the most unlikely form of an illiterate, young peasant girl - Joan of Arc.

* Chimpanzee (2012)

Oscar is the nickname given by Tim Allen (the narrator) to a young chimpanzee in his toddler years. He is part of a close-knit tribe of Chimpanzees. They occupy a forest territory which is rich in native fruits, nuts, and figs, among other things. The chimps hunt for nuts, and they also eat ants. They use tools to crack the nuts and to collect the ants. Oscar is tended by his mother, nicknamed Isha, and from her he begins learning many things about how to survive in the jungle. In the chaos of an attempted raid by a rival gang of chimpanzees, led by 'Scar', Isha is injured and separated from the group and her son. As told by Tim Allen, Isha is most probably the victim of a nocturnal leopard.

Unaware of his mother's death, Oscar spends much of his time looking for her. He finds trouble in recalling the things she taught him and begins to lose weight quickly. He attempts to find another mother to take care of him; however, none of the females can afford him, having young of their own to raise. As time goes on, Oscar is rejected by nearly every chimp in the group, until the only one left to ask is the tough-skinned leader, Freddy. However, as Oscar follows the leader and imitates him, it is soon revealed that the unlikely duo may work out. The two gradually warm up to each other more and more, until one day Freddy lets Oscar ride on his back, something normally only mother chimps do. As the alpha male of his community, Freddie is the most likely father of the young chimp he nurtures.

As the rivals prepare for attack, Freddy is forced to take time away from Oscar to organize the other members of the group, and this leaves the young chimp confused. Scar leads a vicious attack, although because of the unity of Freddy's group, they have a rousing success, and Scar and the enemy chimps retreat into the jungle. A few months later, it is revealed that the bond between Freddy and Oscar has continued to grow, and that life in the group is slowly returning to normal.

Also included are most of the special features from the Blu-Ray on a separate torrent. I highly recommend watching it. From what I have read it took over 4 years to film this due to the inherent difficulties of filming in the jungle and trying to get the animals in the shots and not get eaten by some...

* Chasing Madoff (2010)

A look at how one investigator spent ten years trying to expose Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme that scammed an estimated $18 billion from investors.

* Can Science Stop Crime? (2012)

What's the secret to stopping crime? David Pogue gives the third degree to scientists pushing the limits of technology, not only to solve horrific murders but also to try to prevent crimes before they even happen. Pogue learns the latest techniques, from unraveling the clues embedded in a decomposing corpse, to detecting lies by peering directly into a suspect's brain, to tracking the creation of a criminal mind. And we meet a genius crime-stopper who has made some terrifying discoveries, including how easy it is for a bad guy to highjack not just your laptop but your kids' toys, medical devices, even your car.

* California, 90420 (2012)

A glimpse into the world of weed through the eyes of Oaksterdam University Students and OU Chancellor.

* Chasing Ice (2012)

Acclaimed photographer James Balog was once a sceptic about climate change. But through his Extreme Ice Survey, he discovers undeniable evidence of our changing planet. In Chasing Ice, Balog deploys revolutionary time-lapse cameras to capture a multi-year record of the world's changing glaciers. His hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate. Travelling with a team of young adventurers across the brutal Arctic, Balog risks his career and his well-being in pursuit of the biggest story facing humanity. As the debate polarises America, and the intensity of natural disasters ramps up globally, Chasing Ice depicts a heroic photojournalist on a mission to deliver fragile hope to our carbon-powered planet.

* Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life (2009)

David Attenborough asks three key questions: how and why did Darwin come up with his theory of evolution? Why do we think he was right? And why is it more important now than ever before?

David starts his journey in Darwin's home at Down House in Kent, where Darwin worried and puzzled over the origins of life. David goes back to his roots in Leicestershire, where he hunted for fossils as a child, and where another schoolboy unearthed a significant find in the 1950s. And he revisits Cambridge University, where both he and Darwin studied, and where many years later the DNA double helix was discovered, providing the foundations for genetics.

At the end of his journey in the Natural History Museum in London, David concludes that Darwin's great insight revolutionised the way in which we see the world. We now understand why there are so many different species, and why they are distributed in the way they are. But above all, Darwin has shown us that we are not set apart from the natural world, and do not have dominion over it. We are subject to its laws and processes, as are all other animals on earth to which, indeed, we are related.

* Caught In The Act: Life And Death (2012)

From brutal kills to remarkable bravery and the miracle of birth, these stories show victories and defeats for some of Africa’s youngest animals.

* Casino Jack and the United States of Money (2010)

A probing investigation into the lies, greed and corruption surrounding D.C. super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his cronies.

* Cannibal Island (2009)

In 1933 Stalin organizes a great "cleansing" of Moscow and Leningrad of all the citizens deemed a social nuisance. This film recounts the untold story of these 6000 "unwanted", sent to Nazino, a lost island in the middle of Siberia. Deported with no food, clothes or tools, these poor men, women and children suffered the torture of hunger until they had no choice but to devour each other... An unbelievable and terrible story that plays like a thriller and with a tension that lasts until the end.

* Burying King Tut (2013)

Follow a team of Egyptologists as they investigate Tutankhamun's burial. Tutankhamun was one of the most famous characters in the entire ancient world - his fabulous treasures are now known the world over. This programme follows an international team of Egyptologists as they investigate his burial. Their painstaking detective work reveals his burial was a rush job. Reuse and recycling was the order of the day as powerful people competed to claim the young Pharaoh's vacant throne.

* Kuru: The Science and the Sorcery (2010)

Australian scientist Michael Alpers dedicated over 50 years to researching Kuru, an obscure and incurable brain disease unique to the Fore people of New Guinea. Kuru was once thought to be a psychosomatic illness, an infection, a genetic disorder, even a sorcerer's curse, but Alpers' findings pointed to cannibalism as the culprit. Yet a recent discovery has proven to be even more disturbing: the malady is linked to mad cow disease and its human equivalent, variant CJD. With a decades-long incubation period, could a larger outbreak be on its way?

* MythBusters: Bubble Pack Plunge (2012)

Adam and Jamie determine if a person wrapped in bubble packaging could survive a fall from a building. Also: Ejection-seat experiments are conducted.

* Broken Tail: A Tiger's Last Journey (2011)

Irish cameraman, Colin Stafford-Johnson spent almost 600 days filming Broken Tail and his family for some of the finest tiger documentaries ever made. Broken Tail was the most charismatic tiger cub ever seen in Ranthambore, one of India's best protected tiger reserves. But suddenly and without warning Broken Tail abandoned his sanctuary and went on the run moving through farmland and scrub until he was killed by a train nearly 200 miles from its home. To track Broken Tail's incredible journey, Colin and his soundman, Salim, retrace the tiger's path and piece together the cub's last days - and through his story reveal the fate of the few surviving tigers in India.

* Broadside: Emerging Empires Collide (2009)

Throughout the 17th century the Dutch and English fought desperate wars over which country would dominate world trade for the next two centuries. They waged massive sea battles in Europe and embarked on violent raids in Asia, Africa and North America. This brilliant two-part series employs drama, large-scale re-enactments, computer animation and interviews to chronicle these fierce struggles, such as that between the King of England, Charles II and Johann de Witt, the bold and able Dutch leader who stopped a war the young Dutch Republic could not win.

Computer generated 3D animation reveals, for the first time, what sea battles between hundreds of large sailing warships looked like. Naval experts describe the tactics and technologies of large sailing ships capable of half-ton broadsides and fleets with more firepower than any land army, while historians provide a modern-day perspective of how political leaders responded for the first time to the demand for freedom of conscience and religion.

* Bones Of The Buddha (2013)

Do the jewels, bones and ashes found in an Indian tomb in 1898 mark the final resting place of the Buddha himself? Or was it all an elaborate hoax? Renowned historian of India, Charles Allen sets to solve this extraordinary mystery once and for all.

* Bullets, Boots And Bandages (2012)

Military historian Saul David tells the real stories of how wars have been won and lost throughout history - not in the bravado of the frontline, but in the backroom sinews of military planning.

Episode 1 - Staying Alive
Military historian Saul David looks at how to keep an army fed and housed.

Episode 2 - Stealing a March
Saul David looks at how generals have met the challenge of moving armies.

Episode 3 - Raising Arms
How generals have struggled to kit out their armies for battle and how to pay for it.

* Bomber Boys (2012)

Brothers Colin and Ewan McGregor follow up their documentary The Battle of Britain with a film exploring Bomber Command, a rarely-told story from the Second World War.

The film focuses primarily on the men who fought and died in the skies above occupied Europe, with numerous examples of individual heroism and extraordinary collective spirit, and Colin learns to fly the key aircraft of the campaign: the Lancaster bomber. But this is also the story of a controversy that has lasted almost 70 years.

The programme covers six years of wartime operations, and traces the obstacles and challenges that were overcome as the RAF developed and deployed the awesome fighting force that was Bomber Command

* Bobby Fischer Against the World (2011)

'Bobby Fischer Against the World' is the first documentary feature to explore the tragic and bizarre life of the late chess master Bobby Fischer. The drama of Bobby Fischer's career was undeniable, from his troubled childhood, to his rock star status as World Champion and Cold War icon, to his life as a fugitive on the run. This film explores one of the most infamous and mysterious characters of the 20th century.

* Black Rain: Fruitless Data on the A-Bomb Survivors (2012)

Soon after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a black rain containing radioactive materials fell from the sky. No detailed data has ever been released on where this contaminated rain fell, and the extent of this form of radiation. But at the end of 2011, enquiries by a doctor in Nagasaki led to the disclosure that investigators in the 1950s had collected data on some 13,000 people exposed to black rain. Why has this information yet to be released -- 67 years after the atomic bombings? And what might we learn from these cases today? Our investigation includes accounts from survivors. Full title: Black Rain - Fruitless Data on the A-Bomb Survivors.

* Birth of Europe (2012)

In terms of area, Europe is the second smallest continent, but it is an amazingly diverse area. It extends from the frozen Arctic north to the shores of Africa. And it has an epic history of colliding continents, erupting volcanoes, ice ages - and even large asteroid impacts. In the three-part series Birth Of Europe, the geological past and present of Europe examined. Geology has made Europe what it is today. It has formed the coastline, is responsible for the separation between islands and the mainland, but also the shape of the Mediterranean. All these elements are in turn responsible for how countries took shape where people live and where trade routes were established. Almost all of our continent, the history, appearance and position of the cities, in one form or another.

* Bet Raise Fold (2013)

A look at the origins and evolution of the Internet poker industry during the 2000s and its impact on a new generation of poker professionals. It examines the conflict between the US government and online gambling that eventually led to 'Black Friday,' the government shutdown of online poker in the United States. The rise and fall of the billion dollar industry is woven with the lives of three major characters: Danielle, a young mother from Minnesota who used online poker to support her family; Tony, a polyamorous Las Vegas tournament pro who hosts the World Poker Tour on television; and Martin, a math genius and poker savant from Australia who used his poker winnings to travel the world.

* Being Neil Armstrong (2009)

It has been said that ten thousand years from now, only one name will still be remembered - that of Neil Armstrong. But in the four decades since he first set foot on the moon, Armstrong has become increasingly reclusive.

Andrew Smith, author of the best-selling book Moondust, journeys across America to try and discover the real Neil Armstrong. He tracks down the people who knew Armstrong, from his closest childhood friend to fellow astronauts and Houston technicians, and even the barber who sold his hair, in a wry and sideways look at the reluctant hero of the greatest event of the twentieth century.

* Behind Closed Doors at Marriott (2012)

CNBC goes behind the scenes to tell the story of one of the largest hotel empires in the world. Marriott International spans 74 countries, 3700 properties, and 18 brands – from Courtyard to Marriott to Ritz-Carlton – and pulls off the massive feat of housing and feeding guests in more than 645,000 rooms each night. With extraordinary behind-the-scenes access, the documentary will explore the strange science of hotel pricing, explain why guests can pay wildly different prices for comparable rooms and profile an executive chef as he prepares a banquet for 2000 people. CNBC cameras examine the Ritz-Carlton's obsessive culture of customer service, and travel to India to witness Marriott's shrewd expansion into the developing world – all part of the story of an American, family-run dynasty that's thrived by walking the line between playing it safe and taking some calculated and hugely successful risks.

* Beer is Cheaper than Therapy (2011)

"I'm 22 years old and I must have killed 30 people. The same thing that you were given badges for over in Iraq, would have you considered a serial killer over here. That's a very weird thought to have running around in your head when it's dark, going to sleep or late at night."

There is no place for doubt, sadness and fear in the American army. Still, many soldiers struggle with these feelings. Beer is Cheaper than Therapy portrays what goes on behind the facade of heroism and the 'John Wayne mentality'.

* Beatles Stories (2011)

A big fan of The Beatles growing up in the 60s, Seth Swirsky noticed that whenever he heard someone relating a story about themselves and The Beatles, he was "all ears". So, starting in 2005, he sought out and filmed those with never before heard, "Beatles Stories".

Songwriter Seth Swirsky grew up in the 1960s idolizing the Beatles - their songs, their sound and their style. In 2004, he set out, video camera in hand, to talk to people who had crossed paths with his heroes. From Sir Ben Kingsley to Sir George Martin, and Beach Boy Brian Wilson to astronomer Brian Skiff, Swirsky filmed hundreds of personal recollections from people who knew them well to those who just had an unforgettable encounter. Others who shared their recollections of the Fabs include: actors Henry Winkler (aka "The Fonz") and Jon Voight; former Beatles recording engineers Norman "Hurricane" Smith, Ken Scott, and John Kurlander; musicians Smokey Robinson, Jackie DeShannon, Graham Nash, Davy Jones, Susanna Hoffs and Art Garfunkel, among dozens of others. Swirsky found stories in unexpected places, getting Beatles' intimates to open up - neighbors, tour mates, business associates, and even former girlfriends - telling stories you've never heard before.

* Bear Grylls: How to Stay Alive (2012)

MAN VS. WILD host, author and seasoned adventurer BEAR GRYLLS began a lifetime of exploration at an early age. Bear grew up on the Isle of Wight, and as a young boy would go mountain climbing with his father.

He served three years with the Special Air Service, a special forces unit of the British army. During his service, he broke his back in three places in a parachuting accident over Southern Africa.

* Bavaria a Dream Trip (2012)

Whoever knows Germany, knows that Bavarians (like me) are a little different from the other Germans. One one side very traditional, on the other hand forward looking, always trying to combine modern times with the good ol'times. Josef Vilsmeier - like every Bavarian - loves his homeland, and so he just wants to depict his homeland in a cinematic way. He spent dozens of hours in a helicopter over Bavaria, only shortly interrupted by short pauses in which he shows images of a few larger cities or certain points of interest or to show images of typical Bavarian tradition, and watching the beautiful images, they are simply great and show the beauty of our homeland. But still - a lot of things are missing, and some of the text spoken by the director himself leave a foul taste.... To the things missing: there are almost no informations to Bavarian history. The traditions shown in the film are mainly catholic Christian traditions, besides, there is a lot more in Bavaria than the Oktoberfest. There is a clear dominance to the city of Munich (more than a fourth of the film), which is the hometown of the director, but Bavaria is definitely not only Munich! And, two of the more peripheral regions of the country of Bavaria are only mentioned very shortly, typical for the pure Bavarian, that considers himself somehow to be in the middle of everything. And this is where the film and some of the director's remarks leave a bad taste: he mentions Bavaria to be the ;Land with the most economic power in Europe;the best of the world; come on, I am a Bavarian, but mainly, I'm German! Germany is a independent country, not Bavaria, it's just a part of Germany. And Germany - like all countries - has other beautiful places as well. A certain patriotism is good, but I personally despise this strong feeling of ;Bavarian supremacy;. In conclusion: beautiful pictures, no equilibrium in documentation, lack of historic details, other people of Bavaria than the dominating Bavarians and Frankonians clearly underrepresented. And someone outside Bavaria will definitely be disgusted by this tone of Bavarian supremacy. At school the teacher would say: insufficient work, Grade E (or Note 5 in Germany), sit down.

* Battleground Afghanistan (2013)

Battleground Afghanistan looks inside the latest chapter of the Afghan conflict as seen by American Marines on the front-lines of the war. As tens of thousands of troops withdraw from Afghanistan, Capt. Ben Middendorf and his men of Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines — based at Camp Pendleton in San Diego — are staying behind to continue the fight. These Marines are taking the fight directly to the Taliban with a mission to locate, disrupt and destroy the enemy.

* Baseball - The Tenth Inning (2010)

A documentary film directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. It tells the tumultuous story of the national pastime from the 1990s to the present day.

Introducing an unforgettable array of players, teams and fans, the film showcases the era's extraordinary accomplishments and heroics — as well as its devastating losses and disappointments.
Combining extraordinary highlights, stunning still photographs, and insightful commentary by players, managers, and fans.

* Bank of Dave: Fighting the Fat Cats (2013)

In July last year, minibus dealer David Fishwick tried to open his own bank in Burnley, Lancashire, and make it profitable in just six months. His scheme was praised by politicians and locals alike, but not everyone was a fan, and he experienced problems persuading the Financial Services Authority to grant a banking licence. This one-off programme reveals whether David managed to stay open for business and beat the high-street giants at their own game.

* Azores: The World Underwater (2011)

Blue Sharks majestically cut through the sea whilst Sperm Whales, the giants of the ocean, raise their young right by the coast. Manta rays silently float through the sea like oversize birds alongside huge schools of fish. These are the inhabitants of a unique underwater spectacle that only can be found in the Azores. Join the film crew on a journey to this enchanting submarine world. Get up-close and personal with these spectacular beasts, in their fascinating and beautiful and completely unique natural habitat.

Part 1:

Sharks, Whales, Manta Rays

Part 2:

Discoverers, Whales, Volcanoes

Part 3:

People, Fauna, Lifestyle

* Australia's First 4 Billion Years: Awakening (2013)

Hidden in the red hills of Australia are clues to the mysteries of Earth's birth, how life arose and how it transformed the planet into the world we now live in. Experts unveil the earliest forms of life: an odd assortment of bacterial slime. Life like this would flood the atmosphere with oxygen and spark the biological revolution that conquered the planet. Travel with NOVA and host Dr. Richard Smith to meet the cast in the first scenes of the great drama of life on earth.

* Attenborough's Natural Curiosities (2013)

A five part series in which Sir David Attenborough shines the spotlight on some of nature's evolutionary anomalies and how these curious animals continue to baffle and fascinate. Attenborough turns away from the kind of widescreen wildlife that often sweeps across our screens and adopts a more zoomed-in approach. As you'd expect, it's exemplary broadcasting. What the series lacks in lush landscapes and beauty shots, it more than makes up for with extraordinary stats. It's the best kind of educational television.

Part 1: Stretched to the Limit

David explores nature's evolutionary anomalies and examines two creatures whose stretched features have given them an edge in the natural world. The chameleon has an extra-long tongue that helps it catch prey and the giraffe's neck is so long it is easily able to reach the tops of trees for food.

Part 2: A Curious Hoax

David Attenborough highlights the curiosities that have led to accusations of forgery, but have ultimately helped assist the rethinking of evolution. When early explorers brought the first specimen of a duck-billed platypus to England in 1799, it was considered so bizarre it was deemed a hoax. Similarly, the midwife toad became the centre of a scientific storm in the 1920s that led to accusations of fakery.

Part 3: Young Wrinklies

David Attenborough encounters two species with wrinkly skin, where nature has tinkered with the aging process to different effect. The mole rat retains its looks while growing old and the elephant looks old from birth. Both creatures live relatively long lives.

Part 4: A Curious Twist

The single spiral tusk of the narwhal inspiration for tales of unicorns and the myriad variations on the twist of the snail shell have delighted and fascinated naturalists and artists since the dawn of civilization

Part 5: Seeing the Pattern

Zebra stripes vary subtly between the different species but there is one group of animals that has evolved colourful patterns of seemingly infinite variety, the butterflies. In this episode David looks at two examples of animal patterns that have bedazzled and baffled science for a long time, and uses modern tools to unlock their secrets.

* Animal Attacks On Vacation (2012)

An investigation of the dangerous creatures that lurk in the Caribbean, including sharks, sting rays, hound fish and crocodiles.

* Art of the Vikings (2013)

Through interpretations of some of the archaeological treasures of the Swedish National Museum, now on display in Edinburgh, Dr Janina Ramirez of Oxford University explores the fascinating wealth of Viking culture and its long-lasting influence on the British Isles.

* Argo: Inside Story (2013)

It's awards season and movie critics are buzzing over Ben Affleck's Argo, which chronicles the CIA's attempt to rescue six Americans during the Iran hostage crisis. But what really happened during the covert operation? And did the events really unfold as seen in the movie? In ARGO: Inside Story, Discovery Channel gains access to the top players involved to hear their side of the story, including the CIA's "chief of disguise," Tony Mendez, who was called upon to devise the rescue plan. The one-hour special gives an inside look at the dramatic escape and how Mendez forged identity documents and elaborate disguises to get past the security agents at the Tehran airport.

* Arabia: A Story of the Golden Ages (2011)

Takes viewers deep into an exotic land steeped in 2,000 years of ancient history and unique customs not found anywhere else in the world. As if on a magic carpet ride across this desert kingdom, audiences will discover the lost city of Madain Saleh, explore its ancient tombs, travel with a camel caravan along the early frankincense trade route, survive a desert sandstorm, dive the coral reefs and shipwrecks of the Red Sea, experience the warmth of the world-famous Beduoin hospitality, and join in the annual hajj pilgrimage, where 2 million Muslims gather in Meccah in the single largest gathering of people on Earth. They will also discover modern day Arabia, which finds itself in the midst of monumental change.

* Apocalypse: The Second World War (2009)

This series tells the epic story of World War II, providing an insight into the experiences of the millions of soldiers who fought across countries and continents, and the moving stories of the millions of civilians who saw their homes destroyed and lives disrupted by the cataclysm of war.

To tell this story, the best footage of World War II has been painstakingly transformed into colour, using digital techniques. Along with original colour home movies, it gives a new perspective on one of the great events of the last century.

Episode 1: Hitler's Rise to Power (1933-1939)

This first episode covers Hitler's invasion of Poland, when the world stood on the brink of war, and features stunning colourised footage of the catastrophe faced by the Polish army as it was crushed by the Nazi war machine.

Episode 2: Collapse of France (1939-1940)

The story of Hitler's lightning invasion of France and its rapid collapse, of the evacuation from Dunkirk, and of the summer of 1940 when Britain fought on alone. In new digital colour, this episode shows the Battle of Britain and the Blitz.

Episode 3: Origins of the Holocaust (1940-1941)

The story of Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, of Rommel's war against the British in North Africa and of the horrors of the murder of Russian Jews - sometimes known as the Holocaust by Bullets.

Episode 4: American Allies (1941-1942)

The story of the sudden Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the early days of the war in the Pacific. Back in Europe, this episode looks at the bombing offensive against Germany and at the appalling crime of the Holocaust.

Episode 5: Allies Strike Back (1942-1943)

This episode looks at the turning of the war against Germany, with Allied victory at El Alamein and Russian triumph at Stalingrad. Inside Hitler's Germany the SS gain more power, and in southern Europe the Allies fight their way though Italy.

Episode 6: Retreat and Surrender (1944-1945)

The dramatic story of the D-Day landings and of the liberation of Paris. In the east the Soviets liberate Auschwitz and fight their way to the heart of Berlin. Germany finally surrenders, but Japan fights on until the atom bombs are dropped.

* An Inside Look - Survival Training (2004)

Imagine being stranded behind enemy lines. All that keeps you alive are your wits and training. For American aviators this scenario has played out all too often. To give their pilots a fighting chance the Us military puts its aviators thoug the toughest tests it can come up with. Pilots learn to respond instantly to a variety of survival situations. While thes aviators are only role playing now, these are not games. Training their minds as well as their bodies so this training becomes instict and they know how to survive.

* An Apology to Elephants (2013)

Few animals hold more fascination for humans than elephants. For centuries they've been adored, inspired great works of art, and even been revered as gods, yet they have also been treated with cruelty. AN APOLOGY TO ELEPHANTS explores the abuse of these ancient and intelligent animals and shows how some people are reversing the trend. Narrated and executive produced by Lily Tomlin and directed by Emmy® winner Amy Schatz, with narration written by Jane Wagner.

As a keystone species, elephants promote biodiversity, helping trees, plants and animals flourish; as highly intelligent, empathetic and social animals, they are unique and remarkable creatures. But humans have poached elephants, chained and trained them in captivity, and destroyed their natural habitats. “The first thing we need to know is that the elephants need our help,” says Lily Tomlin.

* Inside America's Money Vault (2013)

Whether its cash, gold, or digital-data bits, we all know that money makes the world go round. But what our host, Jake Ward of Popular Science magazine discovers in this one hour special is that without the engines that power the world?s financial systems, that world would grind to a halt. For the first time, National Geographic Channel takes you inside the heart of the money machine to places that you?re not allowed to bring a camera? straight into the vaults of some of the world?s largest stashes of what you want, need, and bust your butt to get: Money. America?s Money Vault follows 55 million dollars worth of gold as it makes its way down into the most valuable gold vault in the world. Hidden deep under the streets of New York City, hundreds of billion dollars in gold bars?the wealth of nations?are tucked away in a bunker that is anchored to the bedrock of Manhattan Island itself. Next, we head above ground to a place where twenty four billion dollars changes hands every year, New York?s Gold District. Jake goes behind the storefronts to see how everybody from the street level to the brokers make their money buying, selling and even finding gold. He meets Onikwa Thomas who calls himself the urban miner and claims to earn up to four hundred dollars a week off of gold specks found in the cracks of sidewalks. And steps away thousands of dollars in transactions take place, made by Dimitriy Nezhinskiy as he wheels and deals in the world of gold hawkers.

* American Masters: The Day Carl Sandburg Died (2012)

Carl Sandburg (1878 – 1967) was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He was the recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and another for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat".

* American Experience (Series)

Jesse Owens (2012)
The most famous athlete of his time, his stunning triumph at the 1936 Olympic Games captivated the world even as it infuriated the Nazis. Despite the racial slurs he endured, Jesse Owens' grace and athleticism rallied crowds across the globe. But when the four-time Olympic gold medalist returned home, he could not even ride in the front of a bus. The story of the 22-year-old son of a sharecropper who triumphed over adversity to become a hero and world champion, Jesse Owens is also about the elusive, fleeting quality of fame and the way Americans idolize athletes when they suit our purpose, and forget them once they don't.

JFK: Like No Other (2013)
In this probing biography, American Experience presents a fresh look at an enigmatic man who remains one of the nation's most beloved and mourned leaders, John F. Kennedy. Beginning with Kennedy's childhood years as the privileged but sickly son of one of the wealthiest men in America, the film explores his early political career as a lackluster congressman, his successful run for the U.S. Senate, and the game-changing presidential campaign that made him the youngest elected president in U.S. history. With the benefit of recently opened archives, the film recounts his struggles with life-threatening illnesses, and his efforts to keep them hidden from the public.

JFK offers a new perspective on his complicated private life, including his relationship with his wife, his close connection to his younger brother, Robert, and his complex bond with his powerful father. It also reevaluates Kennedy's strengths and weaknesses in the Oval Office as he navigated some of the most explosive events of the mid-twentieth century--the disastrous failure at the Bay of Pigs, the urgent demands of an increasingly impatient civil rights movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the escalating conflict in Southeast Asia.

Sit Down and Fight (1992)
This episode of American Experience traces the tumultuous struggle of America's auto workers against the management of the automobile manufacturers. Led by Walter Reuther, the United Auto Workers formed their union in 1936 to seek better wages, benefits, and working conditions. The program recounts the United Auto Workers' pitted battle with management in a dispute that was often ugly and even bloody. Archival news clips, photographs, journalistic accounts, personal recollections, and commentary by historians illustrate the sit-down strikes and conflicts that marked this turning point in labor relations.


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This was just Sit Down and Fight (1992) and I renamed it to:

American Experience - Sit Down and Fight (1992)

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Death and the Civil War (2012)
From acclaimed filmmaker Ric Burns, Death and the Civil War explores an essential but largely overlooked aspect of the most pivotal event in American history. With the coming of the Civil War, and the staggering casualties it ushered in, death entered the experience of the American people as it never had before - permanently altering the character of the republic, and the psyche of the American people. The work of contending with death on an unprecedented scale propelled extraordinary changes in the inner and outer life of Americans - posing challenges for which there were no ready answers when the war began - challenges that called forth remarkable and eventually heroic efforts as Americans worked to improvise new solutions, new institutions, new ways of coping with death on an unimaginable scale.

Based on Drew Gilpin Faust's groundbreaking book, This Republic of Suffering - the film tracks the increasingly lethal arc of the war, from all but bloodless opening, through the chaos of Shiloh, Antietam, and Gettysburg - down through the struggle, in the war's aftermath, to cope with an American landscape littered with the bodies of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, many unburied, most unidentified.

1964 (2014)
Based on The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964, by award-winning journalist Jon Margolis, this film follows some of the most prominent figures of the time, and bring out from the shadows the actions of ordinary Americans whose frustrations, ambitions, and anxieties began to turn the country onto a different course.

1964 was the year the Beatles came to America, Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali, and three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi. It was the year when Berkeley students rose up in protest, African Americans fought back against injustice in Harlem, and Barry Goldwater's conservative revolution took over the Republican Party. Based in part on The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964 by Jon Margolis, 1964 follows some of the most influential figures of the time--Lyndon B. Johnson, Barry Goldwater, Betty Friedan--but also brings out from the shadows the stories of ordinary Americans whose principled stands would set the country onto a new and different course.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (2014)
Long before Paul Newman and Robert Redford immortalized them on screen, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid captivated Americans from coast to coast. In the 1890s, their exploits robbing banks and trains in the West - and then seemingly vanishing into thin air - became national news and the basis of rumors and myth. But who were Robert Leroy Parker and Harry Alonzo Longabaugh?

American Experience - Clinton (2012)
The biography of a president who rose from a broken childhood in Arkansas to become one of the most successful politicians in modern American history, and one of the most complex and conflicted characters to ever stride across the public stage. From draft dodging to the Dayton Accords, from Monica Lewinsky to a balanced budget, the presidency of William Jefferson Clinton veered between sordid scandal and grand achievement. Clinton had a career full of accomplishment and rife with scandal, a marriage that would make history and create controversy, and a presidency that would define the crucial and transformative period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9-11.

The latest installment in the critically acclaimed and successful series of presidential biographies, Clinton follows the president across his two terms as he confronted some of the key forces that would shape the future, including partisan political warfare and domestic and international terrorism, and as he struggled with uneven success to define the role of American power in a post-Cold War world. Most memorably, it explores how Clinton's conflicted character made history, even as it enraged his enemies and confounded his friends.

Ansel Adams (2002)
From the day that a 14-year-old Ansel Adams first saw the transcendent beauty of the Yosemite Valley, his life was, in his words, "colored and modulated by the great earth-gesture of the Sierra." This youthful awakening to the sublime power of the wilderness was the beginning of a lifelong journey for Adams -- a quest in which he would discover the power of photography to reveal mankind's place in the natural world. His work was part of an extraordinary revolution in photography that sought to capture what Adams called "the continuous beauty of things that are," the landscape of the North American continent. More than any other artist of the twentieth century, Adams helped transform the meaning of wilderness in America; his greatest images of the American West changed forever what Americans thought about their own land. Few American photographers have reached a wider audience than Adams, and none has had more impact on how Americans grasp the majesty of their continent. In this elegant, moving and lyrical portrait of the most eloquent and quintessentially American of photographers, producer Ric Burns seeks to explore the meaning and legacy of Adams' life and work. At the heart of the film are the great themes that absorbed Adams throughout his career: the beauty and fragility of "the American earth," the inseparable bond of man and nature, and the moral obligation the present owes to the future. The documentary weaves together archival footage, photographic images, dramatic readings of the artist's own writing, and interviews with leading photographers, historians, curators, naturalists, as well as Adams's family, friends, and colleagues, to tell the story of a man who was at once a visionary photographer, a pioneer in photographic technique, and an ardent crusader for the cause of environmentalism.


Fidel Castro (2004)
"On January 3, 1959, a column of victorious young rebels advanced along Cuba's main highway towards Havana. At the head of the column rode 33-year-old Fidel Castro Ruz. As he went by, a Cuban peasant turned to an American journalist, and said: "There he goes, the hope of a people." Over the next few decades, by the force of his personality and the might of his Soviet benefactor, Castro turned himself and Cuba into significant players on the world stage. He did so while surviving the hostility of ten consecutive U.S. presidents, an invasion, several CIA assassination attempts and an economic embargo. Castro's face with its trademark beard, has become an iconic image worldwide, yet the man himself remains an enigma to all but a few. Through interviews with relatives, childhood friends, fellow rebel leaders, Bay of Pigs veterans, human rights activists and journalists, American Experience: Fidel Castro constructs an intimate and revealing portrait of the most resilient of leaders."

This documentary begins with 1950s television footage of Fidel Castro's first moments as prime minister of Cuba. "At the age of 32," says a newsreader, "you now have in your hands a great deal of power and a great deal of responsibility. Aren't you a little frightened by this?" The vision switches to Castro, dressed unaccountably in pyjamas and sitting in a very feminine living room. He plumps a cushion and nods. "Not frightened because I have self-confidence."

This is a beautifully made documentary packed with rare archive footage and photographs. It shows Castro's childhood, his recklessness as a youth, his blossoming talents at the University of Havana and then his swift and complex ride to lawyer, jailbird, guerilla, politician and revolutionary. Adored and deplored, Castro's life makes compelling viewing.

After the Bay of Pigs fiasco Fidel Castro consolidates his power in Cuba. He declares publicly that he's a Marxist Leninist, establishes very close relations with the Soviet Union, and begins to turn Cuba into a socialist state. However, in October 1962 the US realises Cuba has allowed the Soviets to build missile sites from which they could launch nuclear missiles into the U.S. This leads to a crisis that is considered the closest the world came to a nuclear war.

During the following 20 years Cuba becomes a prime example of a socialist state, with free education and free health services for its population. Castro provides military and logistic aid to various liberation movements, notably to the Angolan revolutionaries who were fighting the South Africans. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cuban revolution experiences its worst economic crisis. The continued U.S. embargo isolates the country, but he and his regime manage to survive by diversifying into other non-traditional areas, and seeking foreign investment in areas such as tourism.

************ Freedom Riders (2011)
The story behind a courageous band of civil rights activists called Freedom Riders who in 1961 challenged segregation in the American South.

Henry Ford (2013)
Henry Ford paints a fascinating portrait of a farm boy who rose from obscurity to become the most influential American innovator of the 20th century. Ford's Model T automobile and his five-dollar-a-day wage ushered in the modern world, earning Ford reverence from millions of Americans. Yet many of the changes he wrought deeply troubled the carmaker. In frustration, he lashed out at enemies, real and imagined, blamed Jews for the country's problems, bullied those who worked for him and exhibited great cruelty to his only son, often, it seemed, wishing to retreat to an idyllic fantasy of the past.

************ Hijacked (2007)

"For more than 30 years it would be known as "the blackest day in aviation history." On September 6, 1970, members of the militant Palestinian group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (P.F.L.P.), hijacked four commercial airplanes. They commandeered a fifth aircraft three days later. Wanting to attract attention to the Palestinian cause and secure the release of several of their comrades, the P.F.L.P. spectacularly blew up four of the planes.

Today the commanders who planned and carried out the attack resist comparison to the terrorists who masterminded the events of September 11, 2001: members of the P.F.L.P. were not religious extremists, but secular Marxist Leninists. And of the almost 600 passengers taken hostage, none were killed. And yet more than three decades later, it is clear that a connection exists between the two seminal events, that September 6, 1970 gave birth to a new era of terrorism.

In telling this dramatic and complicated story, award-winning producer Ilan Ziv interviews leaders of the P.F.L.P., militants who carried out the attack, journalists who covered the hijackings, crew members and passengers. More than just recounting the events of those tense September days, this American Experience production examines how and when Middle East militants began to see civilians as legitimate pawns in their struggles for self-determination." Synopsis from the PBS page, linked below.

************ Ike (1993)

"He went off to war an unknown soldier and returned a beloved national hero. Often dismissed as a 'do-nothing' president and a good-natured bumbler, Dwight D. Eisenhower -- the last American president to be born in the 19th century -- was actually a skillful politician, a tough Cold War warrior, and one of America's most misunderstood and unappreciated presidents. When he left office in 1961, historians ranked Eisenhower in the bottom third of American presidents, below Chester Arthur. By the 1990s, he ranked near the top."

Originally aired on the "Presidents" series on PBS' American Experience, the story of Dwight D. Eisenhower covers his days from childhood to his WWII heroics, his marriage to Mamie Doud, the rumored affair with military driver Kay Summersby, and details his tenure as America's 34th president. Ike, as he was affectionately nicknamed, became a Five Star General in the second World War, commanding the invasion of Normandy, and, in the Battle of the Bulge, defeated Germany's last offensive. During his presidency, the Korean War ended, the Interstate Highway System was laid out, and America's nuclear arsenal expanded. Despite efforts to contain Communism, Eisenhower was no sympathizer of zealots and worked behind the scenes to undermine Joseph McCarthy. Eisenhower's early legacy as the "do-nothing" president has deteriorated since he left office in 1960, and, as seen here, his actions as a skillful politician have been brought to light.

************ Jonestown - The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006)
Veteran filmmaker Stanley Nelson traces the stunning rise and fall of Peoples Temple and its charismatic founder Jim Jones, who convinced hundreds of his followers in Jonestown, Guyana to participate in a mass "suicide" on November 18, 1978. The shocking tragedy made international headlines and over 900 people, including more than 200 children, died in the Utopian community they had tried to create in the jungles of Guyana in South America. Many of those who died were from the Bay Area as Jones held sway over a huge congregation in San Francisco from 1972 to 1977. Nelson interviews former members of Peoples Temple, including many whose family members perished in Jonestown.
Initially, they felt they were part of an idealistic interracial community that could change the world. But they also reveal the fear, paranoia and beatings that were part of the traumatic experience. Jones became their father, friend, savior and god.

The film includes remarkable archival footage of Jones discussing his childhood in Indiana and preaching in San Francisco, where he wielded considerable political clout due to his ability to get hundreds of his followers to appear at many local political events.

There is also footage of San Mateo Congressman Leo Ryan's visit to Jonestown to investigate claims of people being held against their will and audiotape of Jones preaching, including his chilling exhortation to  "die with dignity." How was it possible for such an horrific event to take place? This disturbing portrait raises as many questions as it answers.

Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple' tells the story of the people who followed Jim Jones from Indiana, to California, and finally to the remote jungles of Guyana, South America, in a misbegotten quest to build an ideal society.

************ Panama Canal: Gateway to the American Century (2011)
On August 15th, 1914, the Panama Canal opened, connecting the world's two largest oceans and signaling America's emergence as a global superpower. This AMERICAN EXPERIENCE film using an extraordinary archive of photographs and footage, interviews with canal workers and firsthand accounts of life in the Canal Zone, unravels the remarkable story of one of the world's most significant technological achievements.
Panama Canal was the costliest undertaking in human history. It literally required moving mountains, in one of the most challenging environments on earth, breaking the back of the great range that connects North and South America. This 2-hour program tells the epic story of one of the great engineering triumphs of all time, and one of the most expensive, in both money and lives. It weaves together the stories of the powerful men whose decisions shaped the enterprise, including larger-than-life characters such as Ferdinand de Lesseps and Theodore Roosevelt, with the stories of the ordinary laborers from Jamaica and Barbados whose labor and sacrifice actually dug the canal. Along the way it tells a story of innovation that literally changed the course of history.

* Silicon Valley (2013)
Silicon Valley tells the story of the pioneering scientists who transformed rural Santa Clara County into the hub of technological ingenuity we now know as Silicon Valley. The film spotlights the creativity of the young men who founded Fairchild Semiconductor and in particular the brilliant, charismatic young physicist Robert Noyce. Their radical innovations would include the integrated circuit that helped make the United States a leader in both space exploration and the personal computer revolution, transforming the way the world works, plays and communicates, making possible everything from the Apollo program to smart phones, from pacemakers to microwaves.


This episode of American Experience traces the tumultuous struggle of America's auto workers against the management of the automobile manufacturers. Led by Walter Reuther, the United Auto Workers formed their union in 1936 to seek better wages, benefits, and working conditions. The program recounts the United Auto Workers' pitted battle with management in a dispute that was often ugly and even bloody. Archival news clips, photographs, journalistic accounts, personal recollections, and commentary by historians illustrate the sit-down strikes and conflicts that marked this turning point in labor relations.


************ Sit Down and Fight (1992)
This episode of American Experience traces the tumultuous struggle of America's auto workers against the management of the automobile manufacturers. Led by Walter Reuther, the United Auto Workers formed their union in 1936 to seek better wages, benefits, and working conditions. The program recounts the United Auto Workers' pitted battle with management in a dispute that was often ugly and even bloody. Archival news clips, photographs, journalistic accounts, personal recollections, and commentary by historians illustrate the sit-down strikes and conflicts that marked this turning point in labor relations.

************ The Amish: Shunned (2014)
Filmed over the course of twelve months, The Amish: Shunned follows seven former members of the Amish community as they reflect on their decisions to leave one of the most closed and tightly-knit communities in the United States. Estranged from family, the ex-Amish find themselves struggling to understand and make their way in modern America. Interwoven through the stories are the voices of Amish men and women who remain staunchly loyal to their traditions and faith. They explain the importance of obedience, the strong ties that bind their communities together, and the pain they endure when a loved one falls away.

************ The Amish (2012)

{L}http://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=The_Amish{/L}
On October 2, 2006, a 32-year-old milk truck driver named Charles Roberts entered a one-room schoolhouse in the Amish community of Nickel Mines in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and shot 10 young girls, killing five, before committing suicide as police officers stormed the school. Just hours after the shooting, Amish community members visited the gunman's family to offer forgiveness. The tragedy at Nickel Mines horrified the nation for its senseless brutality and left many questioning and haunted by the victims' startling response.

Lyrical and meditative, The Amish answers many questions Americans have about this insistently insular religious community, whose intense faith and adherence to 500-year-old traditions have by turns captivated and repelled, awed and irritated, inspired and confused for more than a century. With unprecedented access to the Amish built on patience and hard-won trust, this AMERICAN EXPERIENCE film is the first to deeply penetrate and explore this profoundly attention-averse group, painting an extraordinarily intimate portrait of contemporary Amish faith and life. What does America's attraction to the Amish say about deep American values? What does the future hold for a community whose existence is so rooted in the past?


************ The Battle of the Bulge (1994)
The single biggest and bloodiest battle American soldiers ever fought. It came as a total surprise, on December 16th, 1944, when 30 German divisions roared across the Allied front in Belgium and Luxembourg. The war, after all, was coming to an end. Allied commanders were eating oysters, celebrating promotions, and reflecting on the death of Glenn Miller.

This was Hitler's final gamble and for the more than half a million men thrown into the cause, an infernal test of courage and endurance. Nearly 80,000 Americans were killed, maimed, or captured. Packed with extraordinary newsreel and Army footage, Battle of the Bulge captures the action on the battle's frontlines and the strategy behind the scenes.

mawmawmaw {!T}An Apology to Elephants{:}

{/T}Few animals hold more fascination for humans than elephants. For centuries they’ve been adored, inspired great works of art, and even been revered as gods, yet they have also been treated with cruelty. AN APOLOGY TO ELEPHANTS explores the abuse of these ancient and intelligent animals a!nd shows how some people are reversing the trend. Narrated and executive produced by Lily Tomlin and directed by Emmy® winner Amy Schatz, with narration written by Jane Wagner.

As a keystone species, elephants promote biodiversity, helping trees, plants and animals flourish; as highly intelligent, empathetic and social animals, they are unique and remarkable creatures. But humans have poached elephants, chained and trained them in captivity, and destroyed their natural habitats. “The first thing we need to know is that the elephants need our help,” says Lily Tomlin.

mawmawmaw {!T}American Cinema (1995){:}

{/T}The history of Hollywood and filmmaking comes alive in this spectacular nine hour celebration of movie magic. It's a mesmerizing, epic analysis that combines rare archival film, key scenes from immortal movies, interviews with leading filmmakers and commentary from noted film scholars and critics. As seen on PBS, this highly acclaimed series is the definitive chronicle of the American cinema, from its beginning to today. Includes interviews with Robert Altman, Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Spike Lee, George Lucas, Sidney Lumet, Julia Roberts, Martin Scorsese, Gene Siskel, Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Quentin Tarantino, and many more.

mawmawmaw {!T}American Autumn: an Occudoc (2012){:}

{/T}What would a world look like that had a culture and an economic system that places human need above corporate greed, and how do we bring that world into being? Who cares what it is called. Call it Socialism, Call it Real Democracy Now, and Call it Chunky-Monkey-Cherry Garcia. The world needs to change radically, it needs to change dramatically, and it needs to change fast. This documentary is an invitation for you to participate in that positive change. Frankly, because, we need you. Yes, you.

mawmawmaw {!T}America's Poor Kids (2013){:}

{/T}In the United States, child poverty has reached record levels, with over 16 million children now affected. Food banks are facing unprecedented demand, and homeless shelters now have long waiting lists, as families who have known a much better life sometimes have to leave their homes with just a few days notice. This World asks three children whose families are struggling to get by to explain what life in modern America really looks like through their eyes. Told from the point of view of the children themselves, this one-hour documentary offers a unique perspective on the nation's flagging economy and the impact of unemployment, foreclosure and financial distress as seen through the eyes of the children affected.

mawmawmaw {!T}America's Gun Addiction (2013){:}

{/T}The Newtown massacre, in which 20 primary schoolchildren died, has been hailed as a turning point on gun control in America. President Obama wants to ban assault weapons, but his opponents say more guns are the answer, not fewer. At a gun range, Panorama meets the teachers who want to take guns into their classrooms to protect their pupils. With many of America's mass killers having both mental health issues and easy access to guns, Panorama reveals the national crisis in mental healthcare which has left 4.5 million severely mentally ill Americans untreated. And reporter Hilary Andersson goes undercover to show how easy it is in Texas to buy the type of assault weapon used at Newtown, even if you are mentally unstable. Will Newtown finally change things, or will the mass killings continue?

mawmawmaw {!T}America on a Plate: The Story of the Diner (2011){:}

{/T}Writer and Broadcaster Stephen Smith re-envisions the story of 20th century American culture through its most iconic institution - the diner. Whether Edward Hopper's Nighthawks or the encounter between Pacino and de Niro in Heat, these gleaming, gawdy shacks are at the absolute heart of the American vision. Stephen embarks on a road journey that takes him to some of America's most iconic diners. He meets the film-makers and singers who have immortalised them, and looks at the role diners have played not only in America's greatest paintings and movies, but also in the fight against racial oppression and the chain restaurants' global takeover. For Stephen, it's because the diner is the last vestige of a vital part of the American psyche - the frontier. It's a place where strangers are thrown together, where normal rules are suspended and anything can happen. And it's this crackle of potentially violent and sexual energy that have made it an engine room of 20th century American culture.

mawmawmaw {!T}Amazing Journeys (1999){:}

{/T}Amazing Journeys takes audiences on six extraordinary journeys of survival and migration. Depicting migration as an endless search for the best conditions in which to thrive and successfully adapt, the film explores the wonders and mysteries surrounding some of earth's most spectacular wildlife and native people.

Witness the mysterious migration of more than 120 million red crabs on tiny Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. In order to to mate and spawn, millions of crabs must scuttle through the island's only town to reach its shores. Female crabs are unable to swim, yet march bravely to the shore's edge to release their eggs. Watch as so many crabs skitter sideways that the land itself seems to pulsate and quiver.

Experience the longest and largest insect migration as monarch butterflies travel 2,500 miles through North America. Witness up close the birth of a butterfly and the various stages of the life of a monarch. Enter a golden blizzard as tens of millions of monarch butterflies fill the sky in the hidden highlands of Mexico. Feel the hushed, sublime wonder of being surrounded by a myriad of these air-dancing creatures.

Take flight alongside migratory birds who possess the most varied display of navigational abilities. Feel the exhilaration from an arm's-length-view of the race down the runway, then the takeoff and ascent of sleek and powerful Canadian geese as they begin their journey south. Navigating by sun, stars and instinct, these birds instinctively know when to begin migrating by sensing seasonal signals of changing temperatures and day lengths. They possess a genetically imprinted "flight manual" which allows them to respond to their surroundings and recognize their destinations.

Watch as hundreds of migrating zebras travel over 500 miles through the vast plains of East Africa. Experience the life and death dramas as we follow them through their encounters with ambushing packs of lions and hyenas. Join the sweeping spectacle as they lead the Great Migration of Africa's greatest predators through crocodile-filled rivers.

mawmawmaw {!T}Amazing Argentina (2012){:}

{/T}Matt Smith presents a fascinating profile of one of football's great national teams - Argentina. Often controversial but always entertaining, they have provided football with some of its greatest players. The team's biggest achievement was winning the World Cup in 1978. The programme also includes other notable moments, many of which involve the great Diego Maradona. His infamous 'hand of God' goal still rankles with England fans, but his genius was also displayed in that very same game in 1986 with a goal described by the then England manager the late Bobby Robson as a miracle. The team's current superstar is Lionel Messi, another tiny player, and the comparison with Diego has been inevitable. Once again the press have hailed an Argentinian as one of the greatest players of all time.

mawmawmaw {!T}All the Presidents Men Revisited (2013){:}

{/T}All the President’s Men Revisited brings Watergate to life with riveting archival footage, shocking Oval Office recordings, and compelling new interviews with those who perpetuated the crimes, those who pursued them, and those who portrayed them. The film unravels the story that began with a “third-rate burglary attempt” and escalated into the first and only Presidential resignation in American history. A remarkable cast tells the tale, including Robert Redford, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Dustin Hoffman, Jon Stewart, Rachel Maddow, and others.

mawmawmaw {!T}Algeria - Test of Power (2012){:}

{/T}The story of Algeria's past, present and future - from independence to the Arab Spring and beyond. Algeria was under French colonial rule for 132 years. From tears of joy at independence in 1962 to the tragic civil war of the 1990s and the anger that culminated in the Arab Spring, this series provides a unique insight into a country notoriously inaccessible to both journalists and filmmakers. Interviews with key players like Ben Bella, Ait Ahmed and President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, cover 50 years of tragic and powerful history from the Evian Accords of 1962 to the Arab Spring of 2011. This is the story of Algeria's past, present and future. Produced by Flach Film.

Authoritarian Era

In 1962, Algeria proclaimed independence from France following eight years of war and over a century of colonial rule. The Algerian war of independence, and the negotiations that followed, spurred decades of political assassinations, coups, terrorist attacks and civil war. Hundreds of thousands of Europeans fled the country, but many Algerians who fought alongside the French during the war were left behind. Harkis, as they were called, faced torture and execution at the hands of fellow Algerians. Under the rule of its first elected president, Ahmed Ben Bella, Algeria adopted a socialist single-party political system. One year after independence, the country of nine million was poor, starving and war-torn.

Era of Tempests

In October of 1988, the Algerian army opened fire on protesters, killing 500 civilians. This brutal attack sparked uprisings that in-turn prompted the government to abandon three decades of single-party socialism in favour of a multi-party system. Journalists and citizens celebrated their new-found freedom. Thirty years after independence, Algeria became the site of what many call the 'first Arab Spring' after Algerians demanded democracy and social and economic equality. Political freedom allowed Islamist movements to garner more support. The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), which gathered momentum under the one-party system because of its grounding in religion rather than politics, had gained increasing support during the 1990 municipal election. Then, in 1991, it won almost half of the votes in the first round of the legislative election. Fearing a majority win for the FIS, the military stepped in and halted the democratic electoral process. It forced Chadli Bendjedid, then president, to abdicate and presented his resignation as voluntary. The second round of elections were cancelled and Mohamed Boudiaf, who had returned after a 27-year exile in Morocco, became Algeria's new leader as the chairman of the High Council of the State, a figurehead body for the ruling generals. Boudiaf tried to bring the parties together but quickly made enemies. And after his assassination in 1992, terrorist attacks increased and Algeria spiralled into a decade of civil war that claimed thousands of lives.

mawmawmaw {!T}Alfred Hitchcock - Made in Britain (2013){:}

{/T}Jonathan Ross examines the life and career of the most celebrated director in the history of cinema, Sir Alfred Hitchcock, in a quest for the British roots of his unique style. Jonathan is a huge fan of the Hollywood legend and finds out what led the son of an East End grocer to embark on a career in the film industry. He visits Gainsborough Studios where Hitchcock secured his first job at the age of 20, designing the captions which appeared on screen in the silent era - just five years later he was a director. Jonathan meets actress Jean Marsh, who starred in Hitchcock's penultimate film Frenzy, and hears what the great man was like to work with. On his return to his own childhood home in East London, Jonathan recalls how when he first saw the iconic Hitchcock movie Psycho it scared the life out of him.

mawmawmaw {!T}Ai Weiwei: Without Fear or Favour (2010){:}

{/T}Architect, photographer, curator and blogger, Ai Weiwei is China's most famous and politically outspoken contemporary artist. As Ai Weiwei's latest work is unveiled in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, Alan Yentob reveals how this most courageous and determined of artists continues to fight for artistic freedom of expression while living under the restrictive shadows of authoritarian rule.

mawmawmaw {!T}After Newtown - Guns in America (2013){:}

{/T}Guns in America is an unprecedented exploration of America's enduring relationship with firearms. From the first European settlements in the New World to frontier justice; from 19th Century immigrant riots to gangland violence in the Roaring Twenties; from the Civil War to Civil Rights, guns have been at center of our national narrative for four hundred years. Americans have relied on guns to sustain communities, challenge authority, and keep the peace. Efforts to curtail their distribution and ownership have triggered epic political battles. On one side, the cry for gun control gets louder with each mass shooting. And on the other, Charlton Heston's 2000 rallying cry, "From my cold, dead hands," still resonates across the land.

mawmawmaw {!T}After Life: The Strange Science of Decay (2011){:}

{/T}If you have ever wondered what would happen in your own home if you were taken away and everything inside was left to rot, the answer is revealed in this programme which explores the strange and surprising science of decay. For two months, a glass box containing a typical kitchen and garden was left to rot in full public view within Edinburgh Zoo. In this resulting documentary, Dr George McGavin and his team use time-lapse cameras and specialist photography to capture the extraordinary way in which moulds, microbes and insects are able to break down our everyday things and allow new life to emerge from old. Decay is something that many of us are repulsed by, but as the programme shows, it's a process that's vital in nature. And seen in close up, it has an unexpected and sometimes mesmerising beauty.

mawmawmaw {!T}African Dream (2010){:}

{/T}In 1960, numerous African countries gained their independence from the European colonial rule. The year is known as "the year of Africa." Now a half-century later -- while many African countries are still gripped by frequent conflicts, widespread corruption, and severe poverty -- economic growth, backed by abundant natural resources and a huge market of 900 million people, is changing Africa. What was once known as the Dark Continent is being transformed into the Continent of Hope. African Dream presents a three-part series revealing the new face of Africa.

Episode 1: Rwanda Pursues a Miracle
Rwanda was rocked by the ethnic massacres and environmental devastation in the 1990s. But during the past several years, the country achieved a phenomenal recovery called the "Rwanda miracle" with an average annual economic growth rate of nearly 10%. This growth was driven by "diaspora," the four million Rwandans who were scattered around the world to escape the chaos in the country. They are now returning to Rwanda, bringing with them wealth, knowledge, and technology. The "diaspora" is not only contributing to generate the country' s economic growth but also trying to achieve ethnic reconciliation. Will these attempts to heal the nation prove successful?

Episode 2: Power to the People Africas Mineral Corridor
Africa is abundant in natural resources. However, until recently, Africa had just been their provider. Enormous Western capital had taken a major part in extracting, processing these resources, controlling their sales, and successfully reaping most of the huge profits. Now African countries are prepared to take on a larger role. Tanzania is investing its own funds instead of western capital to mine gold. They are using the profits to build a well and other facilities. Meanwhile, Botswana established its first diamond trade center. By being an integral part of the entire process from excavation to marketing, Botswana seeks to develop business which equals that of western capital.

Episode 3: The Power of Immigrants
South Africa is Africa' s biggest economic power. Holding a key to this economic growth are its emigrants. The South African government introduced an unprecedented program that allows in effect, the free influx of people from neighboring Zimbabwe without a passport. Many of the people who come from Zimbabwe, where the unemployment rate reaches 80%, have received some form of higher education. South Africa welcomes them as a cheap but good-quality workforce. Thus many immigrants from Zimbabwe come to South Africa to seek their "African dream." On the other hand, South Africans whose jobs have been taken away are showing violent reactions against these immigrant workers.

mawmawmaw {!T}Africa's Super Seven (2005){:}

{/T}"The good, the bad and the ugly, the teacher, the lover, the fighter and the strong, silent type! Stars of a tense 24-hour drama with birth, death and everything in between."

On the northern bank of the Sand River in the Mala-Mala Game Reserve in South Africa, seven magnificent creatures reside in an area the size of Manhattan Island. Tracking them for 24 hours we reveal the invisible threads that bind them together in a never-ending daily drama. This action-packed film will show how seven individual stories become one, how the animals move in and out of one another’s lives in the course of a single day. Sometimes their encounters happen just by chance, at other times they are intent on stalking each other down. In all cases whenever they meet the encounter is always riveting.

Each animal has different strengths, even some weaknesses, but seeing them in action is always impressive. Tracking them through one day and one night we witness their dealings with the neighbours from hell, staking their territory, stalking the same prey, risking their lives and cautiously interacting with or avoiding each other. This is a privileged and rare glimpse into the complex lives of Africa’s Super Seven.
Each species has its own vital role to play in this unfolding 24-hour drama. There is no room for the weak and in the African bush there’s only one rule: the biggest, strongest, fastest and smartest survive.
As amazing as these animals are, they all have their Achilles heel too, and occasionally our story includes a fight for survival for them just like any other creature of the untamed African wild. For Africa’s Super Seven there are no free lunches. Some will pay the ultimate price and some will even be lunch. Not for the faint hearted, this is a story of power, trust, hunger, desperation and elation – an unforgettable adventure.