History documentaries
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- StarsLaurence OlivierAverell HarrimanAnthony EdenA groundbreaking 26-part documentary series narrated by the actor Laurence Olivier about the deadliest conflict in history, World War II.
- DirectorSuzanne PhillipsStarsSuzannah LipscombTara HamlingMarc MeltonvilleThe introduction of world trade in Tudor England inadvertently introduces foreign poisonous substances. One such case is sugar and the subsequent rotting of teeth.
- StarsLucy WorsleyNicholas AgnewClaire CooperHistorian Lucy Worsley visits the time of Henry VIII and tells the story of his six successive wives.
- DirectorChristian TwenteRobert WiezorekStarsAndré KaczmarczykHans MittermüllerHans-Michael KörnerKing Ludwig II mounted the Bavarian throne at 19 at his father's death. His political ambition was to maintain Bavaria as truly sovereign member of the German League of 39 states established after the Vienna Congress. To resist the aggressive Prussian expansion of chancellor Bismarck, he had to side with Habsburg Austria, but was defeated on the battle field and reduced to a Prussian protectorate and forced to join the war against Napoleon III's France, which lead to the Prussian Hohenzollern dynasty being declared German emperors. Ludwig withdrew in wild plans, as an absolutist island realm on Tenerife, and a crushingly expensive fantasy world of staged luxury, championed by castles such as Neuschwanstein and the Wagner theatre, soon running up a huge debt guaranteed by the treasury. The government ended up interning him as mentally incapacitated. His castle lake drowning, aged 40, with his psychiatrist, possibly a suicide related to his gay frustration, remains the stuff of legends.
- DirectorChristian TwenteCarsten GutschmidtMartin Carazo MendezStarsJens SchäferHans MittermüllerStefan WeinfurterCharlemagne, son of a new dynasty started as ministers of the former Merovingian kings of the Franks, turned his people's realm into a Germanic empire, a Catholic rebirth of western Rome's, politically rivaling Byzantium, in alliance with the papacy. The Carolingian renaissance, a cultural restoration, was a huge success, ultimately founding a capital in Aachen. A major 'internal' obstacle was the resistance of heathen tribes, the largest of which were the Saxons. Their greatest leader, Widukind, was ultimately pressed to baptism rather then continue bloody oppression to impose conversion. The German people was thus forged, although major tribal realms would persist as duchies/electorates.
- CreatorUwe KerskenStarsHans MittermüllerStefan WeinfurterHeinrich August WinklerDocumentary series about 1,000 years of German history. Reviewing the history from about 955 A.D. to the modern-day monarchy and World War I.
- StarsPatrick O'NealImportant campaigns and battles of the Second World War II are narrated.
- DirectorTheo FrenkelIn the Series KINGS OF SPAIN we will travel through the history of a nation that became one of the most powerful empires on earth: SPAIN, through the perspective of its Monarchs. KINGS OF SPAIN is the first documentary series that reveals the biographies of the 17 Kings and Queens who ruled Spain for six centuries, since its unification in 1492 until the Spanish Civil War in 1936.
- StarsRobert PowellSwaylee LoughnaneRecounts the events of world War II in color.
- StarsSamuel WestAdolf HitlerJoseph StalinDocumentary examining Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.
- DirectorMax JourdanStarsJohnny DaukesStephen ArmstrongAngus Castle-DoughtyThe extraordinary and little known story of 29 prisoners who escaped from a POW camp in Holzminden Germany during WW1, a feat that inspired The Great Escape years later.
- DirectorSteven HoggardStarsLiev SchreiberSteve LuckertMitchell BardThe story of 350 American POWs held at a reclusive and secret concentraion camp administered by the Nazi regime.
- DirectorClaude GuilmainStarsEric PaulhusAurèle RobertMarcel RichardA feature-length documentary on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Royal 22nd Regiment, the only French battalion in Canada at the time of the first and second world war.
- DirectorJohn FordStarsJohn WayneJohn FordLewis B. PullerA tribute documentary on the most decorated U.S. Marine, General Lewis B. 'Chesty' Puller.
- DirectorMaia LiddellStarsJake MaskallBrian DegasPeter ParkerColditz Castle was a maximum security prison from which no one was meant to escape... but escape they did. Take a fresh look at the legendary escapes, featuring stories from both Colditz survivors and their extended families.
- DirectorMatt RichardsA look at the harsh realities of life as a POW in the notorious Colditz Prison during World War Two as told by those who were there.
- DirectorDavid PadruschStarsJeffery A. BakerOrion BarnesErin Bennett"Last Stand of the 300" is a 2007 special that tells the tale of when in 480 BCE, a small number of Greeks stood against the might of the Persian empire at Thermopylae.
- DirectorBarry StevensCanadian soldiers become prisoners of the Japanese after the fall of Hong Kong, but they never stop fighting.
- War Story tells moving personal stories of the Second World War. From the foot soldier, the leader, the civilian and even the enemy, these stories tell what it was like to be in the Second World War - by the Canadians who were there.
- StarsRobert BartlettThe story of England's longest ruling dynasty, starting with Henry II and ending with Richard III.
- StarsDavid StarkeyTony CottrellGerard HaylingA history of the English Crown from AD 400 to today.
- StarsDavid StarkeyRachel JenkinsTim WrightWritten and presented by Dr. David Starkey (Monarchy), this is the compelling story of two siblings united by blood and affection but torn apart by religion and power.
- StarsLucy WorsleyNathen AminHistorian Lucy Worsley reveals how some of the biggest moments in British History are actually a concoction of fibs and stories which have been manipulated by whoever was in power at the time.
- DirectorDoug ShultzStarsEdward HerrmannGeorge IvascuRodica LazarDocumentary about the bloody beginning, bloodier middle and unceremonious end of the French Revolution, an event that ended in blood the reign of kings in France and laid the foundation for a new - republican - system of government.
- StarsDavid McCulloughDocumentary about the rise and fall of one of the greatest military geniuses of modern times from his Corsican childhood to final exile in St. Helena.