Episodes

Learn how close the Japanese came to using an advanced submarine for an attack on the U.S. 2/29/2012

Timed for broadcast on the first anniversary of the attacks, this episode brings viewers first-hand survivor accounts, closed-circuit footage of the chaos from within the hotels and actual words spoken by both victims and terrorists.

In 1944, a U.S. bomber was hit by Japanese anti-aircraft fire, and the crew ejected and parachuted into the wilderness. They were taken in and protected by members of the Dayak tribe - the "wild men of Borneo," who were infamous for their custom of hunting and smoking enemy heads. Months later, the airmen were found by an eccentric British Major who devised an ingenious plan to rescue the men.

More than 500 ago, Michelangelo Buonarroti was the darling of the Catholic Church, commissioned to create many of its most important pieces. Historians have long wondered about the mysterious circumstances of his death — and now, art historian Antonio Forcellino believes he has pieced together evidence of a deep rift between the Church and the esteemed artist.

Edward Teach, alias Blackbeard, was the most notorious pirate of his day. Now, 300 years later, a marine archaeology team believe they have found his sunken flagship, Queen Anne's Revenge, off the North Carolina coast. Did Blackbeard accidentally run his ship aground, or was it a deliberate plot to betray his crew and cheat them out of their share of the plunder?

Was Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen, hanged in 1910 for poisoning and dismembering his wife, guilty of the crime?

Drawing from the archaeological records, new revelations about Minoan language and religion and shocking new geological discoveries, archeologists connects fact with fiction and reveal the truth behind the reign and fall of the great Minoan civilization.

In Cold War-era East Germany, young female athletes were injected with male hormones and anabolic steroids — all in the name of “international prestige through success in sports.” Twenty years later, many still suffer from the aftereffects: severe physical illness and disabilities. Discover the price these women paid to bring Olympic pride to their country.

Nazi records show that tens of thousands of Jews from German-occupied territories were sent to Auschwitz to be executed each month. But two Auschwitz prisoners, Rudolph Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, were determined to expose the horrors of the Nazi genocide and stop the killing factories forever. To do that, they had to become the first to escape from the heavily-guarded camp.

Archaeologists make a grisly find: 400 skeletons buried in a mass grave, undisturbed for 500 years, since the time of the Spanish conquest. But this is no ordinary gravesite. The remains suggest these people met a gruesome end at the hands of the Aztecs, who ruled Mesoamerica in the 14th through 16th centuries. But who were the victims and why were they killed?

A plea is smuggled to a New York reporter from within Western Australia's Fremantle Prison. This letter launched an American whaler that stood its ground against an armed British steamer for freedom and independence. The whaler was the Catalpa, its captain was George Anthony and its human cargo consisted of six Irish political prisoners, who had suffered at the Fremantle prison for a decade.

In the back garden of a house in York, England, more than 45 decapitated, Roman-era skeletons are unearthed. Are these men savagely murdered pagan prisoners? Are they soldiers who were killed in battle or executed for crimes against Rome? Modern forensics, archeological sleuthing, and historical records point to a surprising answer.

In 79 AD, the people of Herculaneum, a seaside town in Italy's Bay of Naples, watched in horror as Mt. Vesuvius erupted, hurling a boiling, churning column of gas and ash 10 miles into the sky toward the neighboring city of Pompeii. It was only a matter of time before Vesuvius would unleash its fury on Herculaneum, killing its citizens in an even more spectacular and gruesome way.

Today, the ubiquitous Bible is largely taken for granted. But for the original English translators of the religious text, their work was a dangerous pursuit involving subversion, intrigue, imprisonment, and death.

Deep in the jungle of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific are the rusting remains of a World War II-era fighter plane. Research confirms that the plane is the doomed Wildcat flown by James "Pug" Southerland in WWII. Now, examine every dramatic moment of the legendary showdown between 30-year-old Southerland in his Wildcat, and Saburo Sakai, 25, in his Mitsubishi Zero.