In Search of History

It's a spin volume mysteriously titled the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, and it is arguably one of the most influential works of the 20th Century. Henry Ford believed it was a wakeup call for America. Winston Churchill was once convinced it was true. And the Nazi's used it as a warrant for geocide. This is a story of the hoax that will not die. It has fooled millions of people all over the world for more than a century, and continues to be a powerful force of evil and hate.

The year 1863, the President was Abraham Lincoln, a new law calling for more troops on the front lines came to pass and civil discontent was about to erupt in the worst violence our nation had ever seen. Soon there would be blood in the streets - the New York City Draft Riots of 1863. In the wake of the first federal draft in U.S.. history, the city exploded...and for a week it was chaos.

In Search of History looks the historical influences that shaped the story of King Arthur and the Knights of Camelot.

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The spectacular Incan city of Machu Picchu, high in the Andes Mountains, was long thought to be legendary. Then in 1911, the intrepid explorer Hiram Bingham stumbled upon its remains. But while the walls and chambers have been extensively studied in the years since, the purpose of this ancient site remains unclear. Go to the top of the world to unravel the mysteries of this enigmatic place. See incredible footage of the earliest expeditions to Machu Picchu, and meet the men and women who have dedicated their lives to unearthing its secrets. Wander through the incredible ruins and feel the eerie presence of the past and the timeless secrets that are locked somewhere within. Was it a pleasure palace, an observatory, a fortress or something else entirely?

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London, 1483. The War of the Roses rages, threatening the throne. Newly orphaned Edward V and his younger brother, placed in the care of their uncle, are declared illegitimate. They then disappear, the bodies never found. Did Richard III have them murdered? Or was he the victim of a Tudor plot to claim the throne and discredit him?

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For the vulnerable European settlers making their way west on the uncertain plains of the American frontier, the threat of death lurked around every twist of the trail. In the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, America's western lands were a place of both isolation and primitive conditions. At each step in the march westward, new settlers fought cunning and ubiquitous enemies in the form of deadly diseases and rampant epidemics. Where battle wounds, poor sanitation, and deadly animals were common, appropriate medical care was not. To survive in these harrowing conditions, the settlers had to find a doctor - or someone calling him or herself one. In this captivating program, The History Channel® journeys deep into the American frontier to discover the stories behind the pioneering men and women whose courage and heroism both helped to save lives and make medical history.

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The Nazca lines in Peru stretch for miles, forming perfect images of animals visible only from the air. Immense and precise, the pyramids remain among mankind's greatest accomplishments, and experts still debate how they were built. Span the globe in this riveting look at the most incredible accomplishments of the ancient world achievements that rival and even surpass those of today. From the secret formula of Damascus steel which helped drive the Crusaders from the Holy Land to the "computer" from Ancient Greece, probe the origins of these incredible inventions. Take to the skies in a balloon made from a design 1,000 years old, and join scientists, engineers and historians as they probe the mysteries of ancient devices that cannot be replicated today!And examine the extraordinary innovations of Leonardo Da Vinci, whose drawings included designs for a tank, machine, gun, helicopter and parachute!

Described as the "world"s most notorious penal colony" the tropical outpost established by the French government in 1852 (and used until 1945) was so inhospitable that half of the prisoners have died or gone insane.

On a cold Paris morning in January 1895, as 20,000 people shouted, "Death to the traitor, death to the Jew," French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus was publicly stripped of his rank for committing high treason. That the evidence against him was flimsy and fabricated did not matter; he was Jewish, and that alone was enough to sustain a gross miscarriage of justice that unraveled over a dozen years before his name was finally cleared. THE INFAMOUS DREYFUS AFFAIR details the travesty which exposed the ignorance and prejudice of a nation. See how high-ranking officers set up Dreyfus to take the blame for a critical security leak, and how others who questioned his guilt were silenced and even court-martialed.

A search for the lance that pierced the side of Christ.

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For hundreds of years, the glorious history of Ancient Egypt remained a mystery to the world, its secrets locked away in the baffling language of the hieroglyphs. But in 1799, French troops near the Egyptian town of Rosetta discovered an ancient basalt slab that would prove to be the key to unlocking Egypt's mysteries. Carved in 196 BC, the Rosetta stone bore a decree praising the Egyptian king Ptolemy V etched in hieroglyphs, demotic Egyptian and Greek. From the discovery and the long struggle to uncover the secrets of the ancient language to the birth of modern Egyptology, this is the fascinating saga of the Rosetta Stone. Trace the many failed attempts and dead-ends that stumped scholars. Leading experts tell the story of the brilliant, obsessed Jean Francois Champollion, who finally broke the code. And see how, within a few years, the secrets revealed because of the Rosetta Stone had transformed our understanding of the ancient world.

Present day Mexico City sits atop of what was once a great civilization, the Aztec Empire. Drawing on newly discovered artifacts, anthropologists can now give us a more in depth picture and shed new light on what life was like for this ancient civilization. Watch in awe as Ancient Mysteries reveals the Secrets of the Aztec Empire.

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