Smithsonian Channel Documentaries

For years, fishermen have known of a unique spot in the ocean off southern Australia, a place of amazing catches and a huge luminescent blue creature of the deep. As much as one hundred feet long, weighing up to 180-tons, with a heart the size of a Volkswagen, and a tongue that weighs more than an elephant, the blue whale is a sight to behold. Join Smithsonian Networks as HD cameras capture the planet's largest living creature having a feeding frenzy.

An up-close look at Brazilian monkeys, the golden lion tamarins, at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.

The annual Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance car show is where the world's millionaires and billionaires show off some of the most exotic cars on the planet. Winning this competition can add hundreds of thousands to a car's value, but any of these collectors will tell you that it's not about the money-it's about bragging rights.

Peek at the first hours of three tiger cubs to their first swim at the National Zoo.

It takes a special person to sit on six million pounds of fuel and blast into space at 17,000 MPH. Join the crew of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, six highly trained astronauts on a mission to produce the most detailed 3D images of Earth, using a specially modified radar system. Witness what it's like to fly over Australian deserts, Caribbean islands, and African jungles in a matter of minutes, and see how this unique vantage point details not only Earth's beauty, but its frailty as well.

It takes a special person to sit on six million pounds of fuel and blast into space at 17,000 MPH. Join the crew of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, six highly trained astronauts on a mission to produce the most detailed 3D images of Earth, using a specially modified radar system. Witness what it's like to fly over Australian deserts, Caribbean islands, and African jungles in a matter of minutes, and see how this unique vantage point details not only Earth's beauty, but its frailty as well.

If you've ever used the phrase "when pigs fly" to describe something that'll never happen, you may want to reach back into your bag of idioms. A team of flying experts has tackled the challenge of designing a pig that can actually take to the skies. To them, nothing is impossible. See the unique aerodynamics needed to get things in the air and unusual flying machines that look like doghouses, lawn mowers, and pigs.

The famous aircrafts of the first century of flight can only be seen at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, housed in Washington, DC, and in the Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia. The Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum (established in 1946), also known as America's Hangar, houses over 300,000-square-feet of aircraft and is the world's most-visited museum. It has preserved and displays many of the world's most- renowned historic aircraft. From the first airplane, commercial aircraft and spacecraft to take an American into orbit, Smithsonian Channel takes you on a personal tour of the collections of the National Air and Space Museum, chronicling the first century of flight.

Children love the gross and the icky – and who knew that the Smithsonian was a repository for so much that is not only gross and icky, but also weird? In this show, we take a fun and informative look at ten wondrous and unusual artefacts drawn from the Smithsonian’s collections. Includes: Soap Man (a man from Philadelphia mummified in soap), the world’s longest tapeworm (18ft), a giant squid and a million year old sample of Giant Sloth dung.

On December 4, 1872, the unmanned Mary Celeste was found adrift in the Atlantic with its cargo fully intact. The mystery of this "ghost ship" remained unanswered for over 135 years. What happened to the Mary Celeste is widely regarded as the most famous mystery of the sea. Watch it unfold to its stunning conclusion, at last.

They are studied in school and visited by millions. They are world-renowned symbols of our nation. But they are also shrouded in misinformation, mystery, and mythology. How much do we really know about America's greatest monuments? From war memorials, to monuments honoring America's founding fathers, to Arlington's eternal flame, these soaring tributes in stone, steel, soil, and sky have amazing stories to tell. They are a permanent record of our nation's history and our evolution into the world's greatest democracy-a country of the people.

Suicide attacks have become a frightening modern day reality. An unprecedented military strategy, conceived by the Japanese in a frantic effort to avoid defeat during the final months of World War II, suicide attacks resulted in over 150 allied ships damaged and more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers killed. Although ultimately unsuccessful, this strategy was an effective and demoralizing campaign that left American troops uneasy and filled with dread. Smithsonian Networks reveals film footage of Japanese kamikaze training, shares U.S. military footage, interviews veterans from both sides of the conflict, stages historic reenactments and shows you one of the world's only intact Kamikaze planes on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Day of the Kamikaze documents the origins of kamikaze battle and shares true, eyewitness accounts of the biggest and bloodiest suicide attack in history over two days in 1945 when the Japanese launched Operation Heaven against the allied fleet in the Pacific. Produced by Darlow Smithson Productions for Smithsonian Networks International in association with Channel 4

Deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia is an elusive and endangered member of the panther family that is threatened by poachers, development, and natural habitat changes. The fate of this exotic, python-patterned, clouded leopard may rest in the hands of a small cadre of scientists, activists, and veterinarians determined to help it stave off extinction. Three daring women comb the forests of Thailand for evidence of the elusive "ghost cat." They infiltrate a notorious smuggler's paradise and black market of exotic animals, determined to save the stunning creature.