Secrets of the Dead

In October 1962, the world held its breath. On the edge of the Caribbean Sea, just a few miles from the Florida coast, the two great superpowers were at a stand-off. Surrounded by twelve US destroyers, which were depth-charging his submarine to drive it to the surface, Captain Vitali Grigorievitch Savitsky panicked. Unable to contact Moscow and fearing war had begun, he ordered the launch of his submarine’s nuclear torpedoes. As the two sides inched perilously close to nuclear war—far closer than we ever knew before–just one man stood between Captain Savitsky’s order and mutually assured destruction. Set over four hours on October 27, 1962, the tensest moments of the Cuban Missile Crisis, this program tells the powerful but forgotten story of Vasili Arkhipov and Soviet submarine B-59. With most of the action set in a claustrophobic submarine running out of air, “The Man Who Saved the World” combines tense drama with eyewitness accounts and expert testimony about some of the most critical events in the Cold War.

In the aftermath of World War II, ordinary German soldiers claimed they knew nothing about the Holocaust. They blamed all its atrocities on the SS. However, recently uncovered transcripts of a massive bugging operation by MI19, an intelligence division of the British War office, tell a very different story. Over the course of the operation, MI19 spied on 4,000 German POW's, listening in as the men revealed their inner thoughts about the Third Reich and let slip military secrets that helped the Allies win World War II. Some of these POW's were high-ranking German officers who were lulled into a false sense of security by the special treatment they received while held in stately British country homes that were bugged with state-of-the-art equipment. They spoke freely, sharing their--at times conflicting--opinions of Hitler, the Third Reich, and the fate of Germany. Over 100,000 hours of conversations by German POW's were secretly recorded, and the most dramatic and revealing of these unguarded conversations are recreated, offering new insight into what German soldiers really thought about Hitler's regime. Based on groundbreaking research conducted by a team of leading German historians and scientists, BUGGING HITLER'S SOLDIERS tells the story of how those confessions were stolen, how they changed the outcome of the war and how they can now reveal, in more shocking detail than ever before, the hearts and minds of the German fighter.

Forensic and scientific analysis help determine how 57 Irish immigrants died less than two months after arriving in Pennsylvania to work on the railroad.

A tomb of 49,000 year-old Neanderthal bones discovered in El Sidron, a remote, mountainous region of Northern Spain, leads to a compelling investigation to solve a double mystery: How did this group of Neanderthals die? And, could the fate of this group help explain Neanderthal extinction? Scientists examine the bones—buried over 65 feet below ground—and discover signs that tell a shocking story of how this group of six adults, three teenagers, two children and a baby may have met their death. Some bones have deep cuts, long bones are cracked and skulls crushed—distinct signs of cannibalism. Was it a result of ritual or hunger? Neanderthal experts are adamant that they were not bloodthirsty brutes. Will this investigation challenge their views? What happened here 49000 years ago will take us on a much bigger journey—from El Sidron to the other end of the Iberian Peninsula where scientists are excavating beneath the seas off Gibraltar in search of Neanderthal sites. Scientists working here had theories—but no proof—for why Neanderthals went extinct. El Sidron may change this.

Secrets of the Dead is part detective story, part true-life drama that unearths evidence from around the world, challenging prevailing ideas and throwing fresh light on unexplained events.

Historian Charles Allen investigates whether ash and bone discovered in Northern India in 1898 are remains of the Buddha.