History Channel Documentaries

From the Nazi blitzkrieg in 1939 to the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, the Axis tide rolled unchecked -- until a series of battles that spelled doom for Hitler and his allies.

The Underground Railroad, "the first civil rights movement," was no mere act of civil disobedience. The secret network of guides, pilots, and safe-house keepers (the Railroad's "conductors") was built by runaway slaves who, over the decades, communicated their experiences through songs and secret gestures, and were supported by abolitionists (many of them former slaves) who risked their own freedom to help free the enslaved. The "passengers" risked their lives. A wealth of photos, documents, and commentary by modern historians provides the broad lines of history, but it comes alive in the individual stories of conductors and passengers, among them abolitionist and historian William Still, called the "Father of the Underground Railroad," and Henry "Box" Brown, who mailed himself to freedom in a cargo crate. They (and many others) take their place beside Harriet Tubman ("the Moses of her people") and Frederick Douglass as courageous heroes in America's first integrated social movement.

It was a centerpiece of the Cold War. The space race between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. resulted in some of the most significant scientific and engineering advances in human history. But it was also marred by tragedy. And while the stories of American mishaps--such as the fire that claimed the lives of three Apollo astronauts in 1967--are well documented, the failures of the Soviet space program remained closely guarded secrets until only recently. Filled with rare, never-before-seen footage from Soviet archives and interviews with insiders like Ronald Sagdeev, Mikhail Gorbachev's science advisor, SECRETS OF SOVIET SPACE DISASTERS brings these long-hidden stories to light. See how personal rivalries, shifting political alliances and bureaucratic bungling led to the more than 150 deaths as well as the eventual failure of the Soviet space program itself.

As the newly opened feature movie "Dick" does a humorous take on the Nixon administration, The History Channel looks back at Richard M. Nixon's resignation from the presidency.

The 1991 Halloween Gale

The battle of the Little Big Horn -- "Custer's Last Stand" -- has been examined and re-examined so many times that it would seem the subject has been exhausted. But LITTLE BIG HORN: THE UNTOLD STORY proves otherwise. The product of over twenty years of research by Dr. Herman J. Viola, Curator Emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution, this study draws on some of the most impressive source material imaginable, including restored footage of the first-ever reconstruction of the battle, filmed in 1908 with many of the Native Americans who took place in the real fight. The Red Horse drawings--40 vivid color portraits made by an eyewitness--offer another privileged view of the famous battle. But perhaps most intriguing are the on-camera accounts of Dr. Medicine Crow, who as a young man knew five of the six Crow scouts in Custer's employ, as well as Sioux and Cheyene.