History Undercover

One boxing match in 1938 captivated Americans more powerfully than any Subway Series or Superbowl. Joe Louis and Max Schmeling were fighting for more than the heavyweight title; their showdown was promoted as a morality-play. Good vs Evil. Democracy vs Nazism.

The Tomb of The Unknown at Arlington National Cemetery includes and inscription: "Keeping faith with America's missing servicemen". It was added in 1999 giving official recognition to thousands who were listed as 'Missing in Action'.

Towards the end of World War II, Germany was desperate to stave off their inevitable defeat, or at the very least deliver a final parting shot to get a measure of revenge for the collapse of the Third Reich. THE NAZI PLAN TO BOMB NEW YORK exposes one of the most chilling of all such efforts. Aviation historian David Myrha has been investigating secret Nazi aircraft projects for more than 20 years, and he recently came across documents which prove that the Germans were attempting to deliver a radioactive bomb to New York in 1944. Three aerospace engineers--including Wernher von Braun--were charged with designing a plane that could deliver the deadly payload, and they raced the imminent end of the conflict and each other to come up with the best plan. HISTORY UNDERCOVER visits the secret labs and factories where the "Amerika Bombers" were being designed, tested and constructed when the war came to a close, finally telling a story that remained secret for over 50 years.

After the murder of 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and her cabinet decided they'd had enough. In a precedent-shattering move, she directed the Israeli secret service to carry out covert assassinations of those Palestinians directly or indirectly responsible for the attack. This is the story of how the Mossad tracked down the leaders of the terror group Black September over the next 8 years with deadly success.

Roswell. It's a name that conjures up images of UFOs and a government coverup that launched a thousand conspiracy theories. Many people believe that an alien spaceship crashed into the New Mexico desert near Roswell in 1947. And that the government has lied about it ever since. The History Channel has gained exclusive access to top-secret files that have recently been declassified and for the first time on television we reveal the contents of those files.

At the dawn of the 20th century Count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin launched his first airship igniting what promised to be a revolution in warfare. But America's attempt to deploy light than air weapons went down in flames - literally - with a series of deadly disasters.

October 1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis brings the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe. What we didn't know for 40 years was that four Russian diesel submarines in the Caribbean, each carrying a nuclear torpedo, were in position to blow the U.S. Navy out of the water. For the first time, we hear from senior Russian sub officers who reveal that they came within seconds of firing their weapons and starting the first nuclear war. Also interviewed, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

The story has long been repeated as gospel: on August 2nd, 1943, when the PT Boat he commanded was struck and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, a young John Kennedy demonstrated extraordinary courage and dedication in saving the lives of 10 crewmembers. JFK's rise to the presidency was sped along by his status as a wartime hero, but History Undercover® dares to ask whether that reputation was deserved. "JFK and PT-109: A Hero in Question" reviews official documents and examines the testimony of surviving crew members and the naval officers who investigated the incident. What emerges is a markedly different version of what happened. Based on these sources and insight from experts like Nigel Hamilton, the author of JFK: Reckless Youth, and Paul B. Fay, Jr., the commander of PT 167, "JFK and PT 109" suggests that the Kennedy family made a deliberate and successful attempt to bury the facts in order to protect the carefully-shaped image of their favorite son. After nearly 60 years, another side of one of WWII's best-known tales finally comes to light.