Smithsonian Channel Documentaries

Meet Gunner, a Cheetah born into the grassland killing fields of Botswana, home to Africa's fiercest predators. He's also the runt of the litter, more interested in playing tag than hunting. Gunner's two brothers often protect him, but when they're tragically killed, he's forced to grow up. But he better learn quickly—another coalition of cheetahs has plans to take over Gunner’s territory at all costs. If this runt has any hopes of surviving, he’s going to have to do it alone.

In the span of just a few years, Blondie went from a band fighting for punk cred at CBGB to international superstardom, thanks in large part to one album: Parallel Lines. What was the secret behind its success? How did it all come together...and nearly fall apart? Enter the recording studio with Blondie's frontwoman and namesake, Debbie Harry, the rest of the band, and producer Mike Chapman. Their conversations reveal the real stories behind iconic hits like "Heart of Glass" and "One Way or Another" and how they launched punk music into the mainstream.

Turn out the lights, hide in the shadows, and enter the secretive realm of the infamous ninja. We explore the untold history of these shadow soldiers; from their formation in the 14th Century to their battles against Samurai forces, led by ninja master Tanba, one of the most feared warriors in ancient Japan. Uncover guarded ninja techniques in spying, sabotage and ruthless undercover warfare, tactics that have earned them a reputation in their homeland as both heroic fighters and cunning, cold-hearted killers.

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum holds more than 70,000 objects, including the 1903 Wright Flyer, the Spirit of St. Louis, and the Apollo 11 capsule. Meet the people who keep it running, and see how they tackle their biggest challenge to date. They must move all of the contents from the crumbling Paul E. Garber Facility in Maryland to the Steven Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia. And everything, from a massive F100 supersonic fighter jet to small toys and games, must arrive without a scratch.

It took more than 500 years to find the remains of King Richard III, and for those who discovered him, the months spent proving his identity felt just as long. This is the inside story of the 2012 unearthing of Britain's much-maligned monarch. Follow the remarkable story from the history-making excavation of a city parking lot, to the battery of tests that followed. From skeletal analysis, to CT scans, to DNA profiling, join scientists as they unlock the skeleton's secrets and confirm the true identity. The clues they discover may reveal what really happened in the King's final, grisly moments

Damaged and fragile, a fragment of ancient papyrus has unleashed a new interpretation of a religious story we thought we knew. In one of the most startling discoveries in recent memory, scholars confirm that a codex written in the ancient Coptic language refers to the wife of Jesus. Dr. Karen King, a Harvard professor, reveals that the papyrus bears the line "Jesus said to them, my wife..." It doesn't prove Jesus was married, but it raises questions about that possibility--and how some early Christians viewed the role of women in the church.

For the first time in 70 years, forensic archaeologists have been granted access to the Treblinka death camp, which suddenly disappeared in 1943, along with some 900,000 victims.

They were a family of seven Jewish dwarfs living under Nazi rule. What happened when they were discovered reaches beyond the imaginings of even the darkest fairy tale. Join actor Warwick Davis as he tells the story of the Ovitz family, a troupe of seven performers who became prisoners and, eventually, guinea pigs to the Nazi's "Angel of Death" Dr. Josef Mengele. Warwick's expedition takes us to Eastern Europe and explores their remarkable, inspirational story of human endurance.

Six weeks before D-Day, British, American, and Canadian soldiers took part in a vigorous and dangerous dress rehearsal for their Normandy invasion. Shockingly, the exercise would ultimately claim more American lives than the attack on Utah Beach. So what happened, exactly? How many Americans actually died? And who is to blame? Join us as we investigate the Exercise Tiger disaster, uncover the veil of secrecy surrounding it, examine the conspiracy theories it has inspired, and for the first time, tell the full story of the catastrophe.

The dry season in northern Zimbabwe's Mana Pools National Park is as deadly as any predator. The rains stop, the temperatures rise, and the water sources evaporate, pushing herbivores past the normal boundaries of caution and into dangerous territory. Two lion families patiently await their arrival, one, a team of rookies, the other, seasoned pros, each with one shared goal: to hunt the thirsty herds. Get a remarkable look at their daily battles for survival as we take you on an action-packed journey into one of the wildest springs in Africa.

How America's national anthem came to be. Included: the flag and the battle that inspired it.

For 20-year-old Madison Stewart, nothing feels safer or more natural than diving straight into shark-infested waters. Since childhood, growing up by the Great Barrier Reef, she's treated these predators as family. But they're vanishing from existence, and because of their bad reputation, few people seem to care. Follow Madison on her mission to protect our sharks, a battle that began when she put her studies on hold, grabbed a camera, and set out to save these incredible, misunderstood creatures.

It's a condition known as "hypertrichosis" or "Ambras Syndrome," but in the 1500s it would transform one man into a national sensation and iconic fairy-tale character. His name: Petrus Gonsalvus, more commonly known today as the hairy hero of Beauty and the Beast. Discover the facts behind the fable as we follow Petrus's remarkable life with a very rare and hairy genetic condition. Then learn about this medical phenomenon, which continues to fascinate and perplex scientists to this day.

At any given moment hundreds of people are soaring above us in a 747. From the moment the very first jumbo jet took off in 1969, it has been the aircraft against which all others are judged. But its 45-year journey has been anything but smooth. This is the definitive story of the Boeing 747, from its milestones and triumphs to its turning points and disasters. Witness its history through rare archival footage and tales from pilots, engineers, designers, and passengers who were there when it all began.

There's a mysterious predator lurking in the depths of Australia's wild Southern Ocean, a beast that savagely devoured a great white shark in front of cinematographer David Riggs 11 years ago. Riggs's obsession to find the killer leads him to an aquatic battle zone that's remained hidden until now. Here, killer whales, colossal squid and great white sharks face off in an underwater coliseum where only the fiercest creatures of the marine world survive.

Ireland's history is steeped in religion and mystery. Why did its people stop worshipping the earth 5,000 years ago? Did St. Patrick really act alone in converting the Irish to Christianity in the 5th century? Historians, astronomers, and other scientists believe answers to these and other questions lie in the stars. Discover the role that celestial occurrences have played in Irish religious beliefs and practices as we explore ancient hallowed sites and even the heavens above.

In the 1960s, jetliners changed passenger travel forever. They also changed the lives of a few fortunate women. Go back to this golden age of commercial flight, when pilots looked like movie stars, passengers ate seven-course meals, and young, charming stewardesses became the glamorous faces of the industry. Through interviews and anecdotes, we detail the evolution of the "air hostess," how they became icons for a generation and why the jet set era opened new career horizons that many women could only dream of.

Months after World War II, an extraordinary discovery was made inside a captured Nazi official's coat lining: the last will and testament of Adolf Hitler. Discover the untold story of the notorious dictator's controversial final document, written just hours before he took his life, and learn the secrets he tried to take to his grave.

Witness a remarkable coming-of-age story as we track a young leopard's journey from rookie to royalty in South Africa's lethal Big Five landscape. When we first meet Jack, he's clumsy, fearful, and weak, but he's a fast learner... and he'll need to be. He's destined for a showdown with the area's current leopard monarch, an alpha male with a real mean streak. We follow Jack as he hones his skills and builds up muscle for the ultimate catfight. It's a battle where only the winner will walk out alive.

The circle of life is broken in Zambia's Liuwa Plains National Park. Settlers, poachers, and professional hunters have almost wiped out the lion population, leaving just one lioness in the vast wilderness... but not for long. This is the story of "Lady Liuwa," a lion queen without a kingdom, and Herbert Brauer, a wildlife cinematographer on a six-year journey to find her a mate in hopes of forming a new pride. It's a mission full of setbacks and disappointments, chaos and danger, and the magic of unexpected relationships.

On January 13, 2012, the largest passenger shipwreck in history occurred when the Costa Concordia struck a submerged rock off Italy's Tuscan coast. Once a floating pleasure palace for more than 4,200 passengers and crew, the half-sunken ship spent the next two years as a grisly tourist attraction...and an ecological time bomb. Relive the night of her crash, captured on video by those aboard the liner. Then witness the monumental engineering challenge that followed as 500 experts from 24 nations teamed up to pry this 114,000-ton ship from her rocky grave.

After the devastating attacks of 9/11, New York City needed to rebuild itself, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. The site where the Twin Towers once stood was now a gaping pit, and the entire world watched to see what, if anything, could fill the void. Witness the story of One World Trade Center, one of the most significant, and dangerous, construction jobs ever launched. From brazen designs and heated debates to dangerous tasks at dizzying heights, we detail every step of this towering, poignant achievement.

Stonehenge is one of the world's most iconic monuments, yet despite centuries of intense scrutiny many of the biggest questions about its inspiration, origins and evolution remain unanswered. Now, Stonehenge Empire reveals the results of a five-year project that utilized revolutionary new technology to map the whole area around the site and reveal what lies beneath the surface. Drawing on this new data, alongside state-of-the art CGI and dramatic reconstructions, Stonehenge Empire provides the most complete picture ever of Stonehenge and the prehistoric culture that flourished around it.

Dig deep into the often misunderstood world of spiders and discover how fascinating they really are. With more than 40,000 species recorded, they’re an indispensable part of any ecosystem. Watch spiders that fly, spiders that jump more than 40 times their own height, others that spit to hunt and even ones that live underwater. Plus, see why spiders eat their own webs when they’re done with them and find out why the scariest-looking spiders are often the least harmful.

They were out-gunned and out-armored by superior German tanks, but what the American M4 Sherman tank crews lacked in firepower, they made up for in courage. Discover the stories of the heroic GIs who rolled into Nazi territory in the final weeks of WWII and faced off against an enemy that refused to surrender. Then, go behind the scenes of the film "Fury" and inside the tankers' world, as we hear accounts from veterans who survived the intense tank battles firsthand.

How England’s greatest spy pioneered covert espionage techniques to foil a terror plot to murder Elizabeth I, and to engineer the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. In a gripping day-by-day account of the action, using dramatized scenes and location interviews with top historians, we unfold the remarkable events across eight weeks in 1586, when the danger was at its height.

What a civilization imbibes can reveal a lot about who they are and the world that they live in. Those who built the pyramids preferred beer, and ancient Rome loved its wine, but what's the preferred alcoholic beverage in the US and what does it say about America? Join food writer Josh Ozersky on an illuminating journey as he makes moonshine, meets a microbrewery's chemist, visits an award-winning vineyard and samples the infinite possibilities of the cocktail bar, all in the name of science.

The Siberian discovery of the best-preserved woolly mammoth on record has teams of experts working around the globe, and around the clock, on some of the most ambitious projects in science. In Russia, paleontologists are conducting a historic autopsy on the 40,000-year-old beast to find out how it lived, and how it died. Meanwhile labs in South Korea and at Harvard University are using the latest advances in DNA manipulation in hopes of cloning the furry giant and introducing it to the modern world.

It's death on an unimaginable scale, when a majority of Earth's species quickly die out. It's called "mass extinction," and it's happened at least five times before. Cataclysms, such as supervolcanoes or asteroids, are thought to cause these events, but some experts believe a manmade mass extinction could be next. Is our planet in trouble? And if so, is there anything we can do to stop the next catastrophic annihilation? Experts are traveling the world, performing groundbreaking scientific detective work to answer these very questions.

There may never be a virus as deadly or as misunderstood as AIDS. Responsible for 36 million deaths since its discovery in 1981, it remains shrouded in myths, misconceptions, and mistruths... until now. Scientists deep in the African Congo have discovered forgotten clues that are rewriting the story of the global pandemic and revealing shocking facts about its origins. Now the race is on to see if these new findings are the key to developing a vaccine that could finally win the epic battle against HIV.

When American troops joined the epic battle against the Japanese in World War II, a British journalist followed along, equipped with a movie camera, some rolls of color film, and a powerful friendship with General Douglas MacArthur. Follow the travels of war correspondent William Courtenay and his unrivaled reporting on the Pacific campaign and its great commander. Then witness his remarkable archival recordings, from multiple island attacks to the aftermath of the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

They are potent symbols of sex, fertility, and nurturing. They are also changing. Human breasts are growing bigger and appearing earlier, with higher rates of cancer than ever before. Why? Is it a product of evolution? Obesity? The chemicals around us? Follow doctors and scientists, who are using new ways of analyzing breast tissue, and revealing startling and disturbing truths. Then witness the surprising discoveries made when modern science puts breast tissue and breast milk under the microscope.

It's the deadliest tsunami on record, causing 230,000 deaths and $15 billion in damages. Triggered by a massive undersea quake off the coast of Indonesia, the 2004 Asian tsunami pounded Indian Ocean coastlines with waves up to 100 feet high, catching victims and the world's leading scientists by storm. Are we better prepared for the next big one? Where will the next one hit? See how early warning systems are currently being developed and meet the lucky few who survived this epic disaster.

For early aviators, conquering the forces of gravity was a daunting challenge. But black aviators had an additional challenge - conquering the forces of racism. Meet the men and women who took to the skies throughout the 20th century, proving to a segregated nation that skin color doesn't determine skill level. From biplanes to commercial jets, and from barnstormers to war fighters, meet the path-breaking pilots who opened the skies for all -- and contributed in countless ways to the development of aviation.