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The Making of an Emperor

   2016    History
In the second episode of the series, the Germanic tribes strike as Marcus Aurelius succumbs to disease, leaving a skeptical Emperor Commodus to prosecute a war that doesn't interest him.
Series: Roman Empire: Reign of Blood

The Cold War: 1945-1950

   2012    History
Directed, produced, and narrated by Oliver Stone. In this episode we will see how the equation changes: specific month-by-month causes of the Cold War emerge and it is not entirely clear who started it. Highlights include Churchill's Iron Curtain speech, the civil war in Greece and the Red Scare that prompts the rise of Joseph McCarthy, the House Un-American Activities Committee and the FBI.
Series: The Untold History of the United States

The Bletchley Park Code Breakers

       History
The film reveals the secret story behind one of the greatest intellectual feats of World War II, a feat that gave birth to the digital age.
In 1943 Bill Tutte, a 24-year-old maths student and a GPO engineer called Tommy Flowers combined to hack into Hitler's personal super code machine - not Enigma but an even tougher system, which he called his 'secrets writer'. Their break turned the Battle of Kursk, powered the D-day landings and orchestrated the end of the conflict in Europe. But it was also to be used during the Cold War - which meant both men's achievements were hushed up and never officially recognised.

Adoration in the Forest

   2010    Art
Painted over five centuries ago, Filippo Lippi's nativity is like none other: it shows the birth of Christ in a dark, wooded wilderness. There are no shepherds, kings, ox, ass – there is no Joseph. Its beauty inspired Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli. But it also conceals a deeply personal story. It was painted for Cosimo de Medici, a wealthy banker who feared that his money was dragging him straight to hell. The artist's life was equally surprising. One of the most celebrated painters of his day, Filippo Lippi was also a Carmelite friar, but he was no stranger to the temptations of the flesh, to which he frequently yielded. Shortly before painting his Adoration, he caused uproar by seducing a twenty year-old nun. His paintings rejoice not only in divine beauty, but in the beauty of women. In later times, the Adoration's history was interwoven with that of rulers and dictators. It became a bargaining chip after Napoleon's allies seized twenty merchant ships. And in the 20th century, it was hidden by the Nazis in a potassium mine, where specialist american officers, known as Monuments Men, stumbled upon it. they were now told to get it ready to be shipped out. In an unprecedented turn of events they refused. This is the only known case in the whole of the Second World War of American officers refusing an order. It was sent to the National Gallery of Art, but in 1949 Lippi's Adoration was returned to Germany.
Series: The Private Life of a Masterpiece

The Secret Nuremberg Notebooks

       History
We are familiar with images of the hearings at the Nuremberg trials. But to this day, no one has taken us into the cells and minds of the accused. Leon Goldensohn, a 34-year-old American Jewish psychiatrist, spent six months visiting the 4 main Nazi war criminals.
Based on these unique and recently uncovered documents and reconstitutions of the main events, this film discloses for the first time the personal thoughts of the Nazis: Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, Hans Franck and Julius Streicher. These interviews raise serious questions concerning the psychic mechanisms and mysteries that set off acts of barbarity.