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Pink Floyd: P. U. L. S. E. Live at Earls Court (II)

   2006    Art    HD
P.U.L.S.E is a Pink Floyd concert video taken from the 20 October 1994 concert at Earls Court, London. PULSE records the great psychedelic band Pink Floyd rocking out like only they can. Renowned for their hallucinatory special effects and lighting schemes, Pink Floyd goes all out at this spectacular (and very long) concert. Twenty-one of their classics are performed, including classic rock radio staples 'Dark Side of The Moon' and 'Wish You were Here". There was considerable delay in the release of the video edition of Pulse. The cause of the delays was reputed to be the continued modifications and additions to produce a high-quality release. The previous planned release date of 22 September 2005 for the two-disc DVD set was changed to 10 July 2006 for the UK and Europe, and 11 July 2006 everywhere else.
Series: P.U.L.S.E

Liberty Leading the People

   2005    Art
Artists, academics, and critics discuss the historical origins, original reception, and slow climb to critical acclaim for Eugene Delacroix's painting commemorating the Revolution of 1830, 'Liberty Leading the People.'
A woman of the people with a phrygian cap personifying the concept of Liberty leads the people forward over a barricade and the bodies of the fallen, holding the flag of the French Revolution – the tricolour, which again became France's national flag after these events – in one hand and brandishing a bayonetted musket with the other. The figure of Liberty is also viewed as a symbol of France and the French Republic known as Marianne.
Series: The Private Life of a Masterpiece

The Lost Pyramids of Caral

   2002    History
The magnificent ancient city of pyramids at Caral in Peru is a thousand years older than the earliest known civilisation in the Americas and, at 2,627 BC, is as old as the pyramids of Egypt. Many now believe it is the fabled missing link of archaeology - a 'mother city'. If so, then these extraordinary findings could finally answer one of the great questions of archaeology: why did humans become civilised?" For over a century, archaeologists have been searching for what they call a mother city. Civilisation began in only six areas of the world: Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, Peru and Central America. In each of these regions people moved from small family units to build cities of thousands of people. They crossed the historic divide, one of the great moments in human history. Why? To find the answer archaeologists needed to find a mother city - the first stage of city-building. Caral, is so much older than anything else in South America that it is a clear candidate to be the mother city. It also is in pristine condition. Nothing has been built on it at all. Instead laid out before the world is an elaborate complex of pyramids, temples, an amphitheatre and ordinary houses. Scientists developed a number of theories. Some said it was because of the development of trade, others that it was irrigation. Some even today believe it was all because of aliens. Gradually an uneasy consensus emerged. The key force common to all civilisations was warfare. Crucially, there is not the faintest trace of warfare at Caral; no battlements, no weapons, no mutilated bodies. Instead, Ruth's findings suggest it was a gentle society, built on commerce and pleasure. In one of the pyramids they uncovered beautiful flutes made from condor and pelican bones. They have also found evidence of a culture that took drugs and perhaps aphrodisiacs. Most stunning of all, they have found the remains of a baby, lovingly wrapped and buried with a precious necklace made of stone beads.

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

Playful Creatures

   2015    Nature
Spy in the Huddle use innovative techniques to reveal the incredible secrets of your pets' behaviour in ways never seen before. As astonishing photography explores the wild side of our playful pets, find out why hamsters love to run in a wheel, how dogs pick up the rules of the pack and how kittens learn to be solitary hunters. Featuring incredible views of plunge-diving dogs, babysitting cats, acrobatic hamsters and a playful cat outwitted by his prey" - you'll never look at your favourite companions in quite the same way again. The latest science also reveals why budgies talk, how a cat scales a vertical wall with the help of a special claw, why hamsters stuff their faces with more food than they can eat and the real meaning behind a rabbit's hop. Our pets are also given a chance to explore their wild side as we join the free-roaming pet dogs of Cusco Peru, pet rabbits living in a natural warren and the wild-living inhabitants of Cat Island, Japan. A range of innovative techniques such as moving X-rays, thermal imagery, minicam-carrying dogs and revelatory slow-motion photography shows why our pets play and how their true wild nature is just a whisker away.
Series: Pets: Wild at Heart

Chased by Sea Monsters 3of3

   2003    Nature
The Basilosaurus, the first of the large whale species, is not a harmless plankton eater but a fearsome high speed hunter. And most frightening of all is the Megalodon, a gargantuan ancestor of the great white that makes its modern day relative look like a tuna.
Series: Chased by Sea Monsters