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Battle of Little Bighorn

   2018    History
The Battle of Little Bighorn lasted nearly 24 hours on June 25, 1876, but the stage had been set decades earlier as settlers, prospectors, and business people began encroaching on Native Americans' sacred land. From the Lakota Sioux facing broken treaties to the attacks that ultimately led up to Bighorn, follow these events unfold. Then, see how this pivotal moment in history marked the beginning of the end of freedom on the Great Plains, the birth of an American cliche, and an ongoing fight for identity against the tyranny of progress.

The High Seas

   2019    Nature    HD
Far from land, where few of us ever venture, is the ocean beyond the boundary of any country. Largely ungoverned, wild, and lawless. Venture into the deep, dark and desolate oceans that are home to an abundance of beautiful - and downright strange - creatures.
Series: Our Planet

Pavarotti

   2019    Art
Pavarotti is a riveting film that lifts the curtain on the icon who brought opera to the people. Ron Howard puts audiences front row center for an exploration of the voice, the man, the legend. Luciano Pavarotti gave his life to the music and a voice to the world. This cinematic event features history-making performances and intimate interviews, including never-before-seen footage and cutting-edge Dolby Atmos technology.
Born in 1935 in Modena in a worker-class family, Luciano Pavarotti felt since his childhood the passion by opera due to his father, an amateur tenor. Blessed with a powerful voice and student of the most important Italy's opera teachers of those times, soon the name of Pavarotti turned in a reference of the genre, giving some of the most remembered live performances in the most important theaters across the world, meeting with politicians and world leaders as well as rock and pop singers to bring concerts for humanitarian causes, over-passing any limit when he was part of The Three Tenors with the too opera singers José Carreras and Plácido Domingo.

The Beatles: Made on Merseyside

   2018    Art
They defined music and popular culture like no other band ever will - but how did The Beatles make the journey from Merseyside teenagers to international pop stars in the 1960s? Made on Merseyside - The Beatles discovers how American rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues dragged post-war Liverpool into one of the most vibrant music cities ever with the Mersey Sound.
Featuring revealing interviews from those involved in the early years of The Beatles in Liverpool and Hamburg and unique archive, the incredible story of The Beatles' previous band formations and why it took so long for them to achieve success makes riveting viewing. From school bands, to colleges; Hamburg to The Cavern Club, The Beatles changed the world of pop music forever, but was Pete Best's sacking from the band and Ringo's replacement the final part of the jigsaw?

The Last Empire

   2016    History
China's last empire, the Qing, lasted from 1644 to 1912. It began in violence and war as the Manchus swept down from the north, but invaders became emperors, with three generations of one family ruling the country. Among them, Michael Wood argues, was China's greatest emperor - Kangxi. Under the Qing, China doubled in size to include Xinjiang in the far west, as well as Mongolia and Tibet, creating the essential shape of China today. The new dynasty tolerated a diversity of cultures and religions, including Islam. In Kaifeng, Michael visits a women's mosque with a female imam, a delightful scene that ends with laughter and selfies! The Qing also undertook huge cultural enterprises. At a traditional printing house where the wood blocks are hand-carved, we see how the Complete Tang Poems were reproduced - all 48,000 of them. We travel through the wintry countryside to a remote village where a hardy audience watch open-air opera in the snow and visit a painter's studio, and 'storytelling' houses in Yangzhou. In the 18th century, China was arguably the greatest economy in the world, and we get a fabulous sense of the rich culture that came with prosperity. But then came the clash with the British, in the first Opium War, when a British expedition destroyed the Qing navy and extracted territory and trading rights. We leave with a glimpse of the future. 'Every dynasty has risen and declined,' says Michael, 'and has needed new life to regenerate, and this time the catalyst was the British.' Among the ports China ceded was an almost uninhabited island, Hong Kong, one of today's greatest financial centres, and Shanghai, a small town then but now one of the greatest cities in world.
Series: The Story of China

The Golden Age

   2016    History
This episode tells the tale of what's broadly considered China's most creative dynasty - the Song (960-1279). Michael Wood heads to the city of Kaifeng, the greatest city in the world before the 19th century. Here in Twin Dragon Alley, locals tell him the legend of the baby boys who became emperors.
He explores the ideas and inventions that made the Song one of greatest eras in world culture, helped by China's most famous work of art, the Kaifeng scroll, which shows the life of the city in around 1120. A chef makes Michael a recipe from a Song cookbook, while a guide to 'how to live happy, healthy lives for old people', published in 1085 and still in print, is discussed with local women doing their morning exercises. The Song was also a great era for scientific advance in China. Michael steers a huge working replica of an astronomical clock, made by China's Leonardo da Vinci.
Then at a crunch Chinese Premier League match, Michael tells us the Chinese invented football! The golden age of the northern Song ended in 1127, when invaders sacked Kaifeng, but they survived in the south. At their new capital, Hangzhou, Wood joins locals dancing by the West Lake, while in the countryside he meets Mr Xie with his records of 40 generations of ancestors. The final defeat of the Song took place in a naval battle in the estuary of the Pearl River in 1279. When all was lost, rather than surrender to the Mongols, a loyal minister jumped into the sea with the young boy emperor in his arms. 'So ended the glory of the Song', Wood concludes, 'but a new age would arise... as in China, it always has!'.
Series: The Story of China