Public Broadcasting Service (U.S.)
1) Australia
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English
Description
When Homo sapiens arrived in Australia, they were, for the first time, truly alone, surrounded by wildly different flora and fauna. How did they survive and populate a continent? There is a close cultural and genetic link between the First Australians and modern-day Aborigines. The ancient and modern story intersect here as nowhere else in the world. The secret to this continuity is diversity. Intuitively, they found the right balance between being...
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English
Description
Relive Orson Welles' infamous radio dramatization 75 years after the mass hysteria event it spawned. The film examines the elements that made America ripe for the hoax: America's longtime fascination with life on Mars; the emergence of radio as a powerful new medium; the shocking Hindenburg explosion of 1937; and Welles himself, the 23-year-old wunderkind director of the drama and mischief-maker supreme.
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English
Description
This film spotlights the quest of scientific truth in the early 20th Century. Isaac Newton, inspired by Albert Einstein, creates the law of gravity. Einstein, using the law of gravity, improves upon his special theory of relativity creating the general theory of relativity. This is proven by Arthur Eddington who photographed bent starlight shining through a full eclipse of the sun. Throughout this film, concepts of theoretical physics are animated...
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English
Description
Frail and failing but determined to see the war through to victory, FDR wins re-election and begins planning for a peaceful postwar world, but a cerebral hemorrhage kills him at 63. After her husband's death, Eleanor Roosevelt proves herself a shrewd politician and a skilled negotiator in her own right, as well as a champion of civil rights, civil liberties and the United Nations. When she dies in 1962, she is mourned everywhere as the First Lady...
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English
Description
David Harewood, the first black actor to play the lead role at the National theatre in London, explores the complexities and contradictions of Othello. He discovers how trade and diplomatic envoys were making the city more cosmopolitan in the early seventeenth century and explores the power of the language that makes Othello arguably the tightest piece of thriller writing in Shakespeare's body of work.
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English
Description
NOVA reveals the minute-by-minute story of the Fukushima nuclear crisis-the one you know about...and the one you likely don't. With unprecedented access inside both Fukushima nuclear power plants, NOVA speaks with workers who were there during the harrowing crisis that began as a natural a disaster but was made worse by human beings. But why did the worst happen at one plant-and another that faced nearly identical challenges emerged unscathed? It...
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English
Description
Diseases that were largely eradicated in the United States a generation ago-including whooping cough, measles, mumps-are returning, in part because nervous parents are skipping their children's shots. This NOVA special takes viewers around the world to track epidemics, explore the science behind vaccinations, and shed light on the risks of opting out. Highlighting real cases and placing them in historical context, the program traces outbreaks of communicable...
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English
Description
Each year, an estimated 2 million people in the U.S. are infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria-and at least 23,000 die. As the crisis deepens, FRONTLINE correspondent David E. Hoffman turns his attention to the American farm, a sector that comprises an estimated 70 percent of all antibiotics sold. Hoffman travels the country to investigate new research out of Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Texas focusing on how antibiotics on the farm might be contributing...
11) Queen Elizabeth
Language
English
Description
Journey into the six decade reign of one of the world's most influential women. Follow Queen Elizabeth II's remarkable life, from her youth-when few expected she'd ever wear the crown-to her uncle Edward VIII's stunning abdication, and her father's subsequent coronation as King George VI. Witness her experiences during World War II, her own sudden ascension to the throne, and her eventful reign of more than 60 years. She defines the role of a modern...
13) Why Are We Here?
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English
Description
World-famous scientist Stephen Hawking sets three ordinary people a series of fun challenges to show them how to think like a genius. Can they work out why they exist at all? Is it destiny or pure chance?
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English
Description
In 1931, two white women stepped from a box car in Paint Rock, Alabama to make a shocking accusation: they had been raped by nine black teenagers on the train. So began one of the most significant legal fights of the twentieth century. The trial of the nine falsely accused teens would draw North and South into their sharpest conflict since the Civil War, yield two momentous Supreme Court decisions and give birth to the Civil Rights Movement. In addition...
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English
Description
How do you get a genius brain? Is it all in your genes? Or is it hard work? Is it possible that everyone's brain has untapped genius-just waiting for the right circumstances so it can be unleashed? From a man who can immediately name the day of the week of any date in history to a "memory athlete" who can remember strings of hundreds of random numbers, David Pogue meets people stretching the boundaries of what the human mind can do. Then, Pogue puts...
18) Are We Alone?
Language
English
Description
Stephen Hawking sets three volunteers a series of fun challenges to show them how to think like a genius - and find out how likely it is that aliens exist.
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English
Description
Sally Field discovers that she descends from William Bradford, who arrived on the Mayflower and helped his fellow English Puritans establish their new lives in colonial America and later discovers that her ancestors sided with the British crown during our nation's War of Independence and paid the ultimate price. Deepak Chopra's family made a similar gamble while living under harsh British colonial rule in India, where his grandparents pledged their...
Language
English
Description
Veteran actor Christopher Plummer delves into one of the greatest tragedies - King Lear. Exploring the power and ethics of authority, King Lear is considered to be one of the most penetrating plays of the human psyche ever written. Plummer considers the original source material - the 8th Century King Leir - and asks why Shakespeare reworked it to give a much bleaker ending, going against dramatic conventions of the day.