This series explores the history of drug trafficking from a political perspective and reveals the murky role played by many states which have used the drug trade as an instrument of power. Opium, heroin, cocaine, and designer drugs have sparked wars, financed militias, and brought down states.
May 1945: With the end of the war and the surrender of the Third Reich, the world discovered the full horror of a genocidal system on a scale never before seen in the history of humanity. The elimination of millions of individuals had been meticulously planned by a regime whose organization and methods were just beginning to be understood.
Hitler had proclaimed that Nazi conquered Europe was an impenetrable fortress. On the 6th of June 1944, the Allies launched the largest combined land, air and sea operation ever. This invasion, designed to begin the liberation of Europe, would forever be known as D-Day. The years leading up to 1944 had seen total domination of Europe by Nazi Germany. Despite the entry of America into WWII, strategic bombing, the invasions of North Africa and Italy, Germany remained in control and was able to strength its coastal defenses, The Atlantic Wall, in preparation for the inevitable Allied invasion. Operation Overlord was the Allied plan to defeat those defenses and open a Western Front. The hard lessons learned at Anzio, Dieppe and Salerno were about to be brought into focus with the greatest invasion the world had ever seen. But how had the Allies come to this point? Who were the personalities and what compromises were made to forge this great alliance?
The story of a boy during World War II. The son of an Austrian mother and Italian father, he is forced to take refuge in the small mountain village of Corchia to escape the bombings. The village priest takes him under his wing, until the German occupation army...
The cavalry has been part of America's history since before the nation was founded and is still in service today. Charge into the fight with this 5-part series chronicling one of the most important branches of the military. From the horse-mounted regiments that birthed our nation to the armored machines paving the front lines, cavalry units have changed warfare and the outcome of battles for over 200 years.
An original and dramatic series that views the most violent and significant episodes in modern history from a fresh perspective – not as two world wars, but as a continuous narrative of error, ambition, revolution and courage. An expert re-examination of history forms links and conclusions that tie the entire war period together and, with the benefit of hindsight, pieces together how the world went and stayed at war for so much of the 20th century.
Following the Beirut port explosion, a covert DEA operation unravels Hezbollah's state within a state in Lebanon, built over decades through infiltration of government and defiance of justice, with a goal of establishing Sharia law.
In this six-part series, battlefield historians and military experts utilise cutting edge, drone mounted technology to re-examine some of the second world war’s most iconic sites. Aerial footage of different theatres and battle scenes from World War Two.
On 1 September 1939, Hitler started the most fatal war in world history – a war waged to plunder, dispossess, enslave and eliminate entire ethnic groups. This German-Polish series reconstructs how Hitler triggered a chain of events that sparked a global conflagration and the intense suffering of the Polish people, the first victims of the war.
In the last months of 1942, only a few yards of bitterly contested ground stood between Hitler and the prize which he valued above all others - Stalingrad. The fighting for Stalingrad was intense, protracted and took place under the worst imaginable conditions, including the iron grip of a Russian Winter. After the battle the wretched survivors of a beaten German army surrendered to the Red Army. They had once been 350,000 strong but only 90,000 of these frost bitten, starving scarecrows remained to make the painful forced march into Russian captivity. In the weeks to come 85,000 of these pathetic prisoners would die from disease, starvation, brutality, neglect and despair. Only 5000 survivors from the doomed 6th Army endured the long years of captivity in slave labor camps and lived to see Germany again. This is their story.
At the end of the 16th century, Dutch subjects revolted against legitimate Spanish rule. What starts with the discontent of a minority grows into a war that will last more than a lifetime. From Groningen to Brussels, from Den Briel to Groenlo, the battle erupts everywhere. And often that struggle has a strangely modern appearance. Terrorism, propaganda, executions, radicalization, shock and awe; all themes that can easily be found in the war that was fought from 1568 to 1648. In a 7-part television series, the NTR will bring the stories about the 80-year war that can be found all over the country from September 28, every Friday at 9.05 pm on NPO 2. And Hans Goedkoop oversees the battlefield with experts.
Two weeks after Norway was attacked in April 1940, the Norwegians fought a desperate battle against the world's largest military force in anticipation of the Allied aid. When it finally arrived, it was anything but expected. This is the story of when the whole country was in war, told by those who were actually present. British, French, Polish and Norwegian war veterans who participated in the campaign in Norway are interviewed about their experiences.