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
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
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...
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English
Description
Scientists have struggled for centuries to pinpoint the qualities that distinguish humans from the millions of other animal species with which we share the vast majority of our DNA. In this NOVA scienceNOW program, we explore those traits once thought to be uniquely human to discover their evolutionary roots.
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English
Description
Kim Cattrall explores how Shakespeare uses the two high-powered lovers in Antony and Cleopatra to depict the differences between authoritarian Rome and exotic Egypt. As someone who has played Cleopatra on two occasions, Cattrall explores the truths and myths behind the real Cleopatra - and how Shakespeare helped to define the Hollywood version of her that we know today.
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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...
12) Light and Atoms
Language
English
Description
This film presents the birth of an atom and its structure, featuring the following scientists who aided in the discovery: Albert Einstein; John Dalton; Joseph John Thomson; Ernest Rutherford; Max Planck; Niels Bohr. Throughout the film, animations of concepts in theoretical physics allow viewers access into the minds of geniuses.
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English
Description
These 10 Buildings represent architects who dared to strike out on their own and design radical new types of buildings that permanently altered our environmental and cultural landscape. A state capitol that Thomas Jefferson designed to resemble a Roman temple, the home of Henry Ford's first assembly line, the first indoor regional shopping mall, an airport with a swooping concrete roof that seems to float on air - these are among the buildings surveyed...
14) Where Are We?
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English
Description
Stephen Hawking sets three ordinary people a series of fun physical and mental challenges to show them how to think like a genius. Can they measure the earth, the solar system and even the universe and find out where we really are?
15) Growing Up Trans
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English
Description
Go on an intimate and eye-opening journey inside a new frontier. Told from the perspective of parents, doctors, and, most revealing of all, eight transgender kids themselves, ranging in ages from 9 to 19, FRONTLINE takes a powerful look at this new generation, exploring the medical possibilities, struggles, and choices transgender kids and their families face today.
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English
Description
This film presents the discovery of the speed of light through the connection of various scientific experiments which preceded it. Using the work of Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and Galileo Galilei, James Clerk Maxwell made this discovery unintentionally after measuring the speed of electromagnetic waves. Throughout the film, animations of concepts in theoretical physics give viewers access into the minds of geniuses. Distributed by PBS Distribution...
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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.