The best history documentaries. Traveling from the Middle ages to the industrial revolutions, to understand the past that shaped today's world.
A glimpse into the great ancient Western and Eastern civilizations, America's
history before and after Columbus, Indian and Chinese kingdoms and empires.
Geronimo (Mescalero-Chiricahua: Goyaałé [kòjàːɬɛ́] "the
one who yawns"; June 16, 1829 – February 17, 1909) was a prominent leader
from the Bedonkohe band of the Chiricahua Apache tribe. From 1850 to 1886
Geronimo joined with members of three other Chiricahua Apache bands—the
Chihenne, the Chokonen and the Nednhi—to carry out numerous raids and commit
widespread depredations in the northern Mexico states of Chihuahua and Sonora,
and in the southwestern American territories of New Mexico and Arizona. Geronimo's
raids and related combat actions were a part of the prolonged period of the
Apache-American conflict, that started with American settlement in Apache lands
following the end of the war with Mexico in 1848. The Apache-American conflict
was itself a direct outgrowth of the much older Apache-Mexican conflict which
had been ongoing in the same general area since the beginning of
Mexican/Spanish settlement in the 1600's.
George Armstrong Custer (December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876)
was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil
War and the American Indian Wars. Raised in Michigan and Ohio, Custer was
admitted to West Point in 1857, where he graduated last in his class in 1861.
With the outbreak of the Civil War, Custer was called to serve with the Union
Army.
Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer in field uniform, 1865.
Born
December 5, 1839
New Rumley, Ohio
Died
June 25, 1876 (aged 36)
Little Bighorn, Montana
Place of burial
initially on the battlefield;
later reinterred in West Point Cemetery
Years of service
1861–1876
Rank
Lieutenant Colonel
Custer developed a strong reputation during the Civil War.
He participated in the first major engagement, the First Battle of Bull Run on
July 21, 1861 near Washington, D.C. His association with several important
officers helped his career, as did his success as a highly effective cavalry
commander. During the war, Custer was eventually promoted to captain of the
U.S. Army (May 1864), and to the temporary ranks of (brevet) major general of
the U.S. Army (March 1865) and major general of the U.S. Volunteers (April
1865) at age 25. At the conclusion of the Appomattox Campaign, in which he and
his troops played a decisive role, Custer was present at General Robert E.
Lee's surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865.
After the Civil War, Custer remained a major general in the
U.S. Volunteers until they were mustered out by February 1866. He reverted to
his permanent rank of captain and was appointed a lieutenant colonel in the
U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment, in July 1866. He was dispatched to the west in 1867
to fight in the American Indian Wars. On June 25, 1876, while leading the 7th
at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana against a coalition of Native
American tribes, he and all of his battalion were killed including two of his
brothers. The battle is popularly known in American history as "Custer's
Last Stand." Custer and his regiment were defeated so decisively at the Little
Bighorn that it has overshadowed all of his prior achievements.
History Documentary: The Real Wild West - Crazy Horse, Full Documentary, History of the Far West Conquer: Crazy Horse
The
Wild West collection features documentaries about some of the most
controversial and mythic figures in American western history.
From
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to Billy the Kid, from Custers Last
Stand to Geronimo's fight against the U.S. government, learn the real
stories behind some of America's greatest western tales.
Crazy Horse (Lakota: Tȟašúŋke Witkó in Standard Lakota
Orthography,[2] IPA:tχaʃʊ̃kɛ witkɔ), literally
"His-Horse-Is-Crazy";[3] c. 1840 – September 5, 1877) was a Native
American war leader of the Oglala Lakota. He took up arms against the United
States Federal government to fight against encroachments on the territories and
way of life of the Lakota people, including leading a war party to victory at
the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876.
Four months after surrendering to U.S. troops under General
Crook in May 1877, Crazy Horse was fatally wounded by a military guard, using
his bayonet, while allegedly[4][5] resisting imprisonment at Camp Robinson in
present-day Nebraska. He ranks among the most notable and iconic of Native
American tribal members and was honored by the U.S. Postal Service in 1982 with
a 13¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.
Credits: Wikipedia
A
1934 sketch of Crazy Horse made by a Mormon missionary after
interviewing Crazy Horse's sister, who claimed the depiction was
accurate.
Oglala Lakota leader
Personal details
Born
Cha-O-Ha ("In the Wilderness" or "Among the Trees")
c. 1840
Died
September 5, 1877 (aged 36-37)
Fort Robinson, Nebraska
Resting place
Undisclosed location
Spouse(s)
Black Buffalo Woman
Black Shawl
Nellie Larrabee (Laravie)
Crazy Horse
He
fought to the end to protect the lands that had been his people's since
time immemorial. His death marked the end of an era. Crazy Horse cut
his teeth fighting with the Olgala chief Red Cloud against United States
troops in Wyoming. He earned a place in legend and signed his own death
warrant for his role in Custer's last stand. Travel back to the waning
days of the frontier for a revealing portrait of one of the great Indian
leaders. Leading historians and elders of his Sioux tribe offer their
take on his life and legend, while period accounts, art and artifacts
show the fervor that marked his pursuit and capture by U.S. forces after
the Little Big Horn. A stirring profile of a noble warrior who gave
everything he had in a desperate and futile struggle to preserve the
freedom and dignity of his people.
Who Really Were The Phoenicians? Documentary on Evidence of the Lost Civilization of the Phoenicians.
Phoenicia (UK /fᵻˈnɪʃə/ or US /fəˈniːʃə/; from the Greek: Φοινίκη,
Phoiníkē; Arabic: فينيقية, Fīnīqīyah) was an ancient Semitic
thalassocratic civilization situated on the western, coastal part of the
Fertile Crescent and centered on the coastline of modern Lebanon, Israel and
Syria. All major Phoenician cities were on the coastline of the Mediterranean,
some colonies reaching the Western Mediterranean. It was an enterprising
maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1500 BC to
300 BC. The Phoenicians used the galley, a man-powered sailing vessel, and are
credited with the invention of the bireme. By their innovations in shipbuilding
and seafaring, the Phoenicians were enabled to sail as far west as present-day
Morocco and Spain carrying huge cargoes of goods for trade. They were famed in
Classical Greece and Rome as 'traders in purple', referring to their monopoly
on the precious purple dye of the murex snail, used, among other things, for
royal clothing, and for the spread of their alphabets, from which almost all
modern phonetic alphabets are derived.
Although Egyptian seafaring expeditions had already been
made to Byblos to bring back Lebanon cedars as early as the 3rd millennium BC,
continuous contact only occurred in the Egyptian New Empire period. In the
Amarna tablets of the 14th century BC, people from the region called themselves
Kenaani or Kinaani. Much later, in the 6th century BC, Hecataeus of Miletus
writes that Phoenicia was formerly called χνα (Latinized: khna), a
name Philo of Byblos later adopted into his mythology as his eponym for the
Phoenicians: "Khna who was afterwards called Phoinix".
Phoenicia is really a Classical Greek term used to refer to
the region of the major Canaanite port towns, and does not correspond exactly
to a cultural identity that would have been recognised by the Phoenicians
themselves. The term in Greek means 'land of purple', a reference to the
valuable murex-shell dye they exported.[8] It is uncertain to what extent the
Phoenicians viewed themselves as a single ethnicity and nationality. Their
civilization was organized in city-states, similar to ancient Greece. However,
in terms of archaeology, language, life style and religion, there is little to
set the Phoenicians apart as markedly different from other Semitic cultures of
Canaan. As Canaanites, they were unique in their remarkable seafaring
achievements.
Each city-state was a politically independent unit. They
could come into conflict and one city might be dominated by another city-state,
although they would collaborate in leagues or alliances. Though ancient
boundaries of such city-centered cultures fluctuated, the city of Tyre in South
Lebanon seems to have been the southernmost. Sarepta (modern day Sarafand)
between Sidon and Tyre in South Lebanon is the most thoroughly excavated city
of the Phoenician homeland.
The Phoenicians were the first state-level
society to make extensive use of alphabets. The Phoenician alphabet is
generally held to be the ancestor of almost all modern alphabets. They spoke
Phoenician, a part of the Canaanite subgroup of the Northwest Semitic language
family. Other members of the family are Hebrew, Ammonite, Moabite and Edomite. However,
due to the very slight differences in language, and the insufficient records of
the time, whether Phoenician formed a separate and united dialect, or was
merely a superficially defined part of a broader language continuum, is
unclear. Through their maritime trade, the Phoenicians spread the use of the
alphabet to North Africa and Europe, where it was adopted by the Greeks, who
later transmitted it to the Romans.
The Phoenicians: Map of Phoenicia and its Mediterranean trade routes
Capital
Byblos, Mount Lebanon (1200 BC–1000 BC)
Tyre, South Lebanon (1000 BC–333 BC)
Carthage (333 BC–149 BC)
Languages
Phoenician, Punic
Religion
Canaanite religion
Government
Kingship (City-states)
Well-known kings of Phoenician cities
•
c. 1000 BC
Ahiram
•
969 BC – 936 BC
Hiram I
•
820 BC – 774 BC
Pygmalion of Tyre
Historical era
Classical antiquity
•
Established
1500 BC
•
Tyre in South Lebanon, under the reign of Hiram I, becomes the dominant city-state
