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.
The Etruscan civilization (/ᵻˈtrʌskən/) is the modern name
given to a civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to
Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio. The ancient Romans called its creators
the Tusci or Etrusci. Their Roman name is the origin of the terms Tuscany,
which refers to their heartland, and Etruria, which can refer to their wider
region.
In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (Τυρρηνοὶ,
Tyrrhēnoi), earlier Tyrsenoi, from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrhēni,
Tyrrhēnia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhēnum (Tyrrhenian Sea),prompting some to
associate them with the Teresh (Sea Peoples). The word may also be related to
the Hittite Taruisa (gr. Tursha).The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which
was syncopated to Rasna or Raśna.
As distinguished by its unique language, this civilization
endured from before the time of the earliest Etruscan inscriptions (c. 700
BC) until its assimilation into the Roman Republic in the late 4th century
BC.
At its maximum extent, during the foundational period of
Rome and the Roman Kingdom, Etruscan civilization flourished in three
confederacies of cities: of Etruria, of the Po Valley with the eastern Alps,
and of Latium and Campania.
Culture that is identifiably Etruscan developed in Italy
after about 800 BC approximately over the range of the preceding Iron Age
Villanovan culture. The latter gave way in the 7th century to a culture that
was influenced by ancient Greece, Magna Graecia, and Phoenicia.
After 500 BC, the political destiny of Italy passed out of
Etruscan hands.
The latest mitochondrial DNA study (2013) shows that
Etruscans appear to fall very close to a Neolithic population from Central
Europe and to other Tuscan populations.
Credits: Wikipedia
Extent of Etruscan civilization and the twelve Etruscan League cities.
James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837 – August 2, 1876)—known as
"Wild Bill" Hickok—was a folk character of the American Old West.
Some of his exploits as reported at the time were fiction, but his skill as a
gunfighter and gambler provided the basis for his fame, along with his
reputation as a lawman.
James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837 – August 2, 1876)—known as
"Wild Bill" Hickok—
Hickok was born and raised on a farm in rural Illinois. He
went west at age 18 as a fugitive from justice, first working as a stagecoach
driver, then as a lawman in the frontier territories of Kansas and Nebraska. He
fought (and spied) for the Union Army during the American Civil War and gained
publicity after the war as a scout, marksman, actor and professional gambler.
Hickok was involved in several notable shootouts.
He was shot from behind and killed while playing poker in a
saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory (now South Dakota) by an unsuccessful
gambler, Jack McCall. The card hand which he supposedly held at the time of his
death (aces and eights) has come to be known as the "Dead Man's
Hand."
History Documentary: The New World, Colonial history of the United States of America; American History, Full Documentary, Historian Channel.
Colonial Williamsburg, View of the reconstructed Raleigh Tavern
on Duke of Gloucester Street
This documentary traces the discovery of America and early voyages by
European explorers. It shows Indian civilizations encountered by the
Spanish, Spanish colonization, English freebooters on the Spanish Main,
and the life of early settlers in New England and the South.
The
colonial history of the United States covers the history of European
settlements from the start of colonization of America until their
incorporation into the United States. In the late 16th century, England,
France, Spain and the Netherlands launched major colonization programs
in eastern North America. Small early attempts often disappeared;
everywhere the death rate of the first arrivals was very high.
Nevertheless successful colonies were established. European settlers
came from a variety of social and religious groups. No aristocrats
settled permanently, but a number of adventurers, soldiers, farmers, and
tradesmen arrived. Diversity was an American characteristic as the
Dutch of New Netherland, the Swedes and Finns of New Sweden, the English
Quakers of Pennsylvania, the English Puritans of New England, the
English settlers of Jamestown, and the "worthy poor" of Georgia, came to
the new continent and built colonies with distinctive social,
religious, political and economic styles. Non-British colonies were
taken over and the inhabitants were all assimilated, unlike in Nova
Scotia, where the British expelled the French Acadian inhabitants. There
were no major civil wars among the 13 colonies, and the two chief armed
rebellions (in Virginia in 1676 and in New York in 1689–91) were
short-lived failures. Wars between the French and the British—the French
and Indian Wars and Father Rale's War—were recurrent, and involved
French support for Wabanaki Confederacy attacks on the frontiers. By
1760 France was defeated and the British seized its colonies.
On
the eastern seaboard of what would become the United States, the four
distinct British regions were: New England, the Middle Colonies, the
Chesapeake Bay Colonies (Upper South) and the Lower South. By the time
European settlers arrived around 1600–1650, the majority of the Native
Americans living in the eastern United States had been ravaged by new
diseases, introduced to them decades before by explorers and sailors.
Colonizers
came from European kingdoms with highly developed military, naval,
governmental and entrepreneurial capabilities. The Spanish and
Portuguese centuries-old experience of conquest and colonization during
the Reconquista, coupled with new oceanic ship navigation skills,
provided the tools, ability, and desire to colonize the New World.
England, France and the Netherlands started colonies in both the West
Indies and North America. They had the ability to build ocean-worthy
ships, but did not have as strong a history of colonization in foreign
lands as did Portugal and Spain. However, English entrepreneurs gave
their colonies a base of merchant-based investment that needed much less
government support.
English colonies:
England made its first
successful efforts at the start of the 17th century for several reasons.
During this era, English proto-nationalism and national assertiveness
blossomed under the threat of Spanish invasion, assisted by a degree of
Protestant militarism and the energy of Queen Elizabeth. At this time,
however, there was no official attempt by the English government to
create a colonial empire. Rather, the motivation behind the founding of
colonies was piecemeal and variable. Practical considerations, such as
commercial enterprise, overpopulation and the desire for freedom of
religion, played their parts. The main waves of settlement came in the
17th century. After 1700 most immigrants to Colonial America arrived as
indentured servants—young unmarried men and women seeking a new life in a
much richer environment. Between the late 1610s and the American
Revolution, the British shipped an estimated 50,000 convicts to its
American colonies. The first convicts to arrive pre-dated the arrival of
the Mayflower.
New England:
New England is the oldest clearly
defined region of the United States. While New England was originally
inhabited by Indigenous peoples, English Pilgrims and especially
Puritans, fleeing religious persecution in England, arrived in the
1620-1660 era. They dominated the region; their religion was later
called Congregationalism. They and their descendants are called Yankees.
Farming, fishing and lumbering prospered, as did seafaring and
merchandising.
The Historian Channel: History of protestant reformation and Martin Luther, Full Documentary; History of protestant reformation and Martin Luther, History Documentary
The Protestant Reformation, often referred to simply as the
Reformation (from Latin reformatio, lit. "restoration, renewal"), was
a schism from the Roman Catholic Church initiated by Martin Luther and
continued by John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli and other early Protestant Reformers
in the 16th century Europe.
Although there had been significant earlier attempts to
reform the Roman Catholic Church before Luther — such as those of Jan Hus,
Peter Waldo, and John Wycliffe — Martin Luther is widely acknowledged to have
started the Reformation with his 1517 work The Ninety-Five Theses. Luther began
by criticizing the selling of indulgences, insisting that the Pope had no
authority over purgatory and that the Catholic doctrine of the merits of the
saints had no foundation in the gospel. The Protestant position, however, would
come to incorporate doctrinal changes such as sola scriptura and sola fide. The
core motivation behind these changes was theological, though many other factors
played a part, including the rise of nationalism, the Western Schism which
eroded people's faith in the Papacy, the perceived corruption of the Roman
Curia, the impact of humanism and the new learning of the Renaissance which
questioned much of the traditional thought.
The initial movement within Germany diversified almost right
then and there, and other reform impulses arose independently of Luther. The
spread of Gutenberg's printing press provided the means for the rapid
dissemination of religious materials in the vernacular. The largest groups were
the Lutherans and Calvinists. Lutheran churches were founded mostly in Germany,
the Baltics and Scandinavia, while the Reformed ones were founded in
Switzerland, Hungary, France, the Netherlands and Scotland. The new movement
influenced the Church of England decisively after 1547 under Edward VI and Elizabeth
I, although the national church had been made independent under Henry VIII in
the early 1530s for political rather than religious reasons.
There were also reformation movements throughout continental
Europe known as the Radical Reformation, which gave rise to the Anabaptist,
Moravian, and other Pietistic movements. Radical Reformers, besides forming
communities outside state sanction, often employed more extreme doctrinal
change, such as the rejection of tenets of the councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon.
The Roman Catholic Church responded with a
Counter-Reformation initiated by the Council of Trent. Much work in battling
Protestantism was done by the well-organized new order of the Jesuits. In
general, Northern Europe, with the exception of most of Ireland, came under the
influence of Protestantism. Southern Europe remained Roman Catholic, although
Greece remained predominantly Eastern Orthodox, while Central Europe was a site
of a fierce conflict, culminating in the Thirty Years' War, which left it massively
devastated. Credits: Wikipedia
Martin Luther, shown in a portrait by Lucas Cranach the Elder, initiated the Protestant Reformation in 1517.
The Soviet–Afghan War lasted over nine years from December
1979 to February 1989. Insurgent groups ("the Mujahideen"), who
received aid from both Christian and Muslim countries, fought against the Soviet
Army and allied Afghan forces. Between 850,000–1.5 million civilians were
killed and millions of Afghans fled the country as refugees, mostly to Pakistan
and Iran.
Prior to the arrival of Soviet troops, the pro-Soviet Nur
Mohammad Taraki government took power in a 1978 coup and initiated a series of
radical modernization reforms throughout the country. Vigorously suppressing
any opposition from among the traditional Muslim Afghans, the government
arrested thousands and executed as many as 27,000 political prisoners. By April
1979 large parts of the country were in open rebellion and by December the
government had lost control of territory outside of the cities. In response to
Afghan government requests, the Soviet government under leader Leonid Brezhnev
first sent covert troops to advise and support the Afghani government, but on
December 24, 1979, began the first deployment of the 40th Army.
Arriving in the capital Kabul, they staged a coup, killing
the Afghan President, and installing a rival Afghan socialist (Babrak Karmal).
In January 1980, foreign ministers from 34 nations of the
Islamic Conference adopted a resolution demanding "the immediate, urgent
and unconditional withdrawal of Soviet troops" from Afghanistan, while the
UN General Assembly passed a resolution protesting the Soviet intervention by a
vote of 104–18. Afghan insurgents began to receive massive amounts of aid,
military training in neighboring Pakistan and China, paid for primarily by the
United States and Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf.[
Soviet troops occupied the cities and main arteries of
communication, while the mujahideen waged guerrilla war in small groups
operating in the almost 80 percent of the country that escaped government and
Soviet control. Soviets used their air power to deal harshly with both rebels
and civilians, leveling villages to deny safe haven to the enemy, destroying
vital irrigation ditches, and laying millions of land mines.
By the mid-1980s the
Soviet contingent was increased to 108,800 and fighting increased throughout
the country, but the military and diplomatic cost of the war to the USSR was
high. By mid-1987 the Soviet Union, now under reformist leader Mikhail
Gorbachev, announced it would start withdrawing its forces. The final troop
withdrawal started on May 15, 1988, and ended on February 15, 1989.
Credits: Wikipedia
Mujahideen in Kunar, Afghanistan. Mortar attack on Shigal Tarna garrison, Kunar Province, 1987.
Documentary Catherine The Great Documentary: History Documentary: Catherine the Great, Yekaterina Alexeyevna (Russian: Екатерина Алексеевна) or Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great, History Documentary
Portrait of Catherine II (Catherine the Great), by Fedor Rokotov
Yekaterina Alexeyevna (Russian: ЕкатеринаАлексеевна) or Catherine II, also known as Catherine the
Great (Екатерина II Великая, Yekaterina II
Velikaya; 2 May [O.S. 21 April] 1729 – 17 November [O.S. 6 November] 1796), was
the most renowned and the longest-ruling female leader of Russia, reigning from
1762 until her death in 1796 at the age of 67. Born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia as Sophie
Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, she came to power following a
coup d'état when her husband, Peter III, was assassinated. Russia was
revitalized under her reign, growing larger and stronger than ever and becoming
recognized as one of the great powers of Europe.
In both her accession to power and in rule of her empire,
Catherine often relied on her noble favorites, most notably Grigory Orlov and
Grigory Potemkin. Assisted by highly successful generals such as Pyotr
Rumyantsev and Alexander Suvorov, and admirals such as Fyodor Ushakov, she
governed at a time when the Russian Empire was expanding rapidly by conquest
and diplomacy. In the south, the Crimean Khanate was crushed following victories
over the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish wars, and Russia colonised the
vast territories of Novorossiya along the coasts of the Black and Azov Seas. In
the west, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, ruled by Catherine's former
lover, king Stanisław August Poniatowski, was eventually partitioned, with the
Russian Empire gaining the largest share. In the east, Russia started to
colonise Alaska, establishing Russian America.
Catherine reformed the administration of Russian guberniyas,
and many new cities and towns were founded on her orders. An admirer of Peter
the Great, Catherine continued to modernise Russia along Western European
lines. However, military conscription and economy continued to depend on
serfdom, and the increasing demands of the state and private landowners led to
increased levels of reliance on serfs. This was one of the chief reasons behind
several rebellions, including the large-scale Pugachev's Rebellion of cossacks
and peasants.
The period of Catherine the Great's rule, the Catherinian
Era, is often considered the Golden Age of the Russian Empire and the Russian
nobility. The Manifesto on Freedom of the Nobility, issued during the short
reign of Peter III and confirmed by Catherine, freed Russian nobles from
compulsory military or state service. Construction of many mansions of the
nobility, in the classical style endorsed by the Empress, changed the face of
the country. She enthusiastically supported the ideals of The Enlightenment,
thus earning the status of an enlightened despot.[1] As a patron of the arts
she presided over the age of the Russian Enlightenment, when the Smolny
Institute, the first state-financed higher education institution for women in
Europe, was established.
Midas (/ˈmaɪdəs/; Greek: Μίδας)
is the name of at least three members of the royal house of Phrygia.
The most famous King Midas is popularly remembered in Greek
mythology for his ability to turn everything he touched into gold. This came to
be called the golden touch, or the Midas touch. The Phrygian city Midaeum
was presumably named after this Midas, and this is probably also the Midas that
according to Pausanias founded Ancyra. According to Aristotle, legend held
that Midas died of starvation as a result of his "vain prayer" for
the gold touch. The legends told about this Midas and his father Gordias,
credited with founding the Phrygian capital city Gordium and tying the Gordian
Knot, indicate that they were believed to have lived sometime in the 2nd
millennium BC, well before the Trojan War. However, Homer does not mention
Midas or Gordias, while instead mentioning two other Phrygian kings, Mygdon and
Otreus.
Another King Midas ruled Phrygia in the late 8th century BC,
up until the sacking of Gordium by the Cimmerians, when he is said to have
committed suicide. Most historians believe this Midas is the same person as the
Mita, called king of the Mushki in Assyrian texts, who warred with Assyria and
its Anatolian provinces during the same period.
A third Midas is said by Herodotus to have been a member of
the royal house of Phrygia and the grandfather of an Adrastus who fled Phrygia
after accidentally killing his brother and took asylum in Lydia during the
reign of Croesus. Phrygia was by that time a Lydian subject. Herodotus says
that Croesus regarded the Phrygian royal house as "friends" but does
not mention whether the Phrygian royal house still ruled as (vassal) kings of
Phrygia.
Credits: Wikipedia
In the Nathaniel Hawthorne version of the Midas myth, Midas's daughter
turns to a statue when he touches her. Illustration by Walter Crane for
the 1893 edition.
