Good morning, February has flown by quickly and soon I will be in March.  Well, it will be March tomorrow.  Anyway, I want to continue to explore the unknown world of the oceans with the Drain the Ocean series.  The run time for this episode is 47:22.  The episode is called Mystery of the China Seas.

What secrets do the China Seas hold?  It is home to one of the most contested places on earth.  The shattered remains of one ship lie on the bottom.  It was one of the most powerful and largest battleships ever created.  The biggest wartime maritime disaster is also discovered.  A treasure fleet is revealed.  A network that keeps the world moving is also hidden in the sea.  So what mysteries are revealed in the China Seas by draining the oceans?

The ruins of a battleship lie 140 miles south of Japan.  It is one of a pair of battleships.  The Yamato and Musashi were the two biggest battleships that were ever built. During World War II they were a threat to the American forces.  They are loaded with weapons and would have been the biggest floating forces.  Yamato carries the seal of the Emperor.  Both battleships were a top-secret project, even the commanders did not know how big these ships were.

The Yamato and Musashi made their way to Leyte Gulf.  This battle would go down as the biggest naval fight in history.  Yamato would survive the battle while the Musashi would go down under a torrent of torpedoes and missiles.  The Americans would emerge victorious in Leyte Gulf.  Then their sights are set on Okinawa.  Yamato is sent to intercept the Americans, but in the end is sunk taking 3,000 men with her.  When the wreck was discovered, it was shattered on the ocean floor.  Draining the China Seas reveals one of the biggest wreck sites in the world.  So why did it sink? 

The next wreck is a mystery.  One of the biggest invasion fleets in history mysteriously disappeared.  It had been led by the Mongols.  Kublai Khan ordered the invasion of Japan.  He had been expanding the empire since he took on the Mongol Empire.  He turned his attention to Japan and crafted the biggest invasion fleet.  The Japanese are hopelessly outnumbered and the samurai bravely fight on.  However, suddenly the fleet disappeared which would launch this invasion into the realms of mystery.

One archeologist had dedicated thirty years of his life to learning more about the invasion.  Using the archives and ocean scans he plans to locate the wreck.  The invasion was carefully recorded with images of the ships as well as hand-to-hand combat.  Small artifacts were discovered on the floor of the bay.  These artifacts are tangible proof of the Mongol invasion.  However, a ship is what this archeologist is looking for.

Draining the sea bed reveals shipwrecks and fragments of ships lying everywhere on the ocean floor.  Hundreds of ships have been torn apart on the ocean floor.  Could this have been a sign of the legendary divine intervention that the legends mention?  However, when the wrecks are scanned it reveals that the invasion was doomed from the start.  The ships that Kublai Khan used were used for coastal travel and would easily be swamped in stormy seas.  The ships were also poorly built.  However, the extent seems to defy the poorly built ships.  Another clue emerges from the Tokyo Weather Center.  The scientists there have discovered a weather pattern.  Could this weather explain why the Mongol invasion failed?  To learn more about the weather, continue to watch the rest of this documentary.

Another vast jungle of shipwrecks is discovered off the coast of Vietnam.  It is one of the most dangerous places in the China Sea.  What makes it so dangerous?  What was on board these ships?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out more.

Wow, I never heard about the invasion of Japan by the Mongols, so that is a topic I will have to do some research on.  This was a very interesting about an area you never really talk about in a history class.  This would be a good documentary to show to a history class.

Hello all and I hope that you are doing well today.  I am going to do a documentary from a new YouTube channel called The American Story.  It looks like it is a channel focused on American history.  Here goes nothing when it comes to reviewing a documentary from this channel.  Today’s documentary is going to be about the Spanish Flu.  It has a run time of 53:04.  The documentary is called The Spanish Flu: The Invisible Enemy.

It started in the spring of 1918.  World War I was in the last days and thousands of American military personnel were infected with a mysterious disease.  Soldiers were rushed to Europe carrying this mysterious disease.  What was it?  Should people really be wary of the disease?  Over eighteen months, the Spanish Flu would claim millions of lives.  It would not only leave an impact on American society but would also leave an impact on the world.

Thirty-thousand men are undergoing training in a boot camp in Kansas.  One day, the cook fails to show up to work, then another soldier, and then another soldier.  The symptoms are similar among the patrons.  The Camp doctor diagnoses the flu.  The men are given rest and then sent back out to train.  However, this flu continues to quietly spread.  No precautions are taken to prevent the spread as the soldiers are sent out to the Western Front in Europe. 

As American soldiers pour in, the flu continues its spread throughout the front.  However, the British and French are relieved with the fresh reinforcement.  They are unaware of what the Americans are bringing in.  The goal is to ultimately defeat Germany.  Germany launches an attack on the Flanders front and they are looking for a decisive victory before the Americans fully arrive.  The Americans are rushed to the front in high numbers.  Soon the Germans lose the upper hand and many German soldiers are lost.  The Germans too are infected with the flu.

However, the military keeps a tight lid on the news about the spreading through.  The Spanish press, since they were neutral in the war, released the news of the spreading flu.  The flu spreads throughout Spain through its rail network.  As the virus continues to spread, the secret can no longer be contained.  However, news outlets in other countries downplay the seriousness of the flu.  The reality was very different as the soldiers were impacted by the flu.  Operations are called off because of the lack of men.  The sick men are quietly sent to the rear of the front and sometimes they are sent home.  The flu continues to march on.

However, doctors started to try to encourage precautions against the flu.  The health film industry was developed as a result of the Spanish flu.  Handwashing and keeping a distance from people were recommended.  However, the flu continued to spread.  The German officers were tired of getting news about soldiers being sick.  The sick soldiers were sent back home and the Germans who were already weakened from war conditions were vulnerable to getting sick.  Eventually, there were cases of the flu in Berlin and Frankfort. 

The flu continues to march on throughout Europe.  The Allied soldiers are recovering.  Unfortunately, the world is unaware of a deadlier, more contagious wave about to hit the world.  To learn more about the Spanish Flu, continue to watch the rest of the documentary.

Well, first things first, was this really an appropriate documentary to put on an American History YouTube Channel?  Honestly, it talked more about the impact of the Spanish Flu on the world and not America.  I was waiting for information about how the Spanish Flu impacted the home front, but the information never really came other than a casual mention of famous Americans who had the Spanish flu.  Anyway, I do not plan on giving up on this YouTube channel yet, considering I get American documentaries from regional PBS stations.

Now that I got that piece of business out of the way, this was a very well-done film.  The information was very well delivered and engaging.  The information was very well-paced as the Spanish flu spread.  This would be an excellent documentary to show to a world history classroom.

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening depending on when you are reading this.  I hope that you are doing well.  I am going to be doing a documentary on the War of the Roses and this episode is called Two Roses.  The run time for this documentary is 50:04.

Where are the roots of the Wars of the Roses?  It was an epic clash between two rival houses the House of York and the House of Lancaster.  It threatened to tear England apart.  Both had descended from the House of Plantagenet, however, some intrigues would lead to the Wars of the Roses.  The key figures in the initial conflict were King Henry VI and Richard Duke of York.  However did the Wars of the Roses have their roots in the Hundred Years War?  This documentary looks to examine the roots of the Wars of the Roses further.

The 15th Century witnessed a violent change of rulers over the decade.  The Wars of the Roses brings people into the mind of the Medieval Period.  It saw a clash of nobles who sought to seize the throne.  The image of nobles taking up their swords would be a highlight of this period.  The documentary suggests that the roots of the Wars of the Roses began with the Hundred Years War.  The French and the English would fight with each other over claims to French territory.  Henry V would revive these claims to French lands and would even make claims to the throne of France.

Henry V would eventually defeat the French and make the French King recognize him as heir, disinheriting the Dauphin.  Unfortunately, King Henry V suddenly passed away and his son King Henry VI became king at nine months.  Then Henry VI would become King of France when his grandfather died.  This would have changed the power dynamic in both England and France.  Henry VI could only claim the French throne through the battle and the English continued to find success on the battlefield under the Duke of Bedford.  With the Duke of Bedford winning, the English claim to the French crown continued to stick.  England and France would be ruled by a council of nobles.

It would have been an uncertain time when the king was a minor.  The problem would come when he would grow up.  Eventually, Henry VI would lose his French claims when Joan of Arc arrived on the scene.  She would rally the French troops and they would eventually defeat the English and drive them from French soil.  This would cause fractures in the King’s council and nobles would vie to become a protector of the king.  Nobles would become more aggressive in their posturing. 

More and more problems started to arise and Henry VI would find challengers to his throne.  As he grew up he would prove himself to be a weak monarch.  He was a gentle and pious man.  He was not a man to be made a warrior.  This weakness would lead to fractures and concerns.  He would become the target of schemers and they would take advantage of the king’s weakness.  Edward III left behind many sons and they would have had a claim to the throne.  It would take one of these descendants to take the throne of England.  It was a dangerous time for England, being ruled by a weak king.

Things would change further when King Henry VI married Margaret of Anjou.  She was a foreigner and she was French.  There was no financial gain from the marriage.  She would eventually become a formidable woman in her own right.  She was the King of France’s niece.  The Duke of Gloucester protested the marriage and would die under mysterious circumstances.  He would not be alive to witness the coming storm.  He would become a symbol for the Yorkist claims to the throne because the Duke of Gloucester stood against the weak king.  To learn more about the roots of the Wars of the Roses continue to watch the rest of the episode.

This was more of a primer as to the beginning of the Wars of the Roses.  It was a very well-done primer.  I would show this documentary to a history class.
 

Hello and good morning, I hope that you are doing well today.  Today I am going to continue working on the ancient world with a look at the Mediterranean Sea.  It is part of the Drain the Oceans series.  The run time for this episode is 47:22.

In the ancient world it was known as the middle sea.  Egyptians, Greece, and Rome would battle for control of this sea.  It was the center of commerce.  Draining the Mediterranean Sea reveals more secrets.  One secret is home to a deadly explosion that may have ended a civilization.  Another discovery talks about what would have been traded on the Mediterranean Sea.  Another secret reveals the secret to naval power on the Mediterranean Sea.  One final secret talks about the sin city of the Roman Empire and why it was abandoned. 

The story begins about 3,600 years ago and the Minoan Civilization.  They were the first civilization to dominate the Mediterranean Sea.  They originated on Crete and built beautiful temples.  The most famous building of the Minoans was the palace at Knossos where the labyrinth was at.  This labyrinth held a minotaur who wanted to eat human flesh.  Unfortunately, not much is known about the mysterious civilization.  Slowly hints about this civilization are slowly being revealed and Crete was at the heart of a trade network.  Then suddenly, the Minoan civilization disappeared.  Why?

It is then that the documentary shifts to the Greek Island of Santorini.  It is an island famous for its cliffs.  How were these cliffs created?  One geologist is determined to find out.  The bay at Santorini is carefully examined and scanned.  The scan reveals the island’s violent past.  This island was home to a vibrant city that had been buried under tons of ash when the volcano exploded.  There is a discussion on how it would have impacted Santorini before it shifts back to Crete.  The Minoans would not have realized that a Tsunami was coming to hit their island.  Coastal communities would have been destroyed.  The climate would have changed as a result of the volcanic ash.  The Minoan Civilization would have collapsed.  I am missing Bettany Hughes in this section.

After the fall of the Minoans another civilization would rise in its place the Greeks.  The Greeks would have taken to the sea to explore, colonize and trade.  Hundreds of boats would have crisscrossed the Mediterranean.  However, what did these ships look like?  What would they have carried?  In the seas off Cyprus may hint at to the nature of the Greek Boats.  The shipwreck is over 2,500 years old and it is carefully scanned.  Draining the sea shows the jumble of ancient cargo.  The wooden hull of the ship has rotted away.  Despite this, the amphora recovered from the site is remarkably intact.  What would have been inside the amphora?  What would have caused the ship to sink?  For that you will have to watch the rest of the episode to find out.

Then the documentary shifts to the Romans and what secrets are revealed about the rise of the Roman Empire.  Rome would have been known as a land power, but then their aims would have shifted to the sea.  This would have thrown them into conflict with the Carthaginian Empire.  They would have had the most powerful navy in the world.  Rome would have shifted its priorities and would have built a powerful navy to try to rival the Carthaginian Navy.  These two navies would have taken place off Sicily, but where did this battle happen?  A team is on the case, as a result of local fisherman.  What did the fisherman discover on the seafloor?  I have to say, I really enjoy that the local fisherman are really on the case when it comes to discovering shipwrecks.  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out!

I will continue to my number one complaint about this series not being divided into chapters for easy viewing and following along. I know it does not change things, but I still want to complain.  Anyway, this is a good series, but it could be divided into different episodes with a focus on the Greek world and the Roman world and it would be good to show to a history class.

Hello all!  Now let’s go further back in time and to the Ancient World.  This documentary is from the National Geographic YouTube Channel.  It is part of the Lost Cities with Albert Linn.  Using the latest in technology Albert Lin looks to learn more about the secrets of these lost worlds.  It is called Ancient Islands: Ghosts City of the Pacific.  The run time for this documentary is 44:24.

Albert Linn travels to Micronesia.  It is in the heart of the Pacific Ocean.  It is here that he will uncover the ancient city of Nan Madol.  It is a wonder of the ancient world.  Nan Madol was a series of manmade structures that were built on a coral reef.  It was built over 600 years ago and was on the scale of Manchu Pichu.  Who built this place?  What happened to these people?  Why was it abandoned?  What can modern technology reveal about the site?

Getting to the site is a challenge and Albert Lin will have to take part in a local ritual in order to gain permission from the local ruler to enter the site.  He is visibly nervous about partaking in the ritual.  Albert learns to his shock that people died to get to the site.  Albert and a local historian make their way to the site.  Mangroves choke out the remains of the buildings, however, what is seen is incredible.  Albert eventually arrives at a temple dedicated to the ancient rulers. Only the elite could enter the temple site.

A drone is sent up in the air to scan the site to learn more about the scale of the city.  Albert is overwhelmed by the scale of what needs to be scanned.  It is an area twice the size of Vatican City.  The city had been abandoned for years and the mangroves have taken over.  While the drone takes to the air, Albert goes back to the temple to attempt to learn more about the people who built it.  However, there was no written record of the people and the people had a strong oral tradition.

How was this place built?  One legend talks about magic being used to help build the complex.  Could this have been done by human efforts?  Albert continues to walk the site and meets with an archeologist.  Together they encounter a stone where a plant was smashed as part of local rituals.  Eventually they make their way to a tomb that housed the remains of the local leaders.  The leaders had a bad reputation among the common people and did not treat them very well.  It could be known as a Valley of the Kings on water.

The data from the scans is downloaded and even without removing the mangroves, there are indications of a massive complex.  Geometric shapes are revealed and it may be a challenge to walk to the sites that Albert is pointing out.  This time a boat is called for and Albert tours the abandoned city on a boat.  A massive sea wall is revealed, making the site like a giant fortress instead of a city.  Albert continues his tour around the island and more and more buildings are discovered.  So what will be revealed once the mangrove trees are digitally removed?

What are the stories of the place?  Who lived here?  Why was it built?  Why was the sea wall built?  What was this sea wall protecting?  How much material was used to build the site?  What would it have been like to live in the city?  What caused the city to fall?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out more.

It still astonishes me to see how technology continues to impact our understanding of history.  I will still say that history taught today I was a little bit wary about this new narrator: Albert Lin.  He turned out to be a good narrator.  I wished there could have been more of a discussion on the people who built it.  The digital recreation of the city was very impressive.  I also feel like Albert’s team really helped the local historian further his research into this city as well, just based on the look on shocked look on the gentleman’s face.  Anyway, this would be something to consider in a history class and would be something to show in a STEM class.

Good morning, good evening, or good afternoon depending on when you are reading this.  Today I am going to do a documentary on the Wars of the Roses.  The Earl of Warwick was a big figure in the Wars of the Roses.  The run time for this documentary is 49:24.  The documentary is part of the Wars of the Roses series and is called The Kingmaker. 

The Wars of the Roses continues to rage on when King Edward IV from the House of York secures the throne with the help of the Earl of Warwick.  King Henry VI sought refuge in Scotland.  However, this uneasy peace is short-lived.  Only one family can emerge.  Both sides seek to get into the good graces of the Earl of Warwick.  He was the most powerful man in England behind the King of England.  So what went wrong?

The story begins with a focus on the Earl of Warwick, who would become known to history as the Kingmaker.  He was also the best mate of King Edward IV.  He played a large role in the Wars of the Roses.  King Edward IV from the House of York would have cut a dashing figure in comparison to King Henry VI.  King Edward would have been the ideal king.  He was six foot and devastatingly handsome.  He was also a brilliant general and very well-educated.  At the time he became King, not much was expected of him.  The nobles would have been more willing to cooperate with him instead of Henry VI. 

There were still pockets of resistance against Edward IV.  They would have been loyal to the former king.  The support for the former king was primarily found in the north and they were encouraged by the Scottish king.  Jasper Tudor and the Duke of Exter continued to lead the Lancastrian resistance.  However, the Earl of Warwick would be back against this resistance.  Queen Margaret would continue to fight to claim her husband’s throne back.  She raised French troops and found some success in taking several castles.  With her little band of troops would try to make their way to Scotland.  However, the troops encountered many storms along the way and ultimately the potential rebellion failed.

Eventually, the Yorks would take back the castles.  Some Lancastrian supporters would eventually swear allegiance to the York King.  The Duke of Somerset would be one of these nobles who would become one of Edward’s biggest supporters.  The King was very generous eventually naming the duke as leader of his personal bodyguard.  This would have been seen as pure foolishness, however, by being generous to those who swore allegiance to him.  However, Somerset’s defection caused many to question him.  There was an attempt to lynch Somerset.  Somerset was eventually set away and it would be Somerset who would rise in rebellion against King Edward.  In the meantime, Queen Margaret would continue to ferment rebellion in the north of England.

King Edward, fed up with the Queen’s continued rebellion would make peace with both the Scots and the French, which cut off Margaret’s support.  Eventually, at the Battle of Hexham, King Henry was defeated and the Duke of Somerset was beheaded.  Edward would turn his attention to marriage and the question on everyone’s minds was who would King Edward marry?  The Earl of Warwick was looking for a foreign alliance, while King Edward had his own ideas.  He would marry the widow Elizabeth Woodville.  So why would King Edward marry this widow?  How popular would this marriage be?  How would Elizabeth and her family handle their newly elected status?  What would the Earl of Warwick do?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out more.

This documentary is divided into chapters which make things easy to pull out sections for lectures.  The episode title was extremely deceptive because it was described as “Was King Henry VI Murdered?”  Also, it seemed to really jump around at the beginning of the documentary which made it hard to follow.  Then it finally slowed down and it was easy to pay attention to.  This was a very interesting documentary and other than the beginning was very well put together.  Anyway, I would recommend showing this documentary to a history class, because the story was very well told.

Hello, I hope that this day is going well for you teachers.  I hope that you have gotten some time to yourself today.  I continue to press on with watching these documentaries so you do not have to.  I hope that you are finding this resource helpful when it comes to selecting documentaries for the classroom.  Today let’s fast forward and move to a different continent to do a documentary on the Great Depression.  The run time for this documentary is 1:21:38.  It is called When the World Breaks.

The Great Depression was an era of poverty, but it was also a time of creativity.  The stock market had crashed leaving thousands without jobs.  This documentary looks into the use of creativity, art, and entertainment that was used as a form of survival during the Great Depression.  This documentary features a variety of actors and comedians such as Jane Harvey, Jerry Stiller, Phyllis Diller, and Art Linkletter.

Jane Harvey, a recording artist leads off the documentary with a memory of her father taking her down to see the shantytowns.   These were places where people lived where they did not have money.  She recalls the time being a time of shame.  Jerry Stiller is the second voice and he recalls that there was no milk on the table.  His father was a taxi driver and nobody was getting taxis.  Phyllis Diller talks about how great tragedy brings out comedy.

Art Linkletter recalls hitchhiking across the nation.  He had been an orphan and his words “he had no future.”  He had a variety of jobs and had very little money.  He had been working on Wall Street when the stock market crashed.  Mickey Rooney recalls growing up in a boarding house.  He recalls moving to California and the hard trip that the family went on.  Some of these stories recall stealing food as people obeyed the law unless it came to feeding their families.  The family unit, since the man usually worked, suffered greatly during the Great Depression.

Monte Hall recalls the story of a family who moved to Canada and as they made their way they adopted their kids out in a variety of Canadian cities.  People would have lost their houses and were tossed out on the street.  People were encouraged to invest in the stock market and when the stock market crashed they lost everything.  People moved across the country.  In the rural areas, people lived off their gardens and raised animals.  Neighbors oftentimes if they had extra would pass along the extras.  The stories continue along before the documentary transitions into the Great Depression itself.

During this section, were are different educators who took part in the documentary.  They walk about the factors that led to the Great Depression and the financial system at the time.  They talk about the impact of the times of crisis and the debates on economic policies.  Sometimes this section gave me an eye roll because you really cannot stop crises from happening and sometimes you cannot help everyone you can.  Then there was a shift to talk about the psychology of the people during the people and how individual people would feel guilty about being unemployed.  Some people demonstrated against the evictions.  Some people were killed after scuffles broke out preventing the evictions.  To learn more about the Great Depression, continue to watch the rest of the documentary.

It was almost overwhelming to hear the different voices, but they did bring in different perspectives.  It was funny to hear one guy go back to the banker who threw his family out of the family home and spit on him because the banker spit on the floor of the home.  You have to wonder what went on in that banker’s mind when that happened.  It was funny that it was also this man’s most satisfying day in his life.  It was a very slow-moving documentary but it was not off-putting in its slowness.  Overall, it was a very different look at the Great Depression.  It made it feel more real.  It was also very good to see that it was divided into chapters for pulling clips out for lectures.  This would be a documentary that I would show to a history class.

Good morning!  Now let’s throw it back and go to Ancient Egypt.  Ancient Egypt is famous for its mummies however there is a body of evidence that the Egyptians did not invent mummification.  So who were the first people who mummified their dead?  This documentary is called the Black Mummy Mystery and it has a run time of 48:07.

It was thought that ancient Egyptians invented mummification.  However, there is new evidence that suggests that mummification was not invented in Ancient Egypt.  A discovery in the Libyan desert has shattered this belief.  A small mummified child was discovered.  A new theory was developed as to where mummification began.  Who were these people?  Why did they mummify their dead?  This child may be the key to discovering more about a long-lost African culture.

The Saraha Desert is one of the hottest and most remote places on earth.  It would seem impossible for people to survive in this place.  However, a discovery in a tiny rock shelter challenges this theory. It also challenges the theory that Ancient Egyptians invented mummification.  An archeologist makes his way through the desert to the Acacus Mountains in Libya.  A handful of modern-day nomads continue to make their lives in this environment.

Long ago, the desert was home to another group of people.  This unknown desert people had mummified their dead.  A mummified child was discovered in a rock shelter.  Who would have put this child in this shelter?  How would they have mummified him with such high quality?  Modern-day Libyans are Middle Eastern in origin, however, the mummy discovery proved that Africans had inhabited the desert long before the Middle Eastern people came in.  This mummy pointed to a lost African culture.

The rock shelter that this child was discovered in is a simple place.  Local tribes witnessed the mummy’s discovery.  The mummy was revealed by natural erosion.  A small sack came to light which shocked the world.  The mummified child was discovered in the sack.  He had been carefully buried and the remains were protected for 5,000 years until its discovery.  This discovery was earth-shattering and would rewrite the history of mummification.

The mummy was carefully examined and it was discovered that he was an African boy who was mummified before Ancient Egypt and was one of the oldest mummies in the world.  It was also discovered that the child was eviscerated, which helped with the mummification process.  Who would have mummified the child thousands of years before the Egyptians?  Where did these people come from?  How did they achieve a high degree of preservation before the Egyptians? 

The documentary then transitions to the people who preserved the child.  They would have herded animals.  So how could they have herded animals in the desert?  The climate would have been very different in the Sahara Desert.  Could the Sahara Desert have been covered in lush greenery?  Satellite images may hint at a system of ancient river channels that would have gone into large lakes.  The lakes and the rivers are gone and the desert landscape started to form.  Would this landscape support the people who have buried the child?

What about the times that the people would have lived?  What were they like?  Would they have grown crops as well as raised cattle?  There is a continued exploration of the environment and the climate that the child mummy would have grown up in. This would be a good section to show for an earth science classroom because of the demonstration of how the climate has changed as well as the climate models that were presented.  To learn more about this mummy and the world it lived in continue to watch the rest of the episode.

Just based on the footage this does feel like an older documentary.  It was also very nice to see Joann Fletcher take part in this documentary.  It is easy to see how Ancient Egypt overshadowed the early history of mummification.  I also liked that this documentary was divided into chapters which makes things easy to pull out for a lecture.  I would show this to a history class  and pull parts out such as the climate part to show in a science class.

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening and I hope that your time planning is going well.  I am going to do a documentary on the treasure wrecks.  This is going to be a documentary for fun because it really does not fit into the history curriculum.  It is from the Drain the Oceans Series and it has a run time of 47:22.

The sea floor holds many secrets.  It also holds a lot of wealth.  Where there is treasure, there are treasure hunters.  Many ships were wrecked carrying millions of dollars in gold and silver.  What happened to these ships?  What does draining the ocean reveal about these treasure wrecks?  Reefs and rocky shores threatened many a ship.  Many of these shipwrecks carried treasure.  Thousands of treasure wrecks have yet to be explored while others have yet to be discovered.

The oceans were a way to transport wealth across the world.  The first story begins with an 18th-century ship that carried a fortune of sunken silver.  This wreck is often uncovered and covered by shifting sands.  What will draining the English Channel reveal about the treasure?  The ship belonged to the Dutch East India couple and it was said that there were thousands of bars of silver.  It would have been the equivalent of one hundred million dollars.  It sunk in the storm after hitting a sandbank.

A team works to explore the site.  It will be a challenge.  The operation is large and the waters of the English Channel are treacherous.  The wreck is scanned carefully and once the results come the challenge of the wreck is revealed.  The wreck is sitting in a landscape of dunes.  This area was known as the “Great Ship Swallower.”  Many ships have met their death in this area.  When the water is drained away from the ship the twisted remains of a ship are revealed.  The remains now be examined in careful detail.  The wreck is a pile of timbers ruined by the English Channel's currents.  The question is where is the treasure?  The divers will also face these tides, so their dive times are very limited on this site.  Will the divers discover the treasure?  What else will be found on the wreck?  What secrets are revealed about this wreck?  What else will the divers learn about the wreck?

Another wreck is discovered off the Florida Keys and this time the treasure hunters are exploring a Spanish Galleon.  It was one of the richest wrecks discovered in history.   The ship was called the Atocha.  Its fate for decades was unknown.  It was part of a fleet of 28 ships that carried a variety of people.  The people carried a huge amount of personal wealth, and there were also silver bars and other wealth aboard the ship.  However, the ship ran into a hurricane and sank. 

The area that the Atocha sunk was notorious for shipwreck and the five people who survived the wreck talked about other factors that led to the ship sinking.  The Florida Keys area shows a vast oceanic mountain range.  It is the edge of the North American continental shelf.  There are also coral reefs found in the area.  The Spanish would not have been aware of these as they were not protected by lighthouses.  Anyway, now that that detour has finished, the documentary transitions into the discussion on the Fisher team who worked to find the wreck of the Atocha.  After decades of looking, the Fisher Family found the wreck and they continue to work to this day to look for more of the treasure.  In fact, the wreck is spread out, the ship broke up when it sank and spread out over miles.  Will the Atocha treasure continue to be found?  Why is the shipwreck so spread out?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out more.

Drain the Oceans should divide this episode into chapters with each wreck.  It just makes things easier to keep track of and follow along.  This was a very good episode.  You never really think about how much wealth was transferred over the ocean.  This would be good for a fun history day or a fun science day.

Good morning!  Today’s documentary is going to be about nuclear folly.  It is from the Get Factual YouTube Channel.  This has been sitting on my review list for a while, so I think I better get around and do the review.  So I am going to be flash forwarding in history to learn more about the follies of Nuclear technology.  The run time for this documentary is 52:08.  It is called A Short History of Nuclear Folly.

Chernobyl was one of the biggest disasters and well-documented disasters in the history of nuclear power.  However, there are a whole host of errors and near misses when it comes to nuclear power.  Many of these have been concealed and forgotten.  One episode includes the accidental drop of a nuclear bomb on the house of a train conductor.  Another folly includes the filming of a John Wayne movie in a radioactive canyon.  So what is the hidden history of nuclear folly?

The invention of the nuclear war caused a great deal of anxiety in the world.  It had the potential to destroy the world.  The first story begins when the first atomic bomb accidentally was dropped on a town.  It happened in Florence; South Carolina and it had injured six people.  There was a 35-deep crater left behind.  Residents thought that a jet crashed, however, it was an atomic bomb that had slipped from its moorings and fallen.  The Pilot had accidentally dropped the bomb.  Luckily for Florence, the atomic part of the bomb was disabled and so TNT went off.  The narrator talks about the components of the bomb.  Years later, the residents of Florence were still finding pieces of radioactive parts.  Even though it was an accident the incident remains a mystery.

The next story happens in Nevada, where the US Military is oftentimes careless with bomb testing.  If the wind shifts during a test, the soldiers and civilians could be in danger.  Radioactive smoke drifts into Snow Canyon National Park.  One year later, a John Wayne movie is being filmed.  During the riding scenes, contaminated sand would have been kicked up.  Bud Myers one of the extras in the movie talks about what was going on.  Many actors developed cancer as a result of the filming location.  The extras were Piute Indians and many of them developed cancer and died.

Locals to the area would often take a picnic out and watch the tests being done.  One of the locals talks about how she felt like the government let her down.  The government treated the locals as expendable.  Then there was a commercial talking about the nuclear drills.  Everyone had to duck and cover.  In the Soviet Union, a more active approach was taken in case of nuclear war and there was a video of how the Soviets prepped.  This was an interesting section with the period footage from both America and the Soviet Union.

The United States government wanted to be armed with nuclear weapons because it was cheaper in comparison to conventional warfare.  Then there is a tour of a museum of nuclear weapons.  The guide that took part in the program used to design.  Then the documentary transitions into how the government tried to solve the world's problems with radiation.  There were plans to use nuclear radiation in agriculture.  Then there is talk about how nuclear power was used to power the world.  The government even wanted to use nuclear bombs in construction.  There was even talk about carving a new canal in Panama.  This needed to be tested, and so the US government planned to use H Bombs to carve out a harbor in Alaska.  There area targeted was said to be uninhabited, however, there was a tribe of Inuit who lived in Port Hope.  The government tried to talk the Inuit into allowing the harbor, but they refused after seeing the images that came from Japan after the atomic bomb was dropped.  To learn more about the Nuclear Follies continue to watch the rest of the episode to find out.

This was a very interesting documentary about an area of history you never really heard about.  The original footage was good and the people who lived through this time were good.  This would be a good documentary to show to a history class.