Alexander Grham Bell's main invention enabled telephone and Internet technology, without which modern communication would still be unthinkable, if not the present world. First generation immigrant with his father and like him, he first aspired to help the deaf-mute like his mother, initially as a successful and innovative teacher. He fell in love with pupil Mabil, who seemed out of reach as daughter of wealthy lawyer Hubbard, but his future father in law proved a vital asset in challenging Western Union's telecommunication monopoly by inventing telephone technology, ...

As youngest rising naval superpower, Japan felt unfairly constrained by the war fleet size freezing. It sought a way out by building the world's largest battle ship ever by far, the Yamamoto, with unprecedented canons. After Japan lost air control to the allied enemy, the super-ship was kept safely in port until the Midway defeat left the Japanse archipelago open to a final offensive. As a matter of pride, it then made its last voyage 1-7 April 1945, only to be sunk senselessly. How exactly is reconstructed with modern means, interlaced with contemporary experiences ...

Arminius and his brother were, as sons of a tribal prince of the Cherusk tribe who opposed their alliance with Rome, raised as 'honorary hostages' in Rome, in the glorious age of Augustus. Arminius became a cavalry officer, saw in Pannonia the army's superiority in the field and rose the equestrian rank. Varrus, reputed ruthless but efficient in Syria, was made governor in Germania. He vastly enlarged a chain of fortifications from the Rhine limes. Arminius served in that army in his native country. Seeing his people's repression virtually without civilizing progress,...

This sequel to Arminus' Treason reconstructs how the Cherusk prince tricked governor Varrus into the marshy Teutoburger forest, believing it to be a rescue. There, his coalition of Germanic tribes inflicted an unprecedented bloody defeat on his three legions, in several well-conceived phases. This reconstruction was based on recent archaeological finds and Ancient text.

The limes was a formidable fortification effort along most of the Roman empire's borders, rivaled i size only by the Great China Wall. By its staggering demonstration of means and engineering efficiency it was crucial to the emperor's prestige as much as for militarily guarding the Roman borders, which only pays off as long as the -mainly Germanic- neighbors aren't too numerous and/or romanized and pacified trough trade. It comprised standardized components, such as watchtowers, castles for cavalry garrisons and signals systems, plus river boat patrols.

Scientists still dig up parts of the 7000 kilometers long lies-fortified imperial fortifications, incredibly well planned and executed with astonishing geodetics, the method of which remains unknown. Its true significance and purpose remain disputed, probably at least as much to impress by required resources and know-hand as for purely military use. Even more the the garrison castles from which cavalry operated, large infantry-rowed boats on Rhine and Danube allowed mobile landing, mainly in barbarian Germania Magna. HQ cities boomed, especially where trade blossoms, ...

All over Central Europe lie numerous huge circles of giant stones, some predating Stonehenge and the pyramids. Modern archeology researchers like Mainz (Mayence) university's Joachim Bürger call it the first monuments of the Neolithic revolution and ascribe the first to people who weren't our direct ancestors. Implantation along rivers and elaborate astronomical orientation support a link with standardization as agriculture succeeded hunting-gathering. Near Vienna a circular settlement is reconstructed, with tombs and a palisade. Their precise uses as refuge, kraal ...

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Mohammed was born as orphaned son of a rich Meccan family, made fortune as a merchant and married back into society. Muslim tradition holds that he received the will of Allah as a book, by the archangel Gabriel. It contains the five pillars of Islam. He fled polytheism to Medina, where he arbitrated between tribes and established his own state. This soon conquered Mecca and from there spread Islam, in a few generations, wiping out the Sassanid Persian heathenish and Byzantine Christian empires. From North Africa it would even establish in Andalus, Iberia. A succession...

The Abassid caliphs' rule in Bagdad and the break-away Ommayads' in Cordoba are known as Islam's Golden Age in the sense of military strength and, longer, scientific and technological excellence, including medicine way beyond Christianity's best. They preserved the knowledge of the Roman past, combined it with Persian, Indian and Far Eastern discoveries and further advanced themselves. The ignorant West, far more intolerant, invaded in the crusades, but would benefit from Islamic culture when e.g. Staufian emperor Fredric II practiced multiculturalism. The Mongol ...

After the 1492 completion of the Reconquista of Iberia, Europe faces only one Islamic empire: the Ottomans. They conquer the Byzantine empire, the Balkans and nearly take Vienna, while Barbary pirates raid slaves. The Western exploration and colonization hand it economic prominence, the Ottoman empire stagnates intellectually. The British empire faces the Mahdi (Muslim Messiah) Sudan uprising. The Wahabite version of Islam fundamentalism became relevant because of oil. The First World war carves up the Ottoman empire. Turkey becomes a Western secular republic. In Arab...

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Start of a trilogy on the Biblical 7 plagues allegedly forcing Pharao to let the Israelites leave to Canaan. Scientists find the first six were pretty plausible, even ecologically interlinked. The Nile was on occasion turned blood-red by algae, killing off fish which then rot. This triggers a frog plague. Next follow insect infestations. Finally pestilence hits domestic animals and people. Ramameses II just stands for mighty Egypt, but his newly founded Nile delta capital Pi-Ramasse, possibly built with some Jewish forced labor, actually did disappear after a climate ...

The next plagues are hail, dankness and locusts. Recent evidence from archaeology and medical papyri strongly supports the theory that all these and previous plagues may have been triggered by the volcanic eruption on Aegan island Thera (Santorini island) and resulting tsunamis. This is now almost certainly carbon dated: 1613 BC, earlier then previously assumed, so all Ancient chronology using it as a reference point needs corrections. The plagues thus coincide with the Egyptian New Empire's start: expelling The Hyksos occupation, from Canaan.

The tenth Biblical plague of Egypt resulting in the death of all the first-born, finally convinced Pharao to let Mozes's people go, evenly the princely heir. A literal explanation could be a fungus poisoning the corn, mainly fed to heirs, after the locust plague, but it's probably more a matter of literary figures. The question as to whether history actually refers to the Canaanite Hyksos is settled negatively as more is known about them, a small invader tribe concentrated in new Nile Delta city Awaris.

German scientists play a key part in international multi-disciplinary research asking whether the European weather is likely to produce an unexpected major disaster with unseen consequences. They concentrate on the key part the Alps are likely to play by influencing wind and precipitation. Both historical precedents and new research technology are examined.

Modern science still researches how exactly tsunamis originate and cause additional havoc in cities they affect. A fascinating case for reconstruction purposes is the ruin of the Portuguese capital Lisbon, on 1 November 1755. The Tsunami killed a fifth of the population. Fear-paralyzed king Joseph's able prime minister, marquess Pombal, took charge of rescue and reconstruction. Minor seismic activity and religious fanatics kept complicating life. This made Pombal the real, absolutist ruler, who finally modernized Portugal.

Descendants of the Mongolian conqueror Genghis Khan founded the Mughal dynasty, India's grandest. Shah Jahan earned that title, 'ruler of the world' as his father's general, then murdered his brothers to secure his throne and start a glorious reign. When his beloved wife and confident Mumtaz Mahal died, he combined the best of his predecessors' mausoleums for her legendary monument, in grand Islamic symbolism. The immense cost contributed decades later to his overthrow by his own son.

272 AD, prince Ashoka succeeds his father as king of the Maurya empire, most of the Indian subcontinent, by eliminating his brothers according to the Machiavellian kingship manual, Artashtra, and conquers major enclave Kalinga. There the suffering of civilians makes him convert to Buddhist pacifism, non-violence, even against animals, religious tolerance. He elaborates a paternalist 'wellfare state'. However his costly Buddhist missions overstretch the treasury, so his successors return the empire to its predatory state.

A Norwegian paleontologist recently mounted an international expedition to set up dig on the isle of Spitzbergen, for the remains of a Pleiosaurus, the largest marine Dino when the island was still submerged by the Jurassic era's ocean it ruled. The grueling Arctic conditions are ruthless, but it pays off. Reconstruction yields a new size and weight record, outclassing T-Rex and whales. Brain and relative size supremacy indicate a white shark-like hunting technique, his record bite twice that of the present champion, the crocodiles.

In September 1977 unknown thieves succeeded in stealing countless gold rings, bracelets and necklaces from the Dresden Museum in broad daylight. The robbery of this multi-million dollar treasure, the "Sophienschatz," went down as one of the biggest coups in the history of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Despite tremendous investigative efforts, the police were unable to track down the treasure or the perpetrators. The documentary Cold Case Dresden (working title) is a story of how a former investigator in this Dresden Coup manages to recover the bulk of the ...

In 1911, one of the first ever world press uproars was the theft from Paris's Louvre museum of Da Vinci's enigmatic painting the Mona Lisa. It seemed lost, but soon an amateurish ransom was revealed. The police, alerted by museum officials, put into practice revolutionary forensic techniques, including fingerprints, and traced the robber. He was a naive Italian laborer, and easily arrested.

Some of Dresden's aristocratic funeral gifts at the St. Sophie church, jewelry masterpieces, dug up after the 1945 bombing for the GDR city museum, went missing in 1977. In 1997 some turned up in Norway. In 2009 a new police investigation traces how they were sold by a complex, murky nomenclatura network dominated by the StaSi (secret state police).

In December 1939 the German flagship found a watery grave in the Rio de la Plata. This documentary reconstructs what happened to the Nazi flagship. Its very class, the 'pocket cruiser', was engineered to attack the British Achilles heel, Atlantic supply lines from the colonies. The dashing captain, a PR prize pick, failed fatally to use its position against the British Royal Navy. Finally his humanitarian concern for the crew became crucial.

The SMS Szent Istvan was one of four major Austro-Hungarian battleships of the new, top-quality Dreadnought class. After 979 days docked in Pula, then an Austrian imperial port, it left on June 9, 1918 for an early World War I mission in the Adriatic. The next day, it was sunk by two allied torpedoes.

Micronesians from Bikini, a small atoll of the South Sea state Marshall islands, and it tiny direct neighbor, live in continental US exile. The reason is their evacuation for Operation Crossroads, a massively documented 1946 US military nuclear experiment on their utterly destroyed and uninhabitable island, months after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 2009, scientists thoroughly investigate the ecologically grim long-term effects on atoll, ocean and a deliberately but badly sunk fleet. The unprotected military participants are dying ever since. The atolls still aren't ...

In 1929-34, amateur archaeologist Alfred Rust's team's finds of flint tools and reindeer skeletons in fields prove late ice age man hunted even in northern Germany at least 15,000 years ago. This contradicted but ultimately changed academic consensus after Rust's extensive research of the ice receding across Europe and the Near East, showing a progress from present Syria. Modern research uses the latest techniques on such sites and Rust's original finds.

Late 19th century German private Precolumbian historian-archaeologist Eduard Seler was determined to disprove the Spanish excuses for abusive colonial oppression of the 'barbaric' Aztec empire, which Hernan Cortez conquered in 1519. Even today, despite extensive research, the Aztec origins and myths remain partially unexplained, even the bloody sacrificial practice questioned. Seler's main contribution was deciphering the Aztec Codices, which yielded their advanced calendar and various knowledge.

The Dom (cathedral) of the archbishopric-electorate of Mainz (Mayence) was often the scene of key events in German and European history. It was built around 1000 by archbishop Willigis at a size rivaling Rome's first St.Peter to support the see's claim to replace Charlemagne's palatine chapel in Aachen as German royal crowning site, prelude to imperial crowning in Rome, but only become a first act before Aachen. Dark chapters were the Thirty Years War, the French Revolution which ended in its secularization and the World War II bombing.

In 1865, the German archaeologist Adolf Bastian properly studied the recently 'rediscovered' monumental Buddhist temple city Angkor Vath, in Cambodia. The Khmer built it 1,000 years ago in the jungle of their empire, then most of Indochina as if for eternity, yet mysteriously abandoned it. He realizes they started as Hindus, so a religious strife may be part of the collapse. Moderns research concentrates on the huge surrounding water management infrastructure, proving the temples were the center of a metropolitan area dependent on complex irrigation. The ecological ...

Retired USNavy commander Robert E. Peary's status as first man to have set foot on the North Pole in April 1908 is questioned. Modern research discredits, without conclusively disproving, his claim on account of suspicious failures to secure prove and manipulations. And of his disloyal attempts to discredit his compatriot rival, Frederick Cook, who possibly was there first. Tom Avery's British polar expedition however proved Peary's alleged route and speed are and were possible.

Dirk Steffens for the soul of Siberia, 1/10th of the world's land surface. It stretches 7,000 km from the Ural mountains near Turkey to Kamtschatka peninsula near Alaska, from the Altai bordering Turkestan to the Arctic. Its fauna and often nomadic native peoples are adapted to the extreme seasons and variety within Siberia. 3,000 years ago, a better climate allowed the rise of the Scythians, who domesticated horses and spread trough Eurasia, mainly prospering around the Black Sea. Volcanic activity, still a violent danger, helped make Siberia immensely rich in ...

The South Sea, the southern part of the Pacific Ocean, scattered with many thousands of mainly small, isolated islands, was and still is shaped by natural forces such as volcanism, tectonic movements, corals and tides. It was colonized in many ways, such as drifting with or without float, storms or human migrations, including the amazing Polynesian invention, catamarans with reversible mast position. Its surprisingly rich waters produced massive guano phosphates, soon exhausted. Not only wildlife is exceptionally varied due to evolution, on Palau cavemen became dwarfs...

The riches of Egypt are a gift of the Nile, but a milder climate 11,000-7,000 years ago made the surrounding Sahara the home of various nomad peoples, who were driven together by desertification. The result was the unprecedentedly brilliant Pharoonic civilization, which studied and literally deified nature. Geology and wildlife are examined, as they played a part in Egypt's history and culture. Finally man altered even the Nile, building the Aswan dam.

Mike Parker Pearson's archaeological team from Sheffield and other British universities believes, after 7 years of digging miles around Stonehenge, to have proven it's significance is as part of a huge cult area. Indeed the ring of megaliths, which even attracted continental visitors, has a wooden (=mortal) counterpart, named Henge, next to a 'village' without agriculture, hence only used a few weeks a year, for the solstice celebrations at either circle, and a sacred procession path 30 meters wide connecting them via an stretch of Avon river. We also reconstruct the ...

Giant 'geoglyphs', huge drawings best visible from the sky, in Peru's Nazaca coastal region, were studied for decades by Germans developing various theories. Mathematician Reiche came up with astronomical orientation, SciFi author Erich von Däniken with ludicrous alien landing installations. Recently Riedler's archaeological team studied the environment and the local culture, which is over 2000 years old. They conclude the Nazca Indians had an extensive trade empire, which crumbled after climatic change in the first centuries after Christ in a Rapa Nui-like epic ...