Subjects: History

One of the most daring resistance operations of World War II was the 1944 sinking of the Norwegian ferry Hydro, with its cargo of “heavy water” destined for the Nazi’s secret atomic bomb project. If the Germans had obtained a large supply, it could have helped their physicists develop nuclear weapons that would have made the Third Reich invincible. Fear of that outcome sparked the Allies to undertake the Manhattan Project, which ultimately produced the first atomic bomb. Hitler’s Sunken Secret features gripping first-person interviews with the sole living Norwegian saboteur and survivors who were on board the Hydro when it blew up. Among the NOVA team’s startling new discoveries is evidence that a second secret consignment of barrels eluded the saboteurs and made it all the way to Germany, but arrived too late to make a Nazi bomb feasible. Special DVD features include: materials and activities for educators; a link to the NOVA Web site; scene selections; closed captions; and described video for the visually impaired.

The movie “The Great Escape,” starring Steve McQueen, was based on fact – on the most daring and technically ingenious prison escape of World War II. The location was a remote, high-security internment camp for Allied airmen. Known as Stalag Luft III, the camp was at Sagan in present-day Poland. The escape emerged from a stunningly ambitious plan: Allied POWs set out to dig three tunnels more than three hundred feet long and thirty feet below ground, which they nicknamed ‘Tom,’ ‘Dick,’ and ‘Harry,’ so that if the Germans discovered one tunnel there would still be a fallback. NOVA follows a team of archaeologists on a hunt for the single surviving tunnel, ‘Dick,’ that the Germans never found. Accompanying the team was a group of three of the original escapers, who returned to the scene of their daring escapade for the first time in sixty years. The film shows the ingenious methods and devices improvised by the prisoners: how they surveyed the tunnels, disguised the entrance traps, and engineered an amazing air pump and railway system, all from materials scavenged from the camp. But when the time for the breakout came, the thrill of the escape would take an unexpected and tragic turn.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, a dark, inhospitable cave located in a canyon near the Dead Sea was a secret refuge for Jewish refugees fleeing for their lives from the oppressive rule of the Roman Empire. In 1960, archaeologists discovered dramatic letters written by Bar-Kokhba, the heroic Jewish rebel who led a guerrilla uprising against the Romans. Could the cave conceal more historical treasure from that desperate time? Armed with high-tech equipment, a new team led by archaeologist Richard Freund returns to explore a place that has intrigued the experts for decades. With the help of ingeniously improvised devices, they unearth long-lost artifacts and relics that provide tantalizing clues to turbulent times of messianic fervor, oppression, and revolt. The team’s discoveries lead Freund to a radical new theory that he hopes will rewrite Holy Land history-could the treasure concealed in the cave be a long-lost relic of the Great Temple in Jerusalem destroyed by the Romans? Join NOVA for a fascinating detective story that will immerse you in the strong currents of archaeological controversy.

There are few more tantalizing or notorious historical documents than the Vinland map. A faded, yellowing scrap of parchment bearing a faint tracery of lines, the map apparently shows the eastern seaboard of North America-yet it was drawn at least half a century before Columbus reached the New World. It seems to present unshakeable proof that the Vikings were the real discoverers of the Americas. But for 40 years, a bitter debate over its authenticity has raged among cartographers, historians, and scientists. Despite chemical analysis and radiocarbon tests, the case remained unresolved. Now, in an exclusive investigation, NOVA presents fresh evidence confirming that the map was probably one of the cleverest forgeries of all time, and probes who might have wanted to carry out the deception. In this enthralling cartographic detective story, NOVA pursues a trail from Scandinavia to Austria, Switzerland, London, and the U.S.