The BEST episodes of National Geographic Documentaries season 2011
Every episode of National Geographic Documentaries season 2011, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of National Geographic Documentaries season 2011!
Go behind the scenes of life on our planet with National Geographic videos. Share the wonder of the natural world with educational animal videos for kids. Let National Geographic be your all-access pass with documentary videos about the U.S. State Department, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, or 9/11. Experience the past coming to life with culture and history videos, and engage more deeply with the present with science and nature.
#1 - Minutes to Meltdown: Three Mile Island
Season 2011 - Episode 11 - Aired 3/19/2011
Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear plant seems peaceful now, but 32 years ago, it brought America close to catastrophe. Tens of thousands of people fled their homes -- and the health and safety of hundreds of thousands hung in the balance.
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#2 - Hunt for the Abominable Snowman
Season 2011 - Episode 14 - Aired 4/4/2011
Across the Himalayas are stories of the yeti, or abominable snowman. Half man, half ape, the yeti is said to roam only the most remote peaks, where people rarely venture. Now, veteran explorer and climber Gerry Moffatt sets out to find proof in a hunt that will test his stamina. As conventional scientific theories challenge ancient beliefs and credible witnesses, he works to separate fact from fiction and find hard evidence that the legend is real.
#3 - Finding Jack the Ripper
Season 2011 - Episode 13 - Aired 4/3/2011
Could Jack the Ripper have been the world's first trans-Atlantic serial killer? Can 21st century techniques and CGI 3-D autopsies crack this 19th century crime spree, while reversing decades of investigative assumptions? Retired U.K. murder squad detective Trevor Marriott is determined to finally unmask the Ripper and possibly link him to other murders in Europe and the U.S.
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#4 - The Conspirator: The Plot to Kill Lincoln
Season 2011 - Episode 27 - Aired 4/12/2011
Mary Surratt was the only woman convicted in Lincoln's assassination, the first female to be executed by the U.S. government and now the basis for Robert Redford's The Conspirator. Just days before the feature film hits theaters, NGC presents a complementary documentary on her role in the 16th president's death. The Plot to Kill Lincoln: The Conspirator weaves together excerpts from the movie with historical records and expert interviews to tell the dramatic story.
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#5 - Navajo Cops
Season 2011 - Episode 40 - Aired 5/11/2011
In the heart of the American southwest, the 320 cops of the Navajo Police patrol some of the most rugged territory in the United States. These modern day warriors are on a mission to protect the largest Indian reservation in North America, and to preserve an ancient way of life. They must deal with big city crime like gangs, drugs, murders, and human trafficking while also protecting wildlife, cultural landmarks, and endangered archaeological sites. On a landscape straight out of the Wild West, they even square off against the supernatural, as they investigate attacks by beings with supernatural powers known as Skinwalkers.
#6 - Diving the Labyrinth
Season 2011 - Episode 58 - Aired 8/12/2011
Some of the world’s best cave divers have traveled to the Bahamas Islands to plunge into the unique abyss found in blue holes –underwater caves that can go hundreds or even thousands of feet down and feature a maze of passages and tunnels, which act as liquid time capsules. Led by National Geographic emerging explorer and anthropologist Kenny Broad, a team of divers and archaeologists investigate these caves to unlock the mysteries of an ancient Bahamas teeming with life that quickly vanished, leaving the islands now mostly barren. What caused these animals to disappear, and could 800-year-old human skulls provide the answer?
#7 - Salem Witch Trial Conspiracy
Season 2011 - Episode 53 - Aired 7/3/2011
In Salem Witch Trial Conspiracy, join author Katherine Howe as she embarks on a historical journey to bring you the truth behind the world's most famous witch-hunt. Of the over one hundred people charged with witchcraft, five died in jail, 19 died on the gallows and one was crushed to death. Each of these deaths was the result of an overwhelming religious hysteria, and even to this date historians are uncovering more about what really occurred.
#8 - London Underground Revealed
Season 2011 - Episode 73 - Aired 12/1/2011
Any Londoner can tell you that the Tube is overcrowded. But how many know the real reasons why? In the premiere of London Underground Revealed journey below London's pavements to look back over 125 years of crushed commuters and rush-hour rage and discover remarkable engineering history behind the biggest metro system in the Western world. With each day bringing over 4 million passengers into a vast network of tunnels under the city, the iconic transport system is creakingly close to capacity. Can an ambitious plot involving £16-billion to build 30 new stations drag it back from the brink? Taking in the origins of the Underground, this one-off special also reveals how 19th century New York subway designs are inspiring the next generation of Tube trains, and explores the importance of early Parisian Metro makers to modern engineering methods. You'll also look at the continued technological advances stemming from the tragic 1987 Kings Cross fire, which will make the new Underground among the safest transport systems on the planet. Interviewees including Transport for London Network Services Director Nigel Holness and engineering expert Professor John Burland explain what the future holds for the capital's commuters as this historic subway system reinvents itself for a new era of 21st century travel.
#9 - Inside: Cocaine Submarines
Season 2011 - Episode 28 - Aired 4/12/2011
Colombian drug traffickers are using a new secret weapon to smuggle cocaine north – drug submarines. Up to 30 meters long and nearly impossible to detect, they are capable of distributing several tons of coke in just one shipment. Dozens of subs are thought to be in operation between the coasts of Colombia and Mexico, and law enforcement estimates that another 70 will be built in the next year alone. NGC follows U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency agents and the Colombian military looking for drug subs under construction in some of the most remote jungles on the planet.
#10 - Drain The Great Lakes
Season 2011 - Episode 72 - Aired 12/1/2011
The water in the Great Lakes, the world's largest freshwater lake system, obscures many secrets of the North American continent's human history and its geologic past; computer-generated imagery shows what they would look like if it went away.
#11 - Inside: Pickpocket King
Season 2011 - Episode 74 - Aired 12/2/2011
Bob Arno wows audiences with his pickpocketing show in Las Vegas. The self-proclaimed Pickpocket King, he says has never met a thief who can match his skills. Until now. Now, Bob takes us to Naples, Italy, which he calls "the pickpocketing capital of the world," to uncover some of the worlds best pickpockets. With his access well get an inside glance into how an international crew of pickpockets operates and well see if Bob really is the Pickpocket King!
#12 - Life after Dinosaurs
Season 2011 - Episode 61 - Aired 8/26/2011
Life After Dinosaurs recreates the evolutionary history of mammals from the dinosaur age up to the appearance of the first humans to explore how the present ecosystem on this planet was formed and how remarkable the fact is that we exist now.
#13 - Robot Soldiers
Season 2011 - Episode 54 - Aired 7/11/2011
When this robot is powered up, 200 pounds of machinery turns into a tool to give soldiers super-human abilities.
#14 - Hitler's Stealth Fighter
Season 2011 - Episode 64 - Aired 9/22/2011
In the final months of World War II, American troops discovered a top-secret facility in Germany with an advanced batwing-shaped jet fighter. If Nazi engineers had had more time, would this jet have ultimately changed the outcome of the war? In this National Geographic documentary they rebuild a jet discovered in a top-secret German facility during the final months of World War II - the Horten 229
#15 - Kissinger
Season 2011 - Episode 63 - Aired 9/12/2011
With exclusive access and 25 hours of interviews, this two-hour special gives unique insight into the man who, perhaps more than any other indvidual, shaped the post-war foreign policy of the United States and in so doing remains one of the most controversial figures in American politics.
#16 - The Liquid Bomb Plot
Season 2011 - Episode 60 - Aired 8/21/2011
The real-life international drama plays out like the plot of a deadly spy thriller. In the summer of 2006, as many as 18 conspirators planned to simultaneously blow up almost 10 airplanes by bringing hydrogen peroxide-injected soda-bottles-turned-bombs onto flights bound from London to the U.S. and Canada. Now, NGC — with unprecedented access to undercover agents and top officials from British Counter-Terror Command, the CIA and Homeland Security — goes inside the true story.
#17 - Pint-Sized Preachers
Season 2011 - Episode 59 - Aired 8/17/2011
Still only a pre-schooler, Kanon Tipton takes the pulpit at his family’s church and like a seasoned evangelist fervently preaches the gospel, mopping his forehead, shouting, waving his arms, the congregation hanging on his every word. But he’s just 4-years-old. NGC’s Pint-Sized Preachers goes inside the controversial world of child evangelists to follow two rising-stars and one established child minister as they spread God’s word and bring congregations to their feet.
#18 - Medieval Fight Book
Season 2011 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/25/2011
Violent, secretive, spiritual and packed full of knowledge, an obscure and mysterious manuscript called the Fight Book realistically depicts the bloody side of Europe in the Middle Ages. Through historical re-creations, CGI and leading historians, we reveal the surprising detail that proves medieval society was far more refined and peculiar than we realize.
#19 - How to Build a Volcano
Season 2011 - Episode 57 - Aired 8/7/2011
Science partners with Hollywood special effects to build the world's largest model volcano. The plan: Create a four-story-tall, 150-foot-wide volcano that can erupt and spew simulated magma and ash. Scientists test cutting-edge scientific theories on the model to learn more about one of the most volatile natural forces on the planet.
#20 - Hunting Hitler's Generals
Season 2011 - Episode 6 - Aired 3/8/2011
During World War II, Allied operatives went on secret missions to kill Adolph Hitler and his top officers, including Erwin Rommel. Allied Special Forces launched daring wartime missions to capture or kill Nazi generals where they were stationed on the front lines of war. National Geographic Channel captures the real-time drama felt as the Special Forces commanded these dangerous and complicated missions to exotic locations.
#21 - Hitler's Suicide Ship
Season 2011 - Episode 56 - Aired 7/26/2011
After battling in late 1939 with British cruisers off the coast of Uruguay, Hitler’s prized “pocket battleship” and high-tech wonder, the Admiral Graf Spee was blown up by its own captain, Hans Langsdorff. Denounced by the Nazi regime, Langsdorff commits suicide shortly thereafter. National Geographic Channel reconstructs the first naval battle of World War II and retraces the events that led to the Graf Spee’s ultimate destruction. AKA: Hitler's Lost Battleship(UK)
#22 - Russia's Toughest Prisons
Season 2011 - Episode 49 - Aired 6/30/2011
For the first time, three prisons across Russia unlock their doors to an international film crew. From a Siberian prison camp where temperatures plummet to 50 below to the highest security prison, where cannibals, terrorists and serial killers will live out the rest of their days, caged like animals. And, a pass inside infamous Vladimir Central — at over 200 years old, it’s held an estimated one million inmates. Inside Black Dolphin, a cannibal talks openly about his crime, divulging how he boiled, fried and ate his murder victim. In Vladimir Central, a convict opens up about killing his brother-in-law for disturbing his daughter’s peaceful night’s sleep. And inside a Siberian prison camp, we meet two friends about to go their separate ways when one gets paroled.
#23 - Witch Hunter's Bible
Season 2011 - Episode 18 - Aired 4/5/2011
For the first time ever, an international investigation team joins forces to unravel the mysteries of the Malleus Maleficarum, or Hammer of Witches. Written in 1486, this infamous medieval manual changed the way the Western world saw evil. With detailed instructions on how to find, prosecute and punish witches, the Malleus inspired centuries of accusation and bloodshed on both sides of the Atlantic. Read more: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/witch-hunter-s-bible-4924/Overview#ixzz1SarhuOem
#24 - JFK: The Lost Bullet
Season 2011 - Episode 80 - Aired 11/18/2011
The uncovering of the 3 shots fired that resulted in the assassination of Jon F. Kennedy
#25 - Hunting Hitler's Henchmen
Season 2011 - Episode 65 - Aired 10/2/2011
Their bravery has inspired countless films but, until now, the real story of some of Britain’s greatest war heroes has remained in the shadows. Hunting Hitler’s Henchmen is a film about some of Britain’s bravest military. With ex-special forces soldiers as guides, venture beyond the movies to meet the snatch squads: commandos sent behind enemy lines to take out Hitler’s most-feared generals. They slipped into Nazi-led Libya to kill the infamous Desert Fox, General Erwin Rommel, and succeeded in snatching General Heinrich Kreipe from under the noses of 15,000 soldiers. Risking their lives to disrupt the Nazi war machine, these are the heroes who inspired Hollywood: incredible men sent to eliminate Hitler’s top brass.