The BEST episodes of National Geographic Documentaries season 2012

#1 - American Mansion: Secrets of the Rockefeller Estate

Season 2012 - Episode 40 - Aired 10/12/2012

#2 - Trekking The Great Wall

Season 2012 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/11/2012

A British writer and historian explores the most remote parts of China's national monument. He questions peasants and herders, experts and scholars, in a bid to learn how long the Great Wall is

#3 - Lost World of the Pacific

Season 2012 - Episode 8 - Aired 2/15/2012

Investigating an alleged lost civilization on the Marquesas Archipelago, which is thought to have been the centre of an ancient and thriving society. Combining archaeological and geological evidence, a story of cannibals, stone cities, human sacrifice, and adventurers is uncovered.

#4 - Save the Titanic With Bob Ballard

Season 2012 - Episode 16 - Aired 4/9/2012

Robert Ballard has been living and breathing the Titanic since he was part of the team that discovered it in 1985. In Save the Titanic with Bob Ballard, he revisits the iconic ship in an entirely different way—from the perspective of those who set sail on it some 100 years ago. Ballard travels to the shipyards of Northern Ireland to retrace the path of the doomed ship from its’ very incarnation. Throughout his journey, Ballard is driven by one personal question—will the Titanic survive another 100 years? As evidence mounts that the ship is under siege by natural forces, careless visitors and even rogue salvage operators, the man who found it teams with the families of victims and survivors to protect the legacy of history’s most famous ship.

#5 - Superstorm New York: What Really Happened

Season 2012 - Episode 48 - Aired 12/29/2012

#6 - Forecast Disaster: Deadly Floods

Season 2012 - Episode 53 - Aired 1/31/2012

#7 - Earth's Giant Hole

Season 2012 - Episode 42 - Aired 11/21/2012

Professor Darryl Granger explores China's tiankengs - giant natural holes, hundreds of metres deep, which have developed in unusual environmental conditions.

#8 - Preppers UK: Surviving Armageddon

Season 2012 - Episode 44 - Aired 11/28/2012

#9 - Evacuate Earth

Season 2012 - Episode 45 - Aired 12/2/2012

If we faced a countdown to destruction, could we build a spacecraft to take us to new and habitable worlds? Can we Evacuate Earth? NGC's two-hour special examines this terrifying but scientifically plausible scenario by exploring how we could unite to ensure the survival of the human race.

#10 - Australia's Hardest Prison

Season 2012 - Episode 9 - Aired 2/15/2012

#11 - Maya Underworld: The Real Doomsday

Season 2012 - Episode 46 - Aired 12/8/2012

Venturing into vast underwater graveyards of Maya human sacrifices, journalist and host of NGC’s Don’t Tell My Mother Diego Buñuel searches through a watery maze to unearth new revelations about the most infamous date in the Maya calendar: December 21, 2012 – doomsday. Using ground-breaking National Geographic technology, Diego and a team of archaeologists will literally light up the abyss to explore these underwater tombs and gain key insight into why the Maya may have predicted an impending apocalypse. In a secret location, Diego views a rare replica of one Maya codex whose last page filled with illustrations of floods and ominous-looking gods first sparked the apocalyptic prediction some 100 years ago. And, in remote Guatemala, NGC follows an elite team of researchers who descend through dangerous underground tunnels and, using modern techniques, make a revelatory discovery that may alter our perception of December 21, 2012.

#12 - Secret Lives of the Apostles

Season 2012 - Episode 47 - Aired 12/23/2012

#13 - Inside Underground Poker

Season 2012 - Episode 43 - Aired 11/27/2012

Across New York City, an underground economy exists that pulsates with danger, allure and adrenaline — generated by clandestine high-stakes poker games. One of the top games in the city is run by Mikey Tatts, who has cultivated an eclectic roster of players and friends, including Wall Street brokers, doctors, business owners, drug dealers, pimps and people who make their living playing cards.

#14 - America's Money Vault

Season 2012 - Episode 39 - Aired 10/11/2012

For the first time, National Geographic takes you inside the heart of the money machine to places that you're not allowed to bring a camera ...straight into the vaults of some of the world's largest stashes of what you want, need and bust your butt to get: Money.

#15 - Abu Dhabi: Between Tradition and 21st Century

Season 2012 - Episode 49 - Aired 12/31/2012

#16 - Inside the NSA: America's Cyber Secrets

Season 2012 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/30/2012

For decades, the U.S. government refused to acknowledge the very existence of the National Security Agency (NSA). And it's still considered one of the most secretive intelligence agencies in the world. But that's about to change. With the first access given to a documentary film crew since 9/11, National Geographic goes Inside the NSA (9pm) for a new one-hour special to demystify the modern-day spy agency.

#17 - Through Their Eyes

Season 2012 - Episode 13 - Aired 3/19/2012

Through Their Eyes documents Daniel Craig's visit to Mongolia with the ORBIS team of medical professionals. While he was there, Craig witnessed the life-changing eye operations performed aboard the Flying Eye Hospital on the runway of the airport at the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator. The film reveals the dramatic contrasts in Mongolia, alternating images of men and women on horses galloping across the Steppes with those of motorcyclists negotiating the crowded streets of Ulan Bator. The most compelling stories, though, are those of families' emotional relief when a child's eyesight has been restored or the gratitude expressed by a Mongolian nurse to the ORBIS team that has trained her and her colleagues to extend treatment to their communities. Since ORBIS International was founded in 1982, the organization has carried out programs in 88 countries to provide medical training, tools and technology to local partners to address eye disease and preventable blindness in their communities. As a result of this support, more than 12 million individuals have received medical care and more than a quarter of a million eye care professionals have been trained.

#18 - Cradle of the Gods

Season 2012 - Episode 11 - Aired 3/13/2012

In the heart of South-Eastern Turkey is an extraordinary site called Gobekli Tepe, which could be one of the most startling archaeological discoveries of our time. At 11,500 years old, this vast and labyrinth temple complex was built a staggering 7000 years before the Great Pyramid and 6000 years before Stonehenge. Archaeologists believe this could be the site of the worlds oldest temple, humanity's first "cathedral on a hill". And it could overturn all our conventional views on the rise of civilization and the start of the human story. In this film, archaeologist Dr. Jeff Rose follows a ground-breaking excavation which uses the latest technology to uncover the secrets of the site. air date reference of 2012-03-01 http://realscreen.com/2012/03/02/nat-geo-atlantic-examine-cradle-of-the-gods/

#19 - Treasure Hoard: Secrets of the Lost Gold

Season 2012 - Episode 27 - Aired 6/4/2012

The discovery of a golden hoard sheds light on the mysterious dark ages. England was ripped apart by war but out of this time of turmoil the English language, Celtic art and Christianity were born.

#20 - Jonestown - Nightmare in Paradise

Season 2012 - Episode 36 - Aired 8/28/2012

Jonestown: Nightmare in Paradise chronicles the tragic final days of the People's Temple cult. In November 1978, more than 900 People's Temple members perished at Jonestown, their compound in northern Guyana - an act of mass murder and suicide ordered by the cult's messianic leader, Jim Jones. This film includes archival footage, exhaustively researched dramatic re-creations, and interviews with survivors and key witnesses, including Stephan Jones, son of Jim Jones.

#21 - Sailing the Treasure Ship

Season 2012 - Episode 34 - Aired 8/8/2012

It took a year to build: the Jewel of Muscat – a reconstruction of a 1200 year old Arab ship, based on an ancient shipwreck. Built from more than 18 tonnes of wood, the ship is held together entirely by 100 km of rope in over 127,000 hand-sewn stitches. Now the Jewel will sail more than five thousand kilometres across the Indian Ocean and do battle with the Monsoon – the mighty rain soaked wind that turns the arid land it touches green. But for sailors it can spell danger and even death.

#22 - Dinofish

Season 2012 - Episode 41 - Aired 10/21/2012

Coelacanth (SEEL-uh-kanth): a large fish with limblike fins, armored scales and a tail that no other living fish possesses. This prehistoric fish was thought to have died out with the dinosaurs in the great extinction. It has laid hidden deep in our oceans undisturbed and undetected for 70 million years—a true living fossil. The coelacanth is thought to be related to the creatures that grew legs, breathed air and came ashore nearly 400 million years ago.

#23 - Nazi Sunken Sub

Season 2012 - Episode 38 - Aired 9/23/2012

In early 1945, the Nazi submarine U-745 is lost and the body of its captain is found frozen on the island of Foglo. For nearly 70 years the U-boat's fate has remained a mystery. Now, after over a decade of painstaking research and underwater exploration, the mystery of the U-745 has been solved by the members of Badewanne, a Finnish diving team. While searching, they dispel the myth of the Louhi, a Finnish minelayer that some thought was sunk by its own mine and discover a type of submarine some say was never built. This group of highly skilled technical divers journeys deep below the frigid waters of the Baltic to reveal the secrets of the Nazi sunken sub.

#24 - Finding the Lost Da Vinci

Season 2012 - Episode 21 - Aired 3/18/2012

Dr Maurizio Seracini has been hunting a lost mural entombed beneath the Palazzo Vecchio of Florence, for unravelling the real-life Da Vinci code.

#25 - Living on the Moon

Season 2012 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/1/2012

By 2050, lunar settlers could be making oxygen, growing food and finding water in a bustling, self-sustaining settlement. See what life may be like on the Moon. The day before the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11, NGC presents Living on the Moon. Man has always dreamed of living on the moon, and now a team of NASA scientists is proving that dream could be achieved in our lifetime. We take viewers inside Constellation, the space program's plan to establish a human outpost on the moon by 2020. Take a closer look at the plans underway, from upgraded space suits to housing modules and moon vehicles, and examine the challenges ahead, such as finding water, making oxygen, growing food and protecting residents from deadly radiation. Then, using 3-D animation, we'll visualize how the remarkable outpost will take shape.