The BEST episodes of National Geographic Documentaries season 2015

#1 - The National Mall: America's Front Yard

Season 2015 - Episode 11 - Aired 4/21/2015

The United States’ National Mall is an urban park unlike any other in the world, a landscape that seems so timeless and eternal it’s easy for visitors to forget that it is actually man-made. Now, for the first time, a National Geographic/PBS Special will bring the surprising story of the Mall’s creation and evolution to a national audience. Using a mixture of contemporary and archival footage, state-of-the-art graphics and exclusive aerials shot within highly restricted airspace, this hour will trace the Mall’s — and the country’s — transformation from fields and farmland to national icon.

#2 - Anne Franks Holocaust: Final Days Of Anne Frank

Season 2015 - Episode 6 - Aired 3/22/2015

Anne Frank’s world-famous diary comes to an abrupt end several days before she and her companions in the Secret Annex were arrested on August 4, 1944. This is the story of what happened next, how Anne became absorbed into the horror of the Nazi camp system. Through eyewitness testimony from camp survivors and historic pictures and film, the brutality and horror of Auschwitz, Sobibor and Bergen-Belsen are revealed. Surviving for just 7 months after her arrest, Anne Frank is confronted with disease and depravity while barely missing liberation at these horrific camps. Two of Anne Frank’s friends remember both their school days in Amsterdam and the days before Anne’s untimely death at Bergen-Belsen in March of 1945 – shortly before the camp’s liberation. But Anne’s remarkable diary miraculously survived the war and was published by her father, Otto Frank.

#3 - Hitler’s Death Squad

Season 2015 - Episode 42 - Aired 9/27/2015

This documentary retraces the last year of Hitler's death squad, Das Reich, the infamous Panzer elite division best known for its mass murders in the Ukraine and in Belarus, and its crimes against humanity.

#4 - Surrender: The Nazis' Last Stand

Season 2015 - Episode 50 - Aired 11/9/2015

From the D-Day Landings in Normandy to Nazi Germany's surrender, take a look back at the final year of World War Two, the most deadly of all time.

#5 - Killing Jesus

Season 2015 - Episode 7 - Aired 3/29/2015

Killing Jesus chronicles the events leading up to the death of one of the most influential figures in history; based on the book by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard.

#6 - Witness: Tornado

Season 2015 - Episode 31 - Aired 7/9/2015

April 2011 was the most violent month of tornados on record, and the deadliest in modern times. The ‘super outbreak’ of April 26-27 alone involved more than a hundred separate twisters, killing over 300 people and cutting a swath of destruction across the south. Using dozens of amateur and professional sources, Witness tells the story of this once-in-a-century event, as captured by those who lived through it.

#7 - Dawn of Humanity

Season 2015 - Episode 41 - Aired 9/23/2015

NOVA and National Geographic present exclusive access to a unique discovery of ancient remains. Located in an almost inaccessible chamber deep in a South African cave, the site required recruiting a special team of experts slender enough to wriggle down a vertical, pitch-dark, seven-inch-wide passage. Most fossil discoveries of human relatives consist of just a handful of bones. But down in this hidden chamber, the team uncovered an unprecedented trove—so far, over 1,500 bones—with the potential to rewrite the story of our origins. They may help fill in a crucial gap in the fossil record and tell us how Homo, the first member of the human family, emerged from ape-like ancestors like the famous Lucy. But how did hundreds of bones end up in the remote chamber? The experts are considering every mind-boggling possibility. Join NOVA on the treacherous descent into this cave of spectacular and enigmatic finds, and discover their startling implications for the saga of what made us human.

#8 - Omens of the Apocalypse

Season 2015 - Episode 5 - Aired 3/13/2015

The mystery of why dead birds fell from Arkansas skies on last year may now be solved. Much of the film was shot in Beebe, Arkansas where the birds dropped from the sky on New Year’s Eve. The episode will also discuss the many fish found dead in Arkansas waters. The “wide-ranging story begins with an investigation of the blackbirds death and ends by assessing how the human mind is inspired, or derailed, by seeming patterns or coincidences in nature,” according to the National Geographic website.

#9 - The Quest for the Holy Foreskin

Season 2015 - Episode 4 - Aired 3/12/2015

For centuries, the relic of the Holy Foreskin was considered by believers to be the only piece of Jesus’ flesh to remain on earth after he ascended to heaven, and thus was among the most sacred relics in Christendom. Then, on New Year’s Day 1983, in a tiny village in the Italian countryside, Father Don Dario announced to his expectant flock that their beloved relic had been stolen. New York Times writer David Farley goes on a quest to unravel the story of this mysterious crime.

#10 - Jesus: The Rise To Power

Season 2015 - Episode 3 - Aired 3/11/2015

Dr. Michael Scott sets outs across the historic landscapes of the ancient world to discover how and why, in just 400 years, the little-known Judaic cult of Jesus rises from a persecuted minority to become the official religion of the Roman Empire.

#11 - Mystery Caves Of Guangxi

Season 2015 - Episode 36 - Aired 7/22/2015

Why is a small region of China home to an extraordinary number of giant holes containing vast, little explored subterranean forests? One professor is on a dangerous mission to find out.

#12 - Light The Ocean

Season 2015 - Episode 35 - Aired 7/21/2015

The dark waters of the ocean turn bright and crystal clear as cameras reveal spectacular underwater landscapes, hidden structures and marine life around New Zealand and across the globe.

#13 - Russia's Mystery Files

Season 2015 - Episode 34 - Aired 7/19/2015

he old Soviet Union was a sinister world, a land of secrets, rumours and uncertainty. After the fall of the Iron Curtain numerous unexplained case files have emerged from deep inside the former Soviet Union archives. These files tell of bizarre phenomenon, monstrous creatures and sinister occurrences. Russia’s Mystery Files investigates these rumours – from mountain wild-men to terrifying zombie dogs to a profoundly mysterious incident on the Mountain of the Dead.

#14 - Science Of Saints

Season 2015 - Episode 9 - Aired 4/9/2015

For the first time in history, the Catholic Church allows scientists to openly test the veracity of the remains of reported saints.

#15 - Ultimate Mars Challenge

Season 2015 - Episode 14 - Aired 5/10/2015

This past August, a NASA rover named Curiosity touched down inside Mars’ Gale crater, carrying 10 new instruments to advance the quest for signs that Mars might once have been suitable for life. With inside access to the massive team of scientists and engineers responsible for Curiosity’s on-the-ground experiments, NOVA was there for the exhilarating moments after the rover’s landing—and for the spectacular discoveries to come. As NOVA reveals the dynamic new picture of Mars that these explorers are painting, we will consider the deep questions raised by 40 years of roving Mars: How do we define life? How does life begin, and what does it need to survive? Are we alone in the universe?

#16 - Explorer: Legend of the Monkey God

Season 2015 - Episode 43 - Aired 10/4/2015

For 20 years, Steve Elkins has been exploring Mosquitia, the largest untouched rainforest in Central America. Ever since Columbus landed here, legends swirled of a white city buried inland in the jungle.

#17 - Objective Baku

Season 2015 - Episode 13 - Aired 5/9/2015

The story of the Second World War as it was experienced by the inhabitants of Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, then a Soviet satellite country.

#18 - Mangalyaan: India's Mission to Mars

Season 2015 - Episode 48 - Aired 11/5/2015

#19 - Billy the Kid: New Evidence

Season 2015 - Episode 44 - Aired 10/18/2015

In a California memorabilia shop in 2010, collector Randy Guijarro bought this 4-by-5-inch tintype for just $2. After enlarging the image, he saw what looked to be a familiar figure—Billy the Kid—playing croquet with his gang known as The Regulators. Guijarro also thought he recognized the Kid's best friends Tom O'Folliard and Charlie Bowdre in the photo. As the gravity of the discovery began to set in, Guijarro initiated a chain of events that would lead him on a painstaking journey to verify the photograph's authenticity.

#20 - Brain Surgery Live

Season 2015 - Episode 45 - Aired 10/25/2015

A neurosurgery team at UH Case Medical Center in Cleveland performs an operation that has helped many Parkinson’s disease patients get significant relief from their debilitating symptoms—tremors, rigidity, stiffness, slowed movements and difficulty walking—and also enabled them to reduce their amount of medication.

#21 - China's Grand Canal: A Photographer's Journey

Season 2015 - Episode 46 - Aired 10/29/2015

Our host, photographer Jeff Hutchens travels the length of the Canal from Beijing to see the historical waterway, to Jiangsu province to see it at work. Along the way, he’ll take up the challenges and customs of living on the canal. Hell train in the same arts and culture born from Canal travelers, and unlock the secret ingredients in dishes that sprung up in the birthplace of the Grand Canal.

#22 - Mankind from Space

Season 2015 - Episode 51 - Aired 11/15/2015

Mankind from Space is an epic journey of discovery. Using mind-boggling data and CGI, it traces humankind’s story from hunter-gatherer to dominant global species. Seen from the global perspective of space, this special shows the breathtaking extent of our influence, revealing how we’ve transformed our planet and produced an interconnected world of extraordinary complexity.

#23 - Reverse Exploration

Season 2015 - Episode 52 - Aired 11/22/2015

Palobi and Mudeya come from a tribe of Papua New Guinea. One is War Chief, funny and curious; the other is the Peace Chief, wise and observant. Invited by their friend photographer Marc Dozier, they launch on an expedition in the heart of a very strange civilization: France. From the depths of the Parisian metro to the snow-covered peaks of the Alps, these travelers from the other side of the world are confronted with a completely new reality: power, work, women, gastronomy, the French are obviously completely nuts! Fascinated by their new discoveries, the two Papuans are relentless: they want to explore everything, taste everything, and try everything - an absurd and wonderful marathon to discover France.

#24 - Dark Side of Crocs

Season 2015 - Episode 54 - Aired 11/28/2015

This is the story of two of the most dangerous creatures in the world, hippos and crocodiles, living uneasily together in an African river. Crocs have a remarkably ancient lineage. And some truly impressive distant cousins: the dinosaurs. It is believed that they have two hundred million years of evolution behind them. In most of that time, they have barely changed. This is the story of two of the Nile crocodiles, the most impressive creatures in the world, living together in an African river.

#25 - Inside LEGO

Season 2015 - Episode 56 - Aired 12/20/2015

On "Inside Lego," LEGO's Vice President of Design, Matthew James Ashton, opens the doors of LEGO HQ and reveals how the company finds the next generation of LEGO Set Designers.