Browse - Most popular shows on Smithsonian Channel

Our worst nightmares in the sky, caused by engine failure and human mistakes are combated with courage and may end up in amazing miracles or disasters.

Our nation's secrets aren't secret anymore. Old tales, new truths. Upcoming episodes reveal new information about: Salem Witch Trials, Peral Harbor, Civil War, Spanish Flu, American Revolution and Cold War.

Ice Airport Alaska will chronicle the daily challenges of the airport staff who manage to keep the facility open, freight flowing and passengers flying all despite weather that regularly dips to -38 Fahrenheit and wind speeds that typically exceed 100 mph. A new six part series on Smithsonian Channel.

Take off on a thrilling flight across America. This epic series offers rare glimpses of our nation's most treasured landmarks, all seen from breathtaking heights. From busy cityscapes to quiet landscapes, we capture the history and the pageantry of our amazing country, which is as diverse as the people who occupy it.

At the scene of every crime is a story of a time, the place, and its people. This six-part series steps back in time to examine the most gruesome and compelling murder mysteries of the past 200 years, viewed through the lens of the eras and cities in which they took place. Through cinematic reenactments, we follow the determined investigators and complex perpetrators while revealing how each case made its own mark on history.

Across the globe, radical architects, ingenious engineers, and skilled builders are creating structures so outrageous, they defy logic...and often even gravity. From a Manhattan skyscraper that looks like a Jenga tower to a Singapore glass dome big enough to house a mountain to a high rise in Italy with a built-in forest, we examine the world's most extraordinary buildings, bridges, and lifts, reveal their design secrets, and discover the incredible stories of their construction as we try to answer the question: How Did They Build That?

It was an archaeological find that became global news. An extraordinary mega-tomb, filled with the largest concentration of coffins ever unearthed in Egypt, revealing a world beyond the pharaohs as it's never been seen before. This four-part series places you at the site to witness this ground-breaking discovery as it happened and follows Egyptologists as they try to determine why all of these mummies were buried together and what this ancient cemetery can tell us about the Egyptian civilization's way of death 2,500 years ago.

A tribute to the bold men and women who put their lives on the line in order to get a foothold in space, sometimes with disastrous results.

A winged fighter that hasn't lost a fight in 26 years, a lifesaver that's part plane and part chopper, and an attack helicopter our enemies call the Black Death. These are America's undisputed kings of the sky: the F-15 Eagle, the V-22 Osprey, and the AH-64 Apache. And their success stories are as remarkable as they are improbable. Witness their turbulent journeys, brought to life through rarely seen combat footage and the stories of the dedicated pilots and teams who fly and maintain these ultimate air warriors.

Our world holds remarkable relics that are full of secrets, written in stone, gold, and blood. Discovering the truths behind these mysteries could change history as we know it. Join host Adam Mastrelli as he brings us face-to-face with these puzzling treasures. Explore hidden corners of the world, decipher ancient documents, and apply groundbreaking research and forensic techniques in our quest to discover the truth about these fabled cities, monuments, and remnants.

From the 1920s through the 1960s, America transformed from a young country on the rise into a global superpower. Using digital colorization technology, we present these formative decades as few have seen them, revisiting 50 vibrant years of good times and great despair, technological triumphs and natural disasters, and global villains and national heroes.

A new Smithsonian Channel series will chart the stealthy game of undersea warfare from the greatest submarine campaigns of World War II. It profiles the strategic masterminds behind the brutal tactics of Nazi U-boats and reveals the extraordinary feats of Allied subs in the Atlantic and Pacific. Both the Axis and Allies employed unrestricted submarine warfare to bring their enemies to their knees in World War II. Submariners on both sides were a special breed of warrior, always volunteers, often fighting alone. Sub warfare evolved rapidly during the war, as German U-Boats and American submarines attacked military targets and commercial shipping. Submarine attacks created chaos and unnerved adversaries. And while the world's oceans provided concealment and protection, the environment was unforgiving. Each hour-long episode of Hell Below features expert analysis and stock footage along with dramatic re-enactments filmed aboard authentic World War II era submarines, placing viewers in the heart of the action.

The Sphinx. El Dorado. The Shroud of Turin. Our world holds remarkable relics that are full of secrets, written in stone, gold, and blood. Discovering the truths behind their mysteries could change history as we know it. Join us as we travel the globe and come face-to-face with these puzzling treasures. We explore hidden corners, decipher ancient documents, and apply groundbreaking research and forensic techniques with one goal in mind: to discover the truth about these fabled cities, monuments, and remnants, and to share it with the world.

Every great metropolis has its secrets, some tucked away in the annuls of history and others hidden in plain sight. From the single golden fire hydrant in San Francisco to the strange shape of London's black cab to Berlin's pink pipes, city landmarks often embody unknown stories, some whimsical, some sinister, but all fascinating in their own way. Join us as we journey back in time to uncover buried tales in cities across the globe, following local guides and historians on a six-part journey that is both travel exposé and urban mystery.

A wedding flyover that turned tragic. A commuter flight that mysteriously veered off course and slammed into a mountain. A pilot and passenger who survived a crash only to succumb to the raging currents of an icy waterway. These are just a few of roughly 100 aircraft accidents that occurred in Alaska in 2015 and challenged one of the busiest and most unique offices of the National Transportation Safety Board. Follow NTSB investigators as they attempt to determine the probable cause of each crash, be it man, machine, or environment.

In 1961, President Kennedy issued a grand challenge: to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth by the end of the decade. What followed was a series of daring missions against an almost impossible timeline on the most complicated spacecraft ever built. Revisit an era when NASA's team of engineers and astronauts gambled everything to embark on humankind's most ambitious journey, brought to life through archival interviews, rarely seen footage, and artifacts from the vaults of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

The most expansive and ambitious aerial series in U.S. television history - Aerial America - is taking a closer look at the nation's great urban areas in a new six-part spinoff series, Aerial Cities. Each episode reveals fascinating insights in the day and night life of some of America's most famed metropolises: Las Vegas, Chicago, Seattle, Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Along with showcasing each city's iconic landmarks and often-surprising history, the series' 4K cameras capture a bird's-eye perspective of the frenzy of work and play that make each city so distinctive - from morning yoga on Miami Beach to the dizzying job of changing a lightbulb at the top of Seattle's Space Needle and the highest open-air cocktail bar in the Western Hemisphere in L.A.'s newest skyscraper.

This series explores the time between the 1870s and the outbreak of World War One, when more than 200 daughters of America's new industrial millionaires marry into the money-strapped British aristocracy. They use their affluence, allure and ingenuity to their advantage, and they bring dramatic changes to the English ruling class and eventually the world.

Over Britain's tens of thousands of years of civilization, its history has played host to a series of strange and mysterious rituals, events, and cultures. British talk show host Clive Anderson and anthropologist Mary-Ann Ochota travel across the U.K. to explore the sacred sites and supernatural beliefs of the ancient Britons. By examining their mystic places and practices, they hope to unlock the secrets of their ancestors and better understand the worlds in which they lived.

Was the remarkable mountain-carved city of Petra once ruled by women? Did the Knights Templar belong to an obscure cult that worshipped John the Baptist? Did the Pueblo civilization of Chaco Canyon practice cannibalism? Sacred Sites spans the globe to visit some of the world's most remarkable ancient religious structures. Through recent archaeological discoveries and scientific breakthroughs, we offer fresh insights into the civilizations that built these sites, and examine their sometimes controversial, taboo practices.

There's a reason they called it theoretical physics. No one really knew for sure what would happen when we split the atom. At Los Alamos, the famous scientist Enrico Fermi jokingly suggested a bet: the bomb would ignite the atmosphere - and end all life on earth. Not everyone thought it was funny. The sky didn't catch fire, but the mushroom cloud over the New Mexico desert that day cast a long shadow. It began an explosive era of secrecy and fear that we still live with today. ATOMIC AGE DECLASSIFIED tells the untold stories of a time that brought us to the edge of human possibility - and the verge of total annihilation - more times than we ever knew.

When a catastrophe occurs, the questions immediately arise. How did it happen? Who was responsible? And can it happen again? Often, the tragedy isn't triggered by a single cause but by a string of errors. This series investigates four of modern history's worst disasters-the JFK assassination, the 9/11 attack, the 737 Max crashes, and the Deepwater Horizon explosion-and reveals ten crucial mistakes behind each one. Weaving archive and interviews, we detail what went wrong and what steps have been taken to prevent similar events from reoccurring.

Author and medical historian Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris will use science, tests, and demonstrations to shed new light on famous deaths, ranging from drug lord Pablo Escobar to magician Harry Houdini. Using her lab to perform virtual autopsies, experiment with blood samples, interview witnesses and conduct real-time demonstrations, Dr. Fitzharris will put everything about these mysterious deaths to the test. Along the way, she'll be joined by a revolving cast of experts, including Scotland Yard detectives, medical examiners, weapons gurus and more.

There's no better way to take in Greece's great diversity, natural beauty, and mythic grandeur than to experience it from a god's-eye-view. This exhilarating aerial tour whisks you away on a four-part, cross-country journey above the heart of Athens, over the timeless, contrasting Aegean archipelago, and across eastern islands of mesmerizing beauty and priceless heritage. Along with the physical splendors, we also explore the human stories of the people who embody the ingenuity, resilience, and vibrant spirit of this remarkable country.

America's Secret Space Heroes is about the stories of the engineers and scientists responsible for the space program.