Secret History Season 17 Episodes

Episode 1

Titanic: The New Evidence

Sat, Jan 21, 201748 mins

Detailed examination of recently-found vintage photographs of Titanic's doomed maiden voyage reveals a disturbing secret: the Titanic's exterior hull shows damage from a little-known coal bunker fire in Boiler Room 6, in the exact same area where she was struck by the iceberg. The fire had already started by the time the Titanic set sail, yet knowledge of it was kept from the passengers. Experts believe that the heat weakened the steel in the hull and in an adjoining watertight bulkhead, causing the bulkhead to ultimately fail and allowing water to quickly enter the rest of the ship.

Episode 2

Dunkirk: The New Evidence

New Evidence disputes the British Army at Dunkirk claims that the British Royal Air Force was not at Dunkirk. And that the British Royal Air Force (R.A.F.) was fighting the German Luftwaffe out of sight high over the Beaches of Dunkirk and further inland keeping most of the German Luftwaffe from attacking the British Army evacuating at Dunkirk. And suffered significant losses of over 900 British Royal Air Force Aircraft.

Episode 3

Secrets of China's Forbidden City

60 mins

Beijing's Forbidden City is a huge, walled palatial city within the new (more northern and eastern) capital chosen over Nanking by the great Ming emperor Chengzu 'Yongle', who seized the throne in 1402 from his elder brother's son by military coup. It symbolizes the vast empire's then unequaled wealth and power, being the largest palace ever in the world, with halls worthy of the mandate of heaven, impressing any foreign delegation, accommodating thousands of courtiers, public/domestic servants and guards. This required crushing taxes and over a million laborers for most of his reign (until his death in 1424), using the best craftsmen and the finest materials, sparing no expense nor imports (like pigments from Europe), and innovative ways to produce and transport (partially on ice). It would require near-constant maintenance -modern restoration contributes to and benefits from studying its secrets- and frequent rebuilding, mainly after fires, but astonishingly survived well hundreds of seismic shocks, thanks to a brilliant, complex system of leading pressure from shaken pillars (with lose bases) and heavy roof structures to elaborate shock-breaking woodwork with intricately interlocking parts.

Episode 4

Britain's Forgotten Army

47 mins

The story of the 140,000 Chinese workers who left their homes and came to war-torn Europe in 1917 and risked their lives for the Allied war effort, but whose vital contribution seems to have been airbrushed from history.