Author: phillynews215

This episode covers the tumultuous era that was 1960s, as Michael Hyde revisits his past as a student revolutionary who called for the violent overthrow of the state. A prime target at the top of…

In this series, a ‘person of interest’ is given their previously secret Australian intelligence file and recounts the allegations contained within it. Gary Foley – a prominent figure of the 1970s “Black Power” movement in…

As well as a period of radical social and political upheaval, the 19th century in Europe was a period of gastronomic progression, with trends as susceptible to change as French ruling. The conflicts caused many…

In the Renaissance, with cities like Venice and Florence at the helm of European innovation, changes in the arts and sciences lead to a new outlook in eating habits. Vegetable gardens became horticultural laboratories, recipes…

It was one of the most important books of the twentieth century. An account so shocking few believed it could be true. But the real story of how Russian writer and Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s…

This is the unknown story of secret negotiations between the Taliban and America to build a pipeline through Afghanistan. When America invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the stated aim was to dismantle Al-Qaeda, denying it a…

Whether it’s opium, cocaine, marijuana or fentanyl, trafficking drugs earns the Sinaloa cartel an estimated three to twelve billion dollars per year. It’s a huge business, with more than 200,000 people in the region of…

By 1944, as the Reich was crumbling, Hitler gave detailed orders for the destruction of Paris. He wanted the monuments and all the bridges mined and the city reduced to a “pile of rubble”. General…

The idea of the primitive Gauls, living in the forest until they were civilized and assimilated into the Roman Empire, is now regarded as totally obsolete. In this film, archaeologists and historians uncover Gaulish settlements…

At the age of eight, filmmaker Robyn Paterson greeted Comrade Robert Mugabe with flowers as he stepped from a plane at a Zimbabwe air-force base. She and her best friend, Mercy, were poster children for…

In August 1951, inhabitants of the picturesque French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit were suddenly tormented by terrifying hallucinations. People imagined lions and tigers were coming to eat them. A man jumped out of a window thinking…

Was Erdogan’s spy agency responsible for the murder of Sakine Cansiz, co-founder of the PKK, and two other activists in Paris? Following the murders, a young Turk called Omer Guney was arrested. He is suspected…

Hitler, Goring, Himmler…the three architects of the Final Solution. But these three men, like many other high ranking Nazis, shared another obsession: a fascination with the animal world. In the last days of the Nazi…

Was Erdogan’s spy agency responsible for the murder of Sakine Cansiz, co-founder of the PKK, and two other activists in Paris? Following the murders, a young Turk called Omer Guney was arrested. He is suspected…

The ancient city of Arles, once a major commercial hub in the Roman Empire, still holds many secrets. Some of them are buried in the bed of the Rhône. Little by little, working in complete…

The ancient city of Arles, once a major commercial hub in the Roman Empire, still holds many secrets. Some of them are buried in the bed of the Rhône. Little by little, working in complete…

For 50 years, Berlin was the symbol of the Cold War. The city at the heart of the intelligence war between the US and the Soviet bloc. Thousands of KGB or CIA, agents observed each…

Over 500 years ago, driven out by the Spanish Inquisition, Ismael Diadié’s ancestors left Al-Andalus for Timbuktu. They were guardians of an ancient Islamic library, a legacy of over 12,000 scientific, poetic and religious manuscripts,…

It wasn’t just Japanese Americans who were interned by America during World War II. Nearly 11,000 German-Americans, perceived as enemy ’aliens’ were also interned. Tens of thousands more suffered illegal searches and seizures, relocation, harassment,…

Every year, over 100,000 Mexicans living in the USA are deported to Mexico. Many of them have grown up and spent decades in America, working, paying taxes, starting families. Some can’t even speak Spanish. In…

Critics claim they’re little more than ’torture camps’, taking tough love way too far. But for desperate parents, military-style boot camps are often seen as the last chance for their children to avoid the vicious…

Today, Adolf Hitler’s autobiography cum Nazi manifesto is still sold all over the world, under the counter, on the internet or simply at the bookshop. This 700 page book, published in 1925, was re-edited numerous…

How did a boy from a backward town on the Caribbean coast become a writer who won the hearts of millions, from the poorest to the most powerful political leaders, and whose works changed our…

At a time when jobs in the tech sector are outpacing growth in all other sectors, where are all the women? Some of the most important pioneer coders were women but today, only 15% of…

How did a boy from a backward town on the Caribbean coast become a writer who won the hearts of millions, from the poorest to the most powerful political leaders, and whose works changed our…

From the Emmy, BAFTA and Grierson nominated director, Callum Macrae, comes a powerful forensic investigation of one of the worst atrocities of the Northern Irish “Troubles”. A shocking story which, until this film, was largely…

Animated blogs and tweets from Iran form the backbone of this enlightening and sometimes shocking reconstruction of the 2009 Green Revolution. In May of that year, the youthful green-clad crowds were still enraged, and the…