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1969. July the 15th. Stage 17 of the Tour de France. A brutal stage from Luchon to Mourenx covering four of the toughest mountains in the Pyrenees. On this fateful day, Eddy Merckx catapulted himself into the history books with one of the greatest solo breakaways the sport has ever seen. Fast forward over half a century, and GCN’s Simon Richardson is in the Pyrenees to pay tribute to The Cannibal by recreating his ride. To make the 220km epic even more challenging, Si will do it aboard his 1969 spec Faema team bike and wearing their iconic red and white jersey. Eddy Merckx made this ride look easy, but will Si even make it to the finish line?

The 1978 kidnapping and assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists

"Truth Wins" - A history film that is particularly elaborate in terms of its features and that attempts to illustrate the perpetual victory of the truth about the lie in three epic episodes.

The story of the documentary The Sorrow and the Pity (1971), directed by Marcel Ophüls, which caused a scandal in a France still traumatized by the German occupation during World War II, because it shattered the myth, cultivated by the followers of President Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970), of a united France that had supposedly stood firm in the face of the ruthless invaders.

Between June 1940 and August 1944, Otto Abetz, German ambassador in Paris, and Fernand de Brinon, ambassador of the Vichy regime in Paris, met almost daily and developed official collaboration between the governments of Vichy and Nazi Germany.

The son of the King of Saxony is very interested in women, but his father wants a good match for him and therefore has all other loves killed. So also the parents' house of the beautiful Kunigunde is torched, but she can escape with the help of a squire, who can then temporarily bring her to safety in the care of the vegetarian bear Beppo. But when a weapons dealer tries out his new crossbow on Beppo of all people, Kunigunde has to seek new protection...

Between 1944 and 1953, 170,000 Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians put up fierce resistance to the Soviet invasion, hiding deep in the vast Baltic forests. Driven by a dream of freedom, they defied a ruthless empire with few resources but unwavering determination. Through previously unseen archives and the poignant accounts of the last survivors, this documentary reveals their clandestine struggle, their heroic sacrifices, and their legacy, timeless symbols of a desperate fight to escape the Soviet stranglehold and preserve the flame of independence.

Documentary Film which uses the letters and diaries of passenger Lady Grace Drummond-Hay and archival footage to document the Graf Zeppelin airship's circumnavigation of the globe in 1929. In 1928, Lady Drummond managed to secure a place aboard the Graf Zeppelin airship as it made its historic crossing of the North Atlantic in 1928. This was the first transatlantic commercial passenger flight.The Graf Zeppelin left Friedrichshafen in southern Germany in the early morning of October 11, 1928. It arrived at Lakehurst, New Jersey four days later with a flight time of 111 hours and 44 minutes.

Sex reassignment surgery is now almost a commonplace procedure, but back in the early 20th century, it was seen as 'science fiction surgery'. When the news broke of a successful first attempt, it was a sensation. This is the gripping story of three extraordinary people: the world's first person to undergo a female to male transition; the former Spitfire pilot who became Britain's first to transition from male to female; and the daring advanced plastic surgeon who carried out these surgeries in the 1940s. Michael Dillon - previously named Laura - had persuaded the brilliant Sir Harold Gillies, the founding father of plastic surgery, to carry out the female-to-male operation that no surgeon in the world had ever attempted. Both then helped former race car driver and wartime pilot Robert Cowell undertake their own transition.

The summer of 376 AD. The Gothic female warrior Elja is forced to give in to the marauding Huns and to seek shelter for herself and her clan in the Roman empire. Once at the border they must wait for orders and provisions from the Roman authorities. Elja tries to understand the Roman plans in spite of the language barrier.

A bedridden war veteran relives his experiences endured in the battles of Tacna and Arica between Chile and Peru, revealing untold secrets and mysteries that history never told.

Broadcasters Lenny Henry and Suzy Klein celebrate black classical composers and musicians across the centuries whose stories and music have been forgotten in a 90-minute special.

The former French colonies in Central and West Africa have been independent since 1960, but most of these countries still use the currency of the former oppressor: the CFA franc. It was linked to the French franc when it was introduced, so the national bank in Paris controlled monetary policy. Now the currency has a fixed exchange rate with the euro. The link with the European currency strongly influences the monetary policy of CFA countries. And that means the value of the CFA franc is defined by political decisions taken elsewhere, rather than by the domestic economy.

A journey through the golden age of Spanish rugby, from the late eighties to the early nineties: the incredible story of men who, with hard work, effort and perseverance, proved that any goal can be achieved.

Idriss Gabel and Marie Calvas are the grandson and granddaughter of Rudolf Hess's last chaplain in Berlin-Spandau prison. Hess (1894-1987), a fanatical anti-Semite, was Adolf Hitler's deputy in Nazi Germany and personally participated in the formulation of the Nuremberg Race Laws. As a French military chaplain, Charles Gabel was the only person authorized to speak with Hess in private for almost ten years. In this documentary, his grandchildren ask: What kind of relationship did their grandfather have with this member of the Nazi leadership? Hess was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1946 as part of the Nuremberg Trials of major war criminals. He served his sentence throughout the Cold War as the sole inmate of the huge Spandau Prison. In 1987, at the age of 93, he took his own life.

Comedy about the "Husarenstreich", the 1757 Berlin raid during the Seven Years' War.

On November 6, 1975, a few days before the death of dictator Francisco Franco, the Spanish version of the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, originally written by Tim Rice and composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, premiers in Madrid, starring and produced by singer Camilo Sesto, a controversial work that became a mass phenomenon.

A colossal epic film like this that tries to depict the life and glory of Julius Caesar, must have a variety of scenery appropriate to the film's hero. This includes the Senate and its conspirators..or .. strange places beyond Rome full of barbarians that must fall under the Rome yoke. Let's not forget the sequences depicting the masses mentioned before.. or.. the human side of Caesar and his troublesome relationship with his son Brutus.

From Austrian princess to ill-fated last queen of France, Marie Antoinette's life journey is captured in this meticulously researched documentary about the woman who is considered to have triggered the French Revolution for her lavish lifestyle. Vilified for extravagant tastes that epitomized the wanton excess of the French aristocracy, the young queen found herself caught in a political firestorm, doomed no matter what course she followed.

The Indian Act, passed in Canada in 1876, made members of Aboriginal peoples second-class citizens, separated from the white population: nomadic for centuries, they were moved to reservations to control their behavior and resources; and thousands of their youngest members were separated from their families to be Christianized: a cultural genocide that still resonates in Canadian society today.

Michel Recanati was a militant leader in the May, 1968 riots in Paris, organizing many groups to meet, discuss, and act on leftist principles both before and after the disturbances. He was imprisoned for a short while in 1973. Disillusioned after the failure of the demonstrations and the death of the only woman he had loved, his life seems to have changed from a period of hope and activism to one of bottomless despair. His friend, Romain Goupil wrote and directed this biographical documentary. Death at 30 received the 1982 Cannes Film Festival's Golden Camera Award for "Best First Feature-Length Film."

The village of Yahidne in northern Ukraine is coming back to life. Dogs are running around. Gardens and crops are green again. People support one another and families have reunited. In a movement of solidarity, local youth help rebuild what was devastated a year ago when Russian troops occupied the village imprisoning the villagers in the school's basement for a month. The villagers' attitudes alternate between their desire to move forward an remembering the horrors of the past. A heartwarming tribute to resilience and unity.

Ludwig II of Bavaria, more commonly known by his nicknames the Swan King or the Dream King, is a legendary figure - the handsome boy-king, loved by his people, betrayed by his cabinet and found dead in tragic and mysterious circumstances. He spent his life in pursuit of the ideal of beauty, an ideal that found expression in three of the most extraordinary, ornate architectural schemes imaginable - the castle of Neuschwanstein and the palaces of Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee. Today, these three buildings are among Germany's biggest tourist attractions. Dan Cruickshank explores the rich aesthetic of Ludwig II - from the mock-medievalism of Neuschwanstein, the iconic fairytale castle that became the inspiration for the one in Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty, to the rich Baroque splendour of Herrenchiemsee, Ludwig's answer to Versailles. Dan argues that Ludwig's castles are more than flamboyant kitsch and are, in fact, the key to unravelling the eternal enigma of Ludwig II.

Tells the extraordinary story of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch who, along with other victims of Auschwitz, played and created music amidst the terrors of the Holocaust.

The story of Robert LeRoy Parker (1866-1908), alias Butch Cassidy, one of the most wanted fugitives of the American West, and his journey through Argentine Patagonia; the story of a man who flees to the lands of the end of the world to start over.

This film captures the affair, full of love, lust, and despair, between Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, from 1932 until their double suicide in 1945.

How was Adolf Hitler able to count on the German public even in the face of unspeakable suffering and impending doom? Evocative and previously unseen private archive footage, much of it in colour, shows life in Nazi Germany from 1933 onwards till the end of the Nazi regime in 1945. This documentary is a revealing portrait of the German people, how they lived and perceived the world, under Hitler.

In August 1991, the Soviet empire collapsed. Yet this colossus seemed indestructible: its power had towered over the world for nearly a century. But a collapsed economy, reforms too late to avoid bankruptcy, an abortive coup d'état and the change of power revealed to the world the pre-existing debacle. The Soviet power and state disappeared. From then on, all rules are abolished. What happens when a state disappears and no longer finances or manages the territory under its control?

Vienna, 1947. Bockerer and his wife Binerl have survived the war, though his butcher's shop was destroyed by bombs. Karl Bockerer opens up a new establishment in the center of the city. Post-war Vienna is divided into four zones in which the Allies run things and ensure that law and order prevails. This is the story of two lovers: Gustl, just returned form a POW camp, and the Russian interpreter Elena. Bockerer becomes the patron of their love. Elena's father was executed by Stalin, and the only way she can escape a similar fate is to marry an Austrian. Bockerer "buys" a husband for Elena and, full of tricks as ever, he succeeds in pulling the wool over the Russian occupier's eyes.

The dramatic events around the French king Louis XVI and the French crises in the late 1700's with no will to pay taxes, which led Louis XVI into an impossible situation as a king.

A school in Germany for Jewish children is a safe haven from the Nazi regime, headed by a teacher named Leonore Goldschmidt.

Ali, a young Algerian who carried out an attack in Algiers, hastily leaves the city to join the resistance. But he is disappointed to find that the National Liberation Army consists of only a few fighters scattered throughout the mountains. However, he is impressed by the authority of the leader, Si Tayeb, who gives him a weapon. Meanwhile, a young French sergeant, Gachon, arrives in Algeria with his contingent of conscripts. In civilian life, he is a schoolteacher, and he becomes the colonel's secretary. One night, the FLN group invades a village, the dechra of Beni Allel: waking the inhabitants, the leader gives them a propaganda speech to incite them to fight the French, then gives them weapons; He claims that all the other villages have rallied to their cause, which is false. When he finds himself in difficulty at one point, he is rescued by Ali, who saves the day with his authority and skill.

60 AD. Romans tighten their grip on Britannia. Druidism is hunted almost to extinction. after being driven out of their commune, Rhiain- a young druid and her master Gwen are forced to flee and traverse the wilds of Britannia in order to reach the sanctuary of the Druids - Ynys Môn. On their journey they will encounter great challenges and unlikely allies on a quest that will decide not only their survival, but the future of their way of life itself.

Thomas Cromwell has gone down in history as one of the most corrupt and manipulative ruffians ever to hold power in England. A chief minister who used his position to smash the Roman Catholic church in England and loot the monasteries for his own gain. A man who used torture to bring about the execution of the woman who had once been his friend and supporter - Anne Boleyn. Diarmaid MacCulloch, professor of the history of the church at Oxford University, reveals a very different image of Cromwell. He describes Cromwell as an evangelical reformer, determined to break the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church and introduce the people of England to a new type of Christianity in which each individual makes direct contact with God.

An exceptional documentary which presents, for the first time colorized archives, on Charles Lindbergh's life, the hero of the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean on May 21, 1927.

In 1913, two French women, Madeleine Mignon-Alba and Marguerite Mespoulet, traveled to Ireland to create what are widely believed to be the first color photographs of the country.

Between 1975 and 1983 a new kind of film could be seen in French cinema: home-grown gay pornography. They were essentially the work of three production companies: Les Films de La Troika (Norbert Terry), AMT Productions (Anne-Marie Tensi) and Les Films du Vertbois (principally Jacques Scandelari). The genre met an untimely end with the advent of video, the last being made in 1983 'Mon Ami, Mon Amour (My Friend, my Lover)'.

Explores the Pyramids of Giza as Egyptologists try to unravel the mysteries and decipher the clues behind these stone giants built over 4,500 years ago.