8pm WWII MEGA WEAPONS - History
BATTLESHIP YAMATO - In 1934 the Japanese begin designing The Yamato, the most powerful battleship in history. Japan is determined to retain control in the Pacific so builds a ship 30 percent larger than anything their enemies have. Constructed in absolute secrecy, the Japanese go to extraordinary lengths to ensure no detail is revealed.
9pm WORLD WAR II: THE PRICE OF EMPIRE - The history of the second world war.
A THOUSAND SUNS - Berlin falls and the war in Europe ends, Okinawa falls with terrible losses, a new weapon ends the war in the east.
Berlin falls in a terrible conflagration and the war in Europe ends. Okinawa falls with terrible losses on both sides as each prepares for the invasion of the first of the major home islands. But a new weapon unleashes what one of its founding scientists, Robert J Oppenheimer, likens to “the light of a thousand suns”. Days later the war in the east is over.
10pm NAZI GAMES - BERLIN 1936 - History - A story of how the Nazis and the IOC turned a small sports event into the modern Olympics.
The film chronicles the story of how the Nazis and the IOC turned, to their mutual benefit, a small sports event into the modern Olympics. The grand themes and controversial issues from the 1936 Games have continued to this day: Monumentality, budget overruns, collusion with authoritarian regimes, corruption and sometimes even bribery. Featuring never before seen archival footage and new research, The Nazi Games reveals how the Olympics as we have come to know them were shaped by the collaboration of interests between Hitler and ambitious Olympic gentlemen. After initial distrust, both the IOC and the Nazis found common ground in turning the 1936 Games into the biggest Olympic show the world has ever seen.
To this aim, Hitler officially promised that Jews would not be excluded from Germany’s Olympic team, and the IOC decided not to control it. At the same time, western democracies began doubting the morality of Olympic Games hosted by the Nazi regime. To go or not to go? That was the question. But the president of the American Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage, successfully discredited the boycott movement as a “Jewish conspiracy.” Thus, a first large-scale Olympic boycott was avoided.
