This MGM Passing Parade series short presents how separate events led to the creation of three provisions - freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and prohibition of the infliction of cruel and unusual punishments - in the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights.
During the Italian Renaissance, Pope Julius II contracts the influential artist Michelangelo to sculpt 40 statues for his tomb. When the pope changes his mind and asks the sculptor to paint a mural in the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo doubts his painting skills and abandons the project. Divine inspiration returns Michelangelo to the mural, but his artistic vision clashes with the pope's demanding personality and threatens the success of the historic painting.
A love story offering an intimate look inside the marriage of Winston and Clementine Churchill during a particularly troubled, though little-known, moment in their lives.
The story of an unruly class of bright, funny history students at a Yorkshire grammar school in pursuit of an undergraduate place at Oxford or Cambridge. Bounced between their maverick English master, a young and shrewd teacher hired to up their test scores, a grossly out-numbered history teacher, and a headmaster obsessed with results, the boys attempt to pass.
In 208 A.D., in the final days of the Han Dynasty, shrewd Prime Minster Cao convinced the fickle Emperor Han the only way to unite all of China was to declare war on the kingdoms of Xu in the west and East Wu in the south. Thus began a military campaign of unprecedented scale. Left with no other hope for survival, the kingdoms of Xu and East Wu formed an unlikely alliance.
A departing professor gathers his closest colleagues for an intimate farewell, but the night takes an unexpected turn when he shares a stunning secret about his past. As the conversation unfolds, skepticism and curiosity collide, challenging everything they thought they knew about history, science, and belief.
While studying the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia, a historian decides to restore the good name of one of the revolutionaries, who was accused of betrayal by his comrades-in-arms and committed suicide.
A graduate student and obsessive runner in New York is drawn into a mysterious plot involving his brother, a member of the secretive Division.
The story of the widow of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of shooting President Kennedy. Via flashbacks, the story traces the woman's life from her days in Russia, the turmoil following the assassination, raising her family, and coming to grips with the fact that she too may have been a pawn in a grand conspiracy.
The only living descendant of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde makes a deal with the dark side.
Salem, Massachusetts. A small town—with no clear governing body—became embroiled in a scandal that forever stands as one of the darkest chapters in American history. For those accused of witchcraft by their neighbors and friends, there was little chance of clearing their names; the mass paranoia that ravaged through the community took the lives of 19 innocent men and women.
The story of the Avro Arrow, the world's fastest fighter plane built in 1950's Canada, and how the project was dropped due to political pressure from the United States.
The real-life story of Gisella Perl, a Jewish Hungarian doctor imprisoned in the notorious Auschwitz death camp of World War II.
A dramatisation of the workers' protests in June 1976 in Radom, seen from the perspective of the local Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party.
Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds — with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk — that it might be possible for him to take human form.
The film depicts Confucius's later life, as he traveled across a China divided by war and strife in an ultimately futile effort to teach various warlords and kings his particular philosophy.
A history of the French Revolution beginning from the decision of the king to convene the Etats-Generaux in 1789 in order to deal with France's debt problem. Part one spans the event until August 10, 1792 (when the King Louis XVI lost all authority and was imprisoned). Part two carries the story through the end of the terror in 1794.
In the nineteenth century, a French adventurer sets off to establish a kingdom in the inhospitable South of Chile, uniting the feared Mapuche under him. The response of the Chilean army is devastating.
Laxman Singh Bisht is nicknamed tube light by his neighbours because he is feeble-minded. Despite being special, Laxman lives by one life-lesson; keep your faith alive and you can do almost anything, even stop a war.
A distinguished military leader whose reign was touched by great scandal, shocking betrayals and rousing victories. A simple shepherd boy chosen to be king, under the watchful eyes of prophet Samuel.