Charles Manson, (aka Charles Milles Maddox), the self-proclaimed “Messiah” who presided over a commune-style group known as the “Manson Family” was convicted in 1971 in California in a trial covering a total of 27 count indictments against he and members of the ‘family’ for the murders of seven persons, including actress Sharon Tate, (who was pregnant at the time of the murder), coffee heiress Abi
42,000 Years ago, the only humans in Europe made clothes, educated their young, made tools. But they weren't the same as us. Now the very latest technology can reveal exactly how they lived, the dangers they faced and the communities they made in the Neander valley in Germany.We all know the word "Neanderthal" to be an unflattering qualifier for some of our more uncultured and dim-witted fello
In December 2006 Andrew’s first attempt to cross the Tasman Sea in a standard one-man kayak was aborted after two days due to trouble keeping warm inside the cockpit. Andrew’s second attempt began on 11 January 2007 and ended on 12 February when the search for his missing body was called off following the recovery of his partly flooded kayak on 10 February just 30 nautical miles short of his desti
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (a.k.a. Chavez: Inside the Coup) is a 2002 documentary about the April 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt which briefly deposed Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. A television crew from Ireland’s Radio Telifís Éireann happened to be recording a documentary about Chávez during the events of April 11, 2002. Shifting focus, they followed the events as they occurred. Duri
Big Sugar explores the dark history and modern power of the world’s reigning sugar cartels. Using dramatic reenactments, it reveals how sugar was at the heart of slavery in the West Indies in the 18th century, while showing how present-day consumers are slaves to a sugar-based diet. Going undercover, Big Sugar witnesses the appalling working conditions on plantations in the Dominican Republic, whe
Al Ghezali reported that he had seen three passengers in a car all dead with their faces and teeth burnt, the body intact, and no sign of projectiles. There were other inexplicable aspects: the terrain where the battle took place was dug up by the American military and replaced with other fresh earth, the bodies that were not hit by projectiles had shrunk to just slightly more than one meter in he
When veteran broadcaster Alistair Cooke died in 2004 few suspected that he was yet to uncover his greatest story. What happened to his body as it lay in a funeral home would reveal a story of modern day grave robbery and helped smash a body-snatching ring that had made millions of dollars by chopping up and selling-off over 1000 bodies. Dead bodies have become big business. Each year millions of p
Understanding of humans' earliest past often comes from studying fossils. They tell us much of what we know about the people who lived before us. There is one thing fossils cannot tell us; at what point did we stop living day-to-day and start to think symbolically, to represent ideas about our environment and how we could change it? At a dig in South Africa the discovery of a small piece of ochre
There is now a new world which has welcomed over four million inhabitants in the last three years. Its name is Second LifeSecond Life and it’s accessed through the Internet. Here in this virtual world, each inhabitant is an entirely unique avatar, a fantasy creation that’s usually taller, stronger, fitter, and more attractive than the person controlling it on the other side of the screen…but Secon