Saturday, 5 February from 4pm
Witness some of the most heart-racing military battles
throughout history on Smithsonian, including:
CUSTER’S LAST STAND: BATTLE OF LITTLE BIGHORN
The Battle of the Little Big Horn. Custer’s Last Stand. The Battle of the Greasy Grass. An infamous conflict known by
many names is one that has been edited, embellished, and sensationalised for over a century. On June 25, 1876, Hunkpapa Lakota Chief Sitting Bull and thousands of American Indians were attacked by General George
Custer’s 7th Cavalry as they camped on the banks of Montana’s Little Bighorn River. Vastly outnumbered, Custer’s entire regiment was wiped out. What was to follow was a nationwide media storm – but what led to this deadly encounter, and how did history books get it so wrong?
BATTLE OF MIDWAY: THE TRUE STORY
Revisit the pivotal
World War II naval engagement through the lens of the U.S. Navy’s three crucial aircraft at Midway: the Devastator, Avenger and Dauntless. Together, these three attack planes had to vanquish an ambush attack from the enemy and contend with the relentless Zero, a long-range fighter aircraft that already had wrought devastation at Pearl Harbor. The film incorporates archival footage, interviews with historians and demonstrations of the aircraft.
THE BLITZ: DAYS THAT CHANGED WWII
The Blitz, Germany’s incessant, aerial onslaught on London and surrounding cities, was designed to eliminate the English motherland. Instead, it served as a defining moment for Britain and a turning point for America’s attitude about the war. This is the definitive story of the Nazi’s unprecedented all-out assault on a nation’s cities and morale, composed almost entirely of rarely seen archival footage and told through discovered civilian diary entries, military leaders’ speeches, and war correspondents’ dramatic accounts.