Battlefield Detectives

Last updated
Battlefield Detectives
Country of originUnited States
No. of seasons4
No. of episodes32
Production
Running time48/49 minutes (60 with ads)
Release
Original network History Channel
Original releaseOctober 4, 2003 (2003-10-04) 
November 19, 2006 (2006-11-19)

Battlefield Detectives is a forensic documentary television series that aired on the History Channel from 2003 to 2006. The series explores famous battles focusing on the battlefield itself, and tell its story based on recent scientific research. It uses modern science to examine how the battles were won or lost. [1]

Contents

Format

According to History Television: "This series approaches the perennially interesting topic of famous battles in a fresh and exhilarating way. Focusing on the battlefield itself, each programme takes an important battle telling its story and posing a puzzling central question about the battle that recent scientific research is helping to illuminate - a contemporary journey of discovery and a compelling story from the past." [2]

Episodes

Episode name / original air date [3] [4]

Season 1

  1. "Custer at Little Bighorn," 4 October 2003
  2. "Charge of the Light Brigade," 11 October 2003
  3. "The Gallipoli Disaster," 18 October 2003
  4. "What Sank the Armada?," 25 October 2003
  5. "Who Got Lucky at Hastings?," 8 November 2003
  6. "Massacre at Waterloo," 9 November 2003
  7. "Agincourt's Dark Secrets," 23 November 2003
  8. "Trafalgar," 13 December 2003
  9. "Vietnam," 27 December 2003

Season 2

  1. "World War II: Operation Market Garden," 12 November 2004
  2. "Native American Wars: The Apache," 19 November 2004
  3. "American Revolution: Battle of Monmouth," 26 November 2004
  4. "World War I: The Somme," 3 December 2004
  5. "Mexican–American War: Battle of Palo Alto," 10 December 2004
  6. "American Revolution: Battle of Cowpens," 17 December 2004
  7. "Civil War: Battle of Gettysburg," 20 December 2004
  8. "Civil War: Battle of Antietam," 20 December 2004

Season 3

  1. "Battle of the Bulge," 14 November 2005
  2. "Battle of Britain," 21 November 2005
  3. "Waterloo," 28 November 2005
  4. "Siege of Masada," 5 December 2005
  5. "American Revolutionary War: Battle of Oriskany," 5 December 2005
  6. "World War I: Jutland," 12 December 2005
  7. "Stalingrad," 23 December 2005
  8. "The War of 1812: The Chesapeake and the Shannon," 23 December 2005
  9. "Pointe du Hoc," 30 December 2005
  10. "The 6-Day War," 30 December 2005
  11. "Civil War: Shiloh," 2 January 2006
  12. "Alesia," 9 January 2006
  13. "Battle of Big Hole," 30 January 2006

Season 4

  1. "Siege of Alesia," 5 November 2006
  2. "Trafalgar's Fatal Flaw," 19 November 2006

Book

An accompanying book reflects on seven of the most famous battlefields in history: The Battle of Hastings, The Battle of Agincourt, The Spanish Armada, Waterloo, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Battle of Little Bighorn, and Gallipoli. It uses traditional methods and modern technology to discover what really happened on the day. The results include new and controversial insights into some of the world's enduring military mysteries. Battlefield Detectives uses evidence uncovered by a team of experts from a wide range of disciplines: archaeologists, forensic scientists, crowd dynamics specialists, metal-detectorists and military experts contribute to a new understanding of these fields of war. [5]

Related Research Articles

Battle Military engagement

A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force commitment. An engagement with only limited commitment between the forces and without decisive results is sometimes called a skirmish.

Battle of Agincourt 1415 English victory in the Hundred Years War

The Battle of Agincourt was an English victory in the Hundred Years' War. It took place on 25 October 1415 near Azincourt, in northern France. The unexpected English victory against the numerically superior French army boosted English morale and prestige, crippled France and started a new period of English dominance in the war.

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Battle-class destroyer Class of destroyers of the Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy

The Battle class were a class of destroyers of the British Royal Navy (RN) and Royal Australian Navy (RAN), named after naval or other battles fought by British or English forces. Built in three groups, the first group were ordered under the 1942 naval estimates. A modified second and third group, together with two ships of an extended design were planned for the 1943 and 1944 estimates. Most of these ships were cancelled when it became apparent that the war was being won and the ships would not be required, although two ships of the third group, ordered for the RAN, were not cancelled and were subsequently completed in Australia.

Victory disease Disastrous military action after victory

Victory disease occurs in military history when complacency or arrogance, brought on by a victory or a series of victories, makes an engagement end disastrously for a commander and his forces.

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Fullbrook School is a secondary school and sixth form in north west Surrey, England. The school has held Specialist Science, Technology, Mathematics and Computing College status since 2002. The school gained Grant Maintained status in the mid-1990s and was then given foundation status in 1999. In 2011, the school became an academy. Its main catchment areas are Byfleet, West Byfleet and New Haw with some pupils coming from Addlestone, Woking, Goldsworth Park and Sheerwater. The school has around 1550 students and there are about 250 students in the school's Sixth Form. In January 2017, Mrs. A Turner retired as head of Fullbrook School, and was succeeded by Mrs. K Moore.

Douglas D. Scott is an American archaeologist most notable for his work at the Little Bighorn in the mid-1980s. Working with Richard Fox, Melissa Connor, Doug Harmon, and staff and volunteers from the National Park Service, Scott worked to sketch out a field methodology that has enabled archaeologists to systematically investigate battlefields. This work is internationally recognized as constituting a great step forward in our ability to interpret battlefields archaeologically, regardless of the extent of the historical record. At the Little Bighorn, the fieldwork produced an interpretation of the battle that for the first time gave a clear understanding of the way the battle developed and pointed out some of the glaring inaccuracies of the historiography of the event. The fieldwork also helped determine which of the 242 headstones to the 210 U.S. soldiers lost at the Little Bighorn were erroneous, and recovered skeletal elements allowed one of the soldiers to be positively identified. It was not as successful in recovering the remains of 24 men lost in Deep Ravine and whose whereabouts are unknown to this day.

War Walks is a BBC documentary series presented by historian, Professor Richard Holmes. The series was about famous European battles which had British or English involvement. It included descriptions of the battles, the events leading up to them and the events resulting from them.

My Story is a series of historical novels for children published by Scholastic UK. They are similar to the Dear America series, each book is written in the form of the diary of a fictional young woman or man living during an important event in history. Most of the books feature British characters and history, but some are about non-British characters during important events and times in world history.

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References

  1. "Battlefield Detectives".
  2. History Television "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-07-19. Retrieved 2009-07-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Retrieved 2009-07-24.
  3. Episode list for "BattleField Detectives" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421092/episodes Retrieved 2009-07-25.
  4. Battlefield Detectives Episode Guide http://tvlistings.zap2it.com/tvlistings/ZCProgram.do?sId=EP00607074&t=Battlefield+Detectives&method=getEpisodesForShow&epYear=1 Archived 2012-03-08 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2009-07-25.
  5. Battlefield Detectives http://www.crowddynamics.co.uk/Battlefield%20Detectives/BattleField.htm [ permanent dead link ] Retrieved 2009-07-26.