Just got majorly frustrated with tonight's History Channel episode of 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America. It was on Einstein's letter to FDR that started the ball rolling toward the Manhattan project. They were talking about FDR's disgust with Hitler;s bombing of civilians and what do they use for stock footage? Stukas? He-111's? No! First an flyover by B-26's then bonbs dropping from B-29's! In numbers no German bomber coulod deliver! Have they no respect for their audience? Do they do NO research on World War II?

That said, last night's episode on the massacre and near extermination of the Pequot people used Plimouth Plantation for location shots and had folks from the Pequot Museum as commentators, so they seemed to get things closer. At least there was no stock footage available of 1630's activity and they didn't use movie sequences from westerns to depict the Indians.

Just remember Al the purpose of THC isn't to promote history, it's to sell cars, toliet paper, DVDs, etc, etc, etc. If they could sell these things by showing B-17bombing Pearl Harbor after being launched from British carriers, and manned by German pilots, that's what they're going to use.

Thats just the man trying to get ya down. I say REVOLUTION!


No, seriously I've seen footage used multiple times for completey diferent things in the same series of "documentaries". Ridiculous really.

The shows aren't very accurate either, so I'd rather read a good book anyway. Mail Call is almost a joke sometimes, though he is funny so it makes up for it. The best series I've seen is WW2 in color, mostly just for the cool footage though.

I hear ya on Mail Call. He once said a PB4Y had the "4" in its designation because it had four engines. Guess the Corsair (F4U) had four engines, too, and the F9F Cougar/Panter had nine, the F11F Tiger had eleven while the PBY was a glider. :-)