Jay O. Sanders

Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron on a small island off Italy, a bombadier named Yossarian is frantic and furious because thousands of people he hasn't even met keep trying to kill him. He has decided to live forever, even if he has to die in the attempt.

Leonardo da Vinci is well known for his inventions as well as his art. But new evidence shows that many of his ideas were realized long before he sketched them out in his notebooks, some even 1700 years before him.

On the 500th anniversary of da Vinci's death, NOVA goes to Italy to explore his life and work. Then, in the basement of the Louvre, scientists and art restoration experts deploy cutting-edge technology to (digitally) peel back the layers of da Vinci's works. Ultimately, they'll reveal the impact of his science on his art and his art on his science.

Archaeologists have long believed that while the Egyptians were building pyramids 3,000 years ago, nothing was happening in Western Europe, but a new discovery shows something far different. Five years ago, the remains of an incredible, ancient site began to emerge from a quarry in eastern England. Due to its delicate nature, experts have largely been working in secret, until now.

For 25 centuries the Parthenon has been shot at, set on fire, rocked by earthquakes, looted for its sculptures, and disfigured by misguided restorations. Now, a team of architects and engineers is investigating the many mysteries of this icon of Western civilization : How did the ancient Greeks design and build their masterpiece so quickly? How did they achieve such precision and perfection without modern tools and architectural aids that we take...

Numbering no more than a few thousand, tiny groups of intrepid humans began to move out of Africa, eventually dominating the planet. How did these early humans acquire the skills, technology, and talent to thrive in every environment on Earth? Take a global journey through the past, following the ancestors' footsteps out of Africa along a trail of scientific clues to help unravel the mystery of how humans got where they are.

Follow a team of international scientists documenting an archeological sensation: the exploration of royal tombs beneath the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuac. Not much is known about this long-lost society. When archeologists discover evidence of a sacrificial chamber beneath the famous Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent, they find the clues that may finally tell us who these mysterious people were.

In 1962, three prisoners escaped from Alcatraz, a prison surrounded on all sides by the waters of San Francisco Bay, and disappeared. The fates of the three men have remained unknown to the present day. In this program, three scientists from the Netherlands employ 3D modeling technology to reconstruct the water currents of the day of the prison break in an attempt to uncover whether or not it was possible for the men to have survived.

Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the man make the times or do the times make the man? Goodwin draws upon four of the presidents she has studied most closely, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson (in civil rights), to show how they first recognized leadership qualities within themselves, and were recognized by others as leaders....

Global warming triggers the onset of a new Ice Age.