The History Channel

Modern Marvels is going big, and counting down. We take the "best of" Modern Marvels and give you the MEGA Top 10 countdown. On this edition, the top ten guilty pleasures you just can't resist... America's Favorite Foods.

Modern Marvels is going big, and counting down. We take the "best of" Modern Marvels and give you the MEGA Top 10 countdown. On this edition: Awe-Inspiring Machines--featuring the top ten mightiest, strangest, and most unique innovations from our archives.

Modern Marvels is going big, and counting down. We take the "best of" Modern Marvels and give you the MEGA Top 10 countdown. On this edition: Speed. It's a pure adrenaline rush as we race the top 10 fastest marvels we've featured down to the speediest of all.

Imagine trying to move a 475,000 pound structure from Texas to Minnesota. Forget freeways, it'll never clear bridges or overpasses. Flight is out of the question. The only way to do it--lift it by crane, load it onto a barge and float it up the mighty Mississippi River... an amazing move that will travel past 10 states and cover more than 2400 miles.

Their soaring height is imposing. Their narrow design makes them some of the most difficult and dangerous structures to move -- from the 100-foot-tall obelisks of Ancient Egypt to the 1,483 foot tall Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. Those that dare try to move these tall structures face almost certain defeat. Yet, despite the risks our team proves it can be done -- first by peering into the future to move two of the world's tallest skyscrapers, and then taking on a present-day challenge never before attempted -- simultaneously moving two towering silos connected by a common wall.

The world's oceans are graveyards for some of the greatest ships ever built. During the mid-1500's the English warship Mary Rose was sunk by a French cannon. Finally, more then 400 years after it sank, its massive 580-ton hull would be raised from its watery grave. In the Baltic Sea the 17th century warship, The Vasa, was heralded as the greatest ship ever built at that time, but on the day of her maiden voyage she sank. After early salvages failed, our team spent more than a year battling dangers to raise her to the surface. When the huge French liner Normandie capsized in New York Harbor, it created a deadly toxic cesspool. The team along with the Navy Salvage Service pulled off the dangerous mission of bringing her back up. At the end of WWII in the shallow area of Scapa Flow a captured German Admiral gave the orders to scuttle 72 ships. Experts said they could never be raised. One man proved them wrong and raised 28 of them.

Many airports constructed just 50 years ago may not be sufficient to handle the demands of 21st century aircraft. This special unpacks the particular problems of the world's most extreme airports and examines the engineering behind them, from centuries-old territorial battles that have led to unsafe layouts, to geographical challenges like wind currents and natural obstacles that make these places unfit for travel.

Where in Washington D.C. is the nation's most incredible treasure chest? It's a library unlike any other in the world--the U.S. Library of Congress. Explode the myth that this 200-year-old institution is simply "where members of Congress borrow books." Viewers are taken beyond the magnificent Jefferson Building Great Hall into the secret vaults where more than 600 miles of shelves hold 130 million items, many of them priceless treasures--from George Washington's hand-written diaries to Galileo's first images of the moon to the original camera film of the movie Frankenstein. See how a staff of 4,000 catalogues protects and preserves these treasures and distributes them globally via a new World Digital Library.

Playing cards are an everyday object used for gambling and game playing the world over. But the familiar deck of cards conceals hidden meanings that have links to secret societies and the occult. Why are there four suits and why hearts, spades, diamonds, clubs? What is the significance of the picture cards? What is the meaning of the symbolism of the Tarot? We look beneath the surface of the playing card and reveal an intriguing journey from their much disputed roots in China, Persia, and Egypt. And we uncover the secrets of card design, investigating rumored Masonic links and the way the design has changed to mirror the cultures and beliefs of the people who used them through the ages. What emerges is an extraordinary story that reveals the mysteries and meanings of the humble playing card--a history that is intimately entwined with the occult, voodoo, and man's fascination with mystical beliefs.

Informational programming.

Informational programming.

It was one of the greatest cities ever depicted in biblical text. Hebrew prophets of the Bible all predicted its destruction--as many as 150 years before it happened. And, when in 539 BCE, Babylon fell to Cyrus the Great of Persia, the prophets were thought to have been proven correct. But scholars and academics have long debated the question of whether these ancient predictions were meant for the city of Babylon of more than 2,500 years ago, or whether they referred to a different Babylon, a future Babylon to be rebuilt where the old city once stood. Ancient Babylon is now known as modern-day Iraq, and eerily similar parallels exist between the prophecies of Babylon and the events of the late 20th and early 21st centuries--including both Gulf Wars and the downfall of Saddam Hussein. Is it possible that Biblical prophecies are playing out in modern times?

Hern n Cort s stands as one of the great Conquistadores of all time, and among the most brutal. His thirst for gold and power led him to Mexico in 1519, beginning a conquest unlike any other in history. Remarkably, Cort s was under strict orders not to engage in any wars of conquest when he was sent to meet with the rulers of the Aztec empire--orders unheeded by Cort s. His first contact with the indigenous people resulted in a battle that so terrified them that they fled into the interior of Mexico. They had never seen the guns, horses, and shiny metal armor of the conquistadors. In approximately two years, Cort s owned the Aztec empire, and their once proud ruler Montezuma was dead. Through brilliant execution, from an often precarious military position, Cort s killed hundreds of thousands of Aztecs and brought down the 300-year-old empire--the first major American civilization to fall to the Spanish.

Known as El Cid (The Leader), the 11-century warrior Rodrigo D az liberated his fatherland from the Moors. Yet recent scholarship reveals many contradictions between reality and myth about Spain's first national hero. In one contemporary's words he was "the scourge of his time". Was he arrogant and insubordinate, a stern overlord driven by an unquenchable thirst for money? Before his death, he was already celebrated in a poem written in tribute of the conquest of Almer a; posthumously he was immortalized in the great epic Poema de M o Cid and was the centerpiece for countless other works of literature. Equally at home in the feudal kingdoms of northern Spain and the exotic Moorish-held lands of the south, when he died in Valencia in 1099, he was ruler of an independent principality that he had carved out of eastern Spain. Was Rodrigo a zealous Christian leader or a mercenary that sold his martial skills to Christian and Muslim alike?

September 15th 1944. 17,000 US Marines hit the beaches of the tiny coral island of Peleliu. They have been told that this will be a three day operation, but six days later an entire regiment has been destroyed and the remaining units are trapped by the island's hidden Japanese defenders. For 74 terrible days the Japanese garrison on Peleliu make the American invasion force pay in blood for every inch of ground. For the first time aerial reconnaissance photographs are combined with the latest in computer technology to create a 3D model of the island, revealing the true nature of Peleliu's tortured landscape and the secrets of the Japanese defense system. With archive film, re-enactments and powerful eye witness testimony, this is the incredible story of one of the most ferocious battles of the Pacific War.

On December 16th 1945, in the frozen forests of the Ardennes, Belgium, a vast German assault force amassed in secrecy with one aim--to send the Allies back into the sea. It is the blood and guts defense of a small Belgian town called Bastogne that embodies the spirit of Allied defiance. Outnumbered and outgunned, the elite troops of the 101st Airborne Division refuse to surrender. The ordinary soldiers who had fought and died in the freezing foxholes of Belgium had played their part in a battle that would shape history. Aerial reconnaissance photographs taken before, during and after the struggle have now been layered over a 3 dimensional map to create a CGI "model" of the battlefield. Individual stories of courage and heroism can be placed in the exact location where they took place.