Secret Agent 007 has outrageous and creative gadgets.

43min | Aired on Dec 02, 2002 | TV-PG | CC

It put power in the hands of the couch potato and made channel surfing a national pastime. Find out how the remote control became as important as the TV itself.

For millennia, luxury toys have functioned as flashy instruments of affluence, authority, and identity and driven many kingly consumers to covet, create, and purchase these status symbols. From the Roman Emperor Caligula's special barges to Carl Faberge's impossibly intricate eggs, from plasma screen TVs to $600,000 Bentleys and Rolex watches, we examine spectacular personal possessions--paeans to the lords of a consumer culture that grows richer and technologically more sophisticated daily.

45min | Aired on Jan 31, 2002 | TV-G | CC

Experts design materials that can catch gunfire.

Siege machines convert energy into mechanical force to breach barriers.

44min | Aired on Feb 26, 2002 | TV-G | CC

It's the place where one man's trash is truly another man's treasure.

43min | Aired on Mar 05, 2002 | TV-G | CC

October 7, 2001: Missiles from lethal U

Spinning your wheels isn't just going around in circles

Story of the development of engines and motors, with particular emphasis on the ones that have profoundly changed society

Star City, the Gagarin Center for Training Cosmonauts, was established by the former Soviet Union in the 1960s as a school for the future conquerors of space. Today, it's where Russian cosmonauts and international guests train on Soyuz rocket simulators and the MIR complex simulator. We join cosmonauts as they undergo grueling ground training in survival courses and parachuting, and face some of Star City's toughest challenges--G-Force simulators, space orientation, and rescue training.

They are the toughest ships in the water, plowing headlong into one of nature's hardest obstacles

Who could imagine life without our "man-made weather"? On cold winter nights and hot summer days, we are forever grateful to the visionaries who took two basic elements--fire and ice--and turned them into true modern marvels.

43min | Aired on Apr 18, 2002 | TV-G | CC

Pop open the hood, check out the carbs, and hear the engines roar as we journey back to a time when gas was cheap, emission controls non-existent, and all that mattered was acceleration and speed

Blade implements are a part of civilization since the Paleolithic Age.

43min | Aired on May 07, 2002 | TV-PG | CC

Legendary drivers lead us on a record-breaking race through a century-long search for sheer acceleration that began before World War One, when hot-rodders modified Model-T Fords to see how fast they could go.

At 5:30 a.m., July 16, 1945, scientists and dignitaries awaited the detonation of the first atomic bomb in a desolate area of the New Mexico desert aptly known as Jornada del Muerto--Journey of Death.

44min | Aired on Jun 04, 2002 | TV-G | CC

Hunting technology evolves from the primitive to the digital.

44min | Aired on Jun 12, 2002 | TV-PG | CC

From Ancient Greek gymnasiums where pupils pumped up their bodies as well as their minds, to today's high-tech facilities and science-based fitness regimens, find out how people have stayed in shape throughout history.

45min | Aired on Jun 27, 2002 | TV-PG | CC

Strategic Air Command controls thousands of nuclear weapons, planes and missiles.

43min | Aired on Jul 16, 2002 | TV-G | CC

Without gasoline, modern life would grind to a halt.

44min | Aired on Jul 23, 2002 | TV-PG | CC

The art deco Chrysler Building stands out in the New York skyline.

Join us for a walk on the wild side of the history of sexual enhancement and contraception--from Cleopatra's box of buzzing bees to 17th-century condoms to Internet sex and 21st-century holographic pornography!

The best in James Bond-style gadgetry.

Set the sedan's safety brake and hop on your "hog" for a 2-hour high-speed history of the motorcycle--from the 1868 "steam velocipede" to the early 20th century, when they were a low-cost alternative to automobiles; from Harley-Davidsons preferred by Hell's Angels and police to motocross riders who take bikes into the air and onto the dirt. We also look to the motorcycle's future, featuring Jay Leno's jet-propelled Y2K sportbike and Erik Buell's bike-without-a-gas-tank creation.

1h 29min | Aired on Dec 03, 2002 | TV-PG | CC

Limousines have been stretched to greater and greater lengths.

Trace digital technology back to the early 1940s and the first high-speed electronic computer used to calculate cannon trajectory charts for new artillery in WWII, and look at the rapidly approaching future in places such as MIT's Media Lab, where tomorrow's technologies are being developed today.

44min | Aired on Dec 05, 2002 | TV-PG | CC