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The Best Episodes of Secrets of the Dead

Every episode of Secrets of the Dead ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Secrets of the Dead!

The Best Episodes of Secrets of the Dead

Part detective story, part true-life drama, long-running series explores some of the most iconic moments in history to debunk myths and shed new light on...
  1. Background image for Vampire Legend
    10.0/10(1 votes)

    #1 - Vampire Legend

    S15:E1

    Information gathered about aberrant, unorthodox burial practices from medieval times shed some light on how today's myths about vampires may have started.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  2. Background image for Catastrophe (1)
    8.4/10(20 votes)

    #2 - Catastrophe (1)

    S1:E1

    Did a cataclysmic event plunge humankind into the period known as the early Dark Ages? Scientists now believe the early Dark Ages may have been triggered by a natural event that occurred around 535 A.D. Science writer David Keys is convinced that the cause was a phenomenon of cataclysmic proportions. At the center of a complex chain of events seems to be "a loud bang" -- a volcanic explosion equal to "two thousand million Hiroshima size bombs." The subsequent environmental calamity, Keys believes, affected human civilization from Mongolia to Constantinople, precipitating plague, famine, death, great migration, the fall of the great Mexican city of Teotihuacan, the Anglo-Saxon victory over the Celts and perhaps even the rise of Islam. (UK / PBS) Released to video (VHS) as a single episode. Run time 1:50.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  3. Background image for Blood Red Roses
    8.4/10(21 votes)

    #3 - Blood Red Roses

    S4:E1

    The Battle of Towton in North Yorkshire, fought during the Wars of the Roses, was reputedly the bloodiest battle ever seen on English soil. In 1996 a mass grave of soldiers was discovered there by chance. This was the catalyst for a multi-disciplinary research project, still unique in Britain ten years after the initial discovery, which included a study of the skeletal remains, the battlefield landscape, the historical evidence and contemporary arms and armour. The discoveries were dramatic and moving; the individuals had clearly suffered traumatic deaths and subsequent research highlighted the often multiple wounds each individual had received before and, in some cases, after they had died. As well as the exciting forensic work the project also revealed much about medieval weaponry and fighting. Blood Red Roses contains all the information about this fascinating discovery, as well as discussing its wider historical, heritage and archaeological implications. (UK/PBS)

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  4. Background image for Bombing Nazi Dams
    8.3/10(23 votes)

    #4 - Bombing Nazi Dams

    S3:E6

    In the spring of 1943, Allied forces to begin preparations for a top secret Allied raid. Each aircraft carried a top-secret weapon -- a newly-invented bouncing bomb -- designed to shatter Germany's major dams.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  5. Background image for Escape from Auschwitz
    8.2/10(52 votes)

    #5 - Escape from Auschwitz

    S7:E2

    The story of Rudolph Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, two young Slovak Jews who escaped the Auschwitz death camp. They immediately wrote a detailed account of their experiences resulting in thousands of lives being saved.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  6. Background image for Catastrophe (2)
    8.1/10(20 votes)

    #6 - Catastrophe (2)

    S1:E2

    Did a cataclysmic event plunge humankind into the period known as the early Dark Ages? Scientists now believe the early Dark Ages may have been triggered by a natural event that occurred around 535 A.D. Science writer David Keys is convinced that the cause was a phenomenon of cataclysmic proportions. At the center of a complex chain of events seems to be "a loud bang" -- a volcanic explosion equal to "two thousand million Hiroshima size bombs." The subsequent environmental calamity, Keys believes, affected human civilization from Mongolia to Constantinople, precipitating plague, famine, death, great migration, the fall of the great Mexican city of Teotihuacan, the Anglo-Saxon victory over the Celts and perhaps even the rise of Islam. (UK / PBS) Released to video (VHS) as a single episode. Run time 1:50.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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  8. Background image for The Hunt for Nazi Scientists
    8.1/10(34 votes)

    #7 - The Hunt for Nazi Scientists

    S5:E1

    Days after D-Day, Allied forces joined together for a different kind of mission. Through rare footage, eyewitness testimonies, and real-life accounts, the story is told of the race to capture the German physicists and other scientists and any secrets they may hold of advanced 'vengeance' weapons. Finding the scientists could mean gaining significant advantage in the looming Cold War. Liev Schreiber narrates the story of the scientists' dramatic capture and the influences they have on wars today.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  9. Background image for Dick Cavett's Watergate
    8.1/10(53 votes)

    #8 - Dick Cavett's Watergate

    S13:E6

    Dick Cavett's Watergate offers a unique opportunity to mark the 40th anniversary of a defining moment in American history. From 1972 to 1974 the Watergate scandal unfolded on The Dick Cavett Show, as Cavett interviewed nearly every major Watergate figure, even non-political guests expressed their opinions. Dick Cavett's Watergate documents the scandal in the words of the people who lived it.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  10. Background image for Eiffel's Race to the Top
    8.1/10(42 votes)

    #9 - Eiffel's Race to the Top

    S21:E1

    Find out about the race to build Paris’ most famous landmark when two men vied to be the first to build a monument 1,000 feet tall. See how one man’s vision transformed the Paris skyline, making the Eiffel Tower a global icon. Dramatic recreations, official renderings and personal correspondence tell the story.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  11. Background image for Death in Britannia
    8.0/10(45 votes)

    #10 - Death in Britannia

    S21:E2

    Uncover what happens when archaeologists study a skeleton found with an iron nail through its heel bone, suggesting the person was the victim of crucifixion in Roman-occupied Britain. Only one other skeleton with evidence of crucifixion has ever been found in the world. Who was he? What was life in Roman Britain like? And why did he receive such a gruesome punishment?

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  12. Background image for Returning to Babylon
    8.0/10(33 votes)

    #11 - Returning to Babylon

    S21:E4

    A moving story of a people reclaiming their cultural heritage after an occupying force tried to erase it. Priceless artifacts from the Assyrian Empire were destroyed during the Isis occupation of Mosul. Now, a team of archaeologists is dedicated to finding pieces that survived. One possible discovery: the location of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  13. Background image for The Herculaneum Scrolls
    8.0/10(36 votes)

    #12 - The Herculaneum Scrolls

    S21:E6

    Making headlines around the world, Brent Seales and his team of computer scientists set out on a mission to read the 2,000-year-old carbonized scrolls found in the remains of a villa in Herculaneum. Mt. Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 AD transformed the papyri, fusing together the layers of the scrolls and making them impossible to read. Can particle physics and AI finally reveal what the scrolls say?

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  14. Background image for Bridge on the River Kwai
    7.9/10(33 votes)

    #13 - Bridge on the River Kwai

    S4:E2

    (Modern Mysteries) While remnants of the abandoned structure exist today, jungles have consumed much of what remains. Construction records and documents revealing the railway’s route are scarce. So just how did a team of men in such poor condition and confronted with so many obstacles manage to build the railway? And how did their Allied brethren achieve its demolition?

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  15. Background image for World War Speed
    7.8/10(55 votes)

    #14 - World War Speed

    S17:E7

    Follow historian James Holland on his quest to understand how the use of amphetamines affected the course of World War II and unleashed the first pharmacological arms race.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  16. Background image for Mozart's Sister
    7.8/10(32 votes)

    #15 - Mozart's Sister

    S21:E5

    Maria Anna Mozart was a musical prodigy just like her younger brother Wolfgang. Although the children toured Europe together, once Maria Anna came of age, she was left behind while her brother became a star. But controversial new evidence suggests she may have contributed to her brother’s earliest works while a global search for her compositions continues.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  17. Background image for Search for the First Human
    7.7/10(19 votes)

    #16 - Search for the First Human

    S3:E1

    Explore the scientific mystery of human genesis through a close investigation of 13 fossils found in October 2000. The bones are the oldest hominid remains ever discovered — so old that they come from the time when the divergence of man and ape is thought to have occurred — and could be the blueprint for the first generation of the species that ultimately evolved into modern humans

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  18. Background image for Airmen and the Headhunters
    7.6/10(25 votes)

    #17 - Airmen and the Headhunters

    S9:E2

    A tribe in Borneo protects a shot-down U.S. bomber crew from Japanese occupiers during World War II. The local missionaries, who converted the tribe to Christianity, were executed by the Japanese invaders, who had forced out Dutch and British colonialists, while massacring Borneo natives. A surviving missionary from Indonesia, employed by the Japanese military as an area administrator, outwits Japanese forces by hiding the U.S. airmen deep in a jungle canyon. The local Dayak people risk their lives, and force the occupiers to abandon their hunt for the airmen, using blowpipes and machetes against the Japanese army search parties.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  19. Background image for Aztec Massacre
    7.5/10(27 votes)

    #18 - Aztec Massacre

    S7:E1

    A recent archaeological discovery of more than 550 bodies near Mexico City suggests that the Aztecs were much more resistant to the Spanish Conquistadors than previously thought.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  20. Background image for The Lost Gardens of Babylon
    7.5/10(86 votes)

    #19 - The Lost Gardens of Babylon

    S13:E4

    The search for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World despite a lack of physical evidence that they existed. Dr. Stephanie Dalley (Oxford University) posits that the legendary gardens were not located, as commonly believed, in the ancient city of Babylon, but hundreds of miles to its north, in what's now central Iraq.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  21. Background image for Ben Franklin’s Bones
    7.5/10(61 votes)

    #20 - Ben Franklin’s Bones

    S14:E1

    In November 1997, when the skeletal remains of at least 28 bodies were unearthed in the basement of an elegant townhouse, police feared it was the work of a serial killer. But when research indicated the bones actually dated to the mid-1700s, the implications became even more dramatic. This was no ordinary house: 36 Craven Street was the former residence of one of the most important men in American history, Benjamin Franklin. Could the unthinkable be possible? Could one of America’s most iconic figures have been responsible in some way for the bones in the basement?

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    Writer:Unknown
  22. Background image for Hannibal in the Alps
    7.5/10(62 votes)

    #21 - Hannibal in the Alps

    S17:E2

    Follow a team of experts as they solve the enduring mystery of exactly where Hannibal and his troops crossed the Alps to launch a surprise attack on Rome.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  23. Background image for The Woman in the Iron Coffin
    7.5/10(86 votes)

    #22 - The Woman in the Iron Coffin

    S17:E3

    On October 4, 2011, construction workers were shocked to uncover human remains in an abandoned lot in the Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens, New York. So great was the level of preservation, witnesses first assumed they had stumbled upon a recent homicide. Forensic analysis, however, revealed a remarkably different story. Buried in an elaborate and expensive iron coffin, the body belonged to a young African American woman who died in the first half of the 19th century, before the Civil War and the federal abolishment of slavery. But who was she? Secrets of the Dead: The Woman in the Iron Coffin follows forensic archaeologist Scott Warnasch and a team of historians and scientists as they investigate this woman’s story and the time in which she lived, revealing a vivid picture of what life was like for free African American people in the North.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  24. Background image for What Happened to the Hindenburg?
    7.4/10(40 votes)

    #23 - What Happened to the Hindenburg?

    S1:E4

    Why did the great airship Hindenburg explode? The disintegration of the Hindenburg in 1937 is one of the most famous disasters of the 20th century. It took more than 100 years to develop what was, in its day, the fastest, most technologically advanced and most luxurious form of transportation in the world -- and 34 seconds to destroy it. The accident that ended the golden age of airships is generally attributed to the ignition of hydrogen gas used for lift. Addison Bain, a retired NASA scientist and hydrogen specialist, sets out on a personal quest of theorizing and experimentation to prove the Hindenburg's real flaw was only skin deep. (UK/PBS 55 min)

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  25. Background image for The Mona Lisa Mystery
    7.4/10(45 votes)

    #24 - The Mona Lisa Mystery

    S13:E5

    Discover a portrait of a younger and more beautiful Mona Lisa that predated the famous Louvre masterpiece. In September 2012, headline news shook the art world. A secret da Vinci had been uncovered, a portrait of a younger and more beautiful Mona Lisa that predated the famous Louvre masterpiece. Now an elite group of art historians, research physicists, restoration experts and forensic imaging specialists have gained exclusive access to analyze the painting first hand. Applying high-precision, scientific techniques they will aim to verify the painting’s date, decipher hidden mathematical codes within it, and unravel the clues that point to da Vinci’s genuine hand.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  26. Background image for King Arthur's Lost Kingdom
    7.4/10(88 votes)

    #25 - King Arthur's Lost Kingdom

    S17:E5

    Uncover new archaeological evidence rewriting our understanding of the Dark Ages in 5th– and 6th-century Britain that might also explain the legend of King Arthur.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

Best Episodes Summary

"Vampire Legend" is the best rated episode of "Secrets of the Dead". It scored 10/10 based on 1 votes. Directed by Unknown and written by Unknown, it aired on 10/27/2015. This episode scored 1.6 points higher than the second highest rated, "Catastrophe (1)".