NOVA

From PBS - On June 6, 1944, the Allies launched the biggest armada in history to invade the Normandy beaches and liberate Europe from the Nazis. Now, NOVA has exclusive access to the first complete survey of the seabed bordering the legendary beachheads. D-Day's Sunken Secrets unfolds an account of the tumultuous events and reveals how the Allies' intricate planning and advanced technology was vital to the ambitious and risky military operation.

From PBS - Colditz Castle, a notorious prisoner of war camp in Nazi Germany, was supposed to be escape-proof. But at the end of World War II, a group of British officers dreamt up the ultimate escape plan: a two-man glider made out of bed sheets and floorboards. Now a crack team of engineers and carpenters rebuild the glider in the same attic using the same materials to find out if the legendary glider plan would have succeeded.

From PBS - To separate fact from fear, NOVA teams with leading shark experts in Australia and the United States to uncover the science behind the great white's hunting instincts. With shark populations plummeting, scientists race to unlock the secrets of these powerful creatures of the deep in their quest to save people -- and sharks.

From PBS - The largest masonry dome on earth, Florence's cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, is a masterpiece of ingenuity and a source of mystery. Historians and engineers have long debated how its architect, kept the dome perfectly aligned and symmetrical as the sides rose and converged toward the center. To test the latest theories, a team of U.S. bricklayers will help build an experimental, mini-Duomo, using period tools and techniques.

From PBS - In 2002, maintenance workers stumbled through an opening in one of the tunnel walls and discovered a previously unknown complex of six small rooms, each stacked floor to ceiling with skeletons. It was a mass grave, locked away for nearly 2,000 years. Who were these people? Why were so many interred in one place, piled atop each other? And most important, what killed them?

From PBS - NOVA follows archaeologists and forensic experts in their hunt for clues to the identity and the circumstances of violent deaths of victims unearthed in bogs. A new theory suggests that they were ritually murdered kings, slain to assure the fertility of land and people.

From PBS - It was the strongest cyclone to hit land in recorded history. On November 8, 2013, Typhoon Haiyan -- what some are calling "the perfect storm" -- slammed into the Philippines, whipping the low-lying and densely-populated islands with 200 mile-per-hour winds and sending a two-story-high storm surge flooding into homes, schools, and hospitals.

From PBS - In the early days of World War I, Germany, determined to bring its British enemies to their knees, launched a new kind of terror campaign: bombing civilians from the sky. The aircraft delivering the lethal payloads weren't planes, they were Zeppelins, enormous airships, some the length of two football fields. With a team of engineers, explosives experts, and historians, NOVA investigates the secrets behind these deadly war machines.

From PBS - It's a golden age for planet hunters: recently, they've discovered more than 750 planets orbiting stars beyond our sun. Some of them, like a planet called Kepler-22b, might even be able to harbor life. What would that life look like?