History (American TV network)

History (formerly The History Channel from 1995 to 2008; stylized as HISTORY) is a pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney Media Networks division of the Walt Disney Company.
The network was originally focused on history-based documentaries. During the late 2000s, History drifted into reality television programming. In addition to this change in format, the network has been criticized by many scientists, historians, and skeptics for broadcasting pseudo-documentaries and unsubstantiated, sensational investigative programming.
As of February 2015, around 96,149,000 American households (82.6% of households with television) receive the network's flagship channel, History. International localized versions of History are available, in various forms, in India, Canada, Europe, Australia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.
History.
The company indicated that plans for a history channel were in the works in 1993, it purchased the Lou Reda Productions documentary library and long-term rights for the Hearst Entertainment documentaries archive. The History Channel was launched on January 1, 1995 with its UK counterpart following on November 1, 1995 in partnership with British Sky Broadcasting. its original format focused entirely on historical series and specials.
During the 1990s, History was jokingly referred to as "The Hitler Channel" for its extensive coverage of World War II. Much of its military-themed programming has been shifted to its sister network Military History.
A&E Networks considered History to be the driver in international expansion due to a lack of international rights to A&E international co-productions. As expected, the History Channel led A&E's overseas expansion in Brazil with TVA (April 1996), the Nordic and Baltic regions with Modern Times Group (1997), and in Canada (1997).
History expanded in 1998 into tours of U.S. landmarks with Mayflower Tours having an affiliated website (historytravel.com), "History Channel Traveler", and a planned quarterly magazine. While in October, History and MSG Network teamed up to produce several short-form sports history programs. A+E spun out in November 1998 History Channel International from the History Channel.
On February 16, 2008, a new logo was launched on the U.S. network as part of a rebranding effort. While the trademark "H" was kept, the triangle shape on the left acts as a play button for animation and flyouts during commercials and shows. On March 20, 2008, as part of that same rebranding effort, The History Channel dropped "The" and "Channel" from its name to become simply "History".
The "History 100" documentary initiative was announced in March 2018 that would produce 100 documentaries covering major events and notable figures from last 100 years.
In 2021, the History network ordered a documentary series covering the history of the decades long "Star Trek" science fiction franchise. Brian Volk-Weiss is the planned director who had done documentaries for Netflix, as well as a previous History Channel special on "Star Trek" for its 50th anniversary in 2016. They planned to go over the long history of the franchise including its various television series and conduct cast interviews.
Programming.
Programming on History has covered a wide range of historical periods and topics, while similar themed topics are often organized into themed weeks or daily marathons. Subjects include warfare, inventions, aviation, mechanical and civil engineering, technology, science, nature, artists, composers, authors, mythical creatures, monsters, unidentified flying objects, conspiracy theories, aliens, religious beliefs, disaster scenarios, apocalyptic "after man" scenarios, survival scenarios, alternate history, dinosaurs, doomsday, organized crime, secret societies, and 2012 superstitions. Occasionally, some programs compare contemporary culture and technology with that of the past.
The channel's programming would expand into scripted dramas with the premiere "Vikings" in 2013.
Criticism and evaluations.
The network has also been criticized for having a bias towards U.S. history. Another former sister network, History International, more extensively covered history outside the US until 2011, when it was re-branded as H2 and started broadcasting more material that had to do with US history.
The network was also criticized by Stanley Kutner for airing the series "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" in 2003. Kutner was one of three historians commissioned to review the documentary, which the channel disavowed and never aired again. Programs such as "Modern Marvels" have been praised for their presentation of detailed information in an entertaining format.
Some of the network's series, including "Ice Road Truckers", "Ax Men", and "Pawn Stars", garnered increased viewership ratings in the United States, while receiving criticism over the series' nonhistorical nature. U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley is a critic of the channel and its lack of historical or educational programming, showing particular disdain for the latter two programs.
In 2011, "Forbes" staffer Alex Knapp wrote, "ideally," "The History Channel shouldn't run stuff like this 'ancient astronaut' nonsense," "Forbes" contributor Brad Lockwood criticized the channel's addition of "programs devoted to monsters, aliens, and conspiracies" attributing a perceived intent of boosting ratings as propelling the network to feature a focus on pseudoarchaeology instead of facts. Knapp refers readers to the "Bad Archaeology" website's founder Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews who comments, "I find it incredible and frightening that a worldwide distributed television channel ...can broadcast such rubbish as "Ancient Aliens"." Archaeologist Kenneth Feder, author of "Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology", called the channel's hosting the ancient astronaut theory "execrable bullshit".
In his book "2012: It's Not the End of the World", Peter Lemesurier describes the channel's "Nostradamus" series, in which he was invited to participate, as "largely fiction" and "lurid nonsense". He also lists numerous suggestions made in its films on the alleged Mayan "end of the world" and the "rare" galactic alignment that was supposed by John Major Jenkins to accompany it in 2012, while Jenkins himself has described "Decoding the Past" as "45 minutes of unabashed doomsday hype and the worst kind of inane sensationalism."
In December 2011, Politifact gave the History Channel's claim that the United States Congress stayed open on Christmas Day for most of its first 67 years of existence a "pants on fire" rating, the lowest of its ratings, noting that its own research showed that both the Senate and the House had only convened once in those 67 years on a Christmas Day and adding that, since there is a one-in-seven chance of Christmas falling on a Sunday (when Congress did not meet in order to attend church), the claim that they would have convened almost every Christmas is "ridiculous". The claim had first been broadcast on the History Channel program "Christmas Unwrapped – The History of Christmas" before being subsequently picked up by the American Civil Liberties Union's website on the "Origins of Christmas" and by the Comedy Central series "The Daily Show". "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart responded the next day by stating it was their fault for trusting the History Channel and satirized a clip from the History Channel about UFOs and Nazis by stating, "The next thing you know we'll all find out the Nazis did not employ alien technology in their quest for world domination."
The History Channel was also singled out for ridicule by "Smithsonian" magazine. The article took issue with the show "Ancient Aliens" for postulating the "idea that aliens caused the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs." The online magazine "Cracked" also lampooned the channel for its strange definition of history. "Cracked" singled out the programs "UFO Hunters" and "Ancient Aliens" as being the very definition of non-history by presenting pseudoscience and pseudohistory. In 2015, skeptic Brian Dunning listed it at #2 on a "Top 10 Worst Anti-Science Websites" list.
Amelia Earhart documentary controversy.
In 2017, a History Channel documentary, "", proposed that a photograph in the National Archives of Jaluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands was actually a picture of a captured Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. The picture showed a Caucasian male on a dock who appeared to look like Noonan and a woman sitting on the dock, but facing away from the camera, who was judged to have a physique and haircut resembling Earhart's. The documentary theorizes that the photo was taken after Earhart and Noonan crashed at Mili Atoll. The documentary also said that physical evidence recovered from Mili matches pieces that could have fallen off an Electra during a crash or subsequent overland move to a barge. "The Lost Evidence" proposed that a Japanese ship seen in the photograph was the "Koshu Maru", a Japanese military ship.
"The Lost Evidence" was soon discredited after Japanese blogger Kota Yamano found the original source of the photograph in the archives in the National Diet Library Digital Collection. The original source of the photo was a Japanese travel guide published in October 1935, implying that the photograph was taken in 1935 or before, thus it would be unrelated to Earhart and Noonan's 1937 disappearance. Additionally, the researcher who discovered the photo also identified the ship in the right of the photo as another ship called "Koshu" seized by Allied Japanese forces in World War I and not the "Koshu Maru".
Researcher Ben Radford performed a detailed analysis of the mistakes made by "The History Channel" in building their documentary on bad photographic evidence. In his "Skeptical Inquirer" article "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Emmys: An Amelia Earhart Special (Non) Mystery Post-Mortem," critiquing the network's lack of professionalism, Radford said: "Given that the photograph's provenance was established and thus the key premise of the show discredited in about half an hour of Google searching, it will be interesting to see what world class expertise... the History Channel will bring to their reinvestigation of Earhart's disappearance." On episode 82 of his "Squaring the Strange" podcast, released January 4, 2019, Radford reminded listeners that in excess of 18 months had passed without an apology or explanation from the History Channel as to "how their research went so horribly wrong."
International.
North America.
Canada.
History Television launched in 1997 and was not initially related to its then similarly-named American counterpart. During History Television's first several years of operation, despite sharing a similar programming focus, it rarely, if ever, acquired programming from the American channel. The phrase "Not available in Canada" was used heavily during The History Channel's early years in promotional ads on American channels that were imported to Canadian pay television providers, particularly A&E.
Beginning in the late 2000s, several History (U.S) shows were acquired for Canadian broadcast on History Television. On May 30, 2012, then-parent company Shaw Media announced that it would rebrand History Channel as a Canadian version of the U.S History channel in the fall of 2012, through a licensing agreement with A+E Networks. History Television would be relaunched on August 12, 2012; with another Shaw-owned, specialty channel relaunched as a Canadian version of H2 soon after.
On October 21, 2014, Corus Entertainment reached an agreement to acquire Canadian French-language rights to History programming for its own channel, Historia. On March 9, 2015, the network was relaunched under History's logo and branding, although the network still carries the Historia name. Historia was previously owned as a joint venture between Shaw and Astral Media, which made it a sister to History; Corus purchased the network in 2013.
On April 1, 2016, Corus Entertainment merged with Shaw Media, and as a result, now holds the Canadian English and French-language rights to History programming.
Europe.
UK and Ireland.
The British version launched in November 1995, and arrived in Ireland on November 1, 1999. The UK channel was renamed Sky History on May 27, 2020 to accommodate Sky Documentaries and Sky Nature.
Germany.
The German version launched on November 14, 2004, and is operated by The History Channel Germany GmbH & Co. KG, a joint venture between A+E Networks and NBC Universal Global Networks Germany.
Italy.
The Italian version was launched on July 31, 2003 as a joint venture of A&E Networks and Fox International Channels Italy; then it became a sole venture of A&E Networks in 2012.
Spain and Portugal.
The History Channel is available in Spain and Portugal though cable, satellite, and IPTV platforms, as well as streaming media under the brand Canal de Historia. The History Channel Iberia is a joint venture between A+E Networks and AMC Networks International Iberia.
Benelux.
The Dutch version has launched on May 1, 2007. This version is distributed by A&E Networks Benelux. In January 2008, History HD was launched in the Netherlands. It is available on cable providers Telenet and Ziggo. It is also available on the IPTV service KPN.
Poland.
A Polish version was launched on April 9, 2008. It is available on cable providers Aster, Dialog, Toya, and UPC Polska, and also through satellite television (with its HD version carried on the n platform since June 1, 2012) and an SD version on Cyfra+ since November 2, 2009).
Scandinavia.
A Scandinavian version was first launched in September 1997, broadcasting for three and later four hours a day on the analogue Viasat platform. Initially time-sharing with TV1000 Cinema, it was later moved to the Swedish TV8 channel and continued broadcasting there until November 2004. When History channel announced their own 24-hour pan-European channel, Viasat launched its own history-oriented channel, Viasat History, in the Nordic region, but with no original programming. On February 1, 2007, the History Channel returned to Sweden and also Denmark, Norway, Finland when the pan-European version was launched as a standalone channel on the Canal Digital satellite platform and later through cable operator Com hem. The History Channel launched on February 1, 2007, on the Canal Digital DTH satellite package for viewers in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. The channel is being launched by The History Channel UK, A&E's joint venture with BSkyB. Although it broadcasts in English with local subtitles, the channel is scheduled separately from the UK version.
Asia.
India.
The History Channel started its operations in India in late 2003 with 21st Century Fox's STAR TV as its sales partner, managed by National Geographic until November 21, 2008. The History Channel India closed down on November 21, 2008. In 2011, History was granted permission to relaunch services in India. A joint venture of A&E Networks and TV18 relaunched History TV18 in India in eight languages in 2014.
Southeast Asia.
A joint venture of AETN and Astro All Asia Networks launched the History Channel in Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Brunei in the second and third quarters of 2007, and in Taiwan and China by the end of the year. Some other Asian countries, such as Kuwait, Israel, and Japan, have their own versions of the network. On September 1, 2008, History Channel Asia was officially launched in Singapore and Hong Kong followed by the Philippines.
South Korea.
The South Korean version of History Channel was launched on September 22, 2017, replacing the Southeast version that was previously transmitted. After the launch, A+E networks Korea launched an original series program called History in the Bottle (말술클럽).
Latin America.
The Latin American version was launched in 2001. It is owned by A&E and controlled in the region by HBO Latin America Group. It airs U.S. programming, translated to Spanish or Portuguese or in English with Spanish or Portuguese subtitles. Also, it develops some Latin American programming in Spanish.
Africa.
South Africa.
The History channel was launched on December 1, 2003 as part of the DSTV satellite TV package provided by MultiChoice. DSTV is owned by Naspers (, which translates as National Press).
Programs.
This is a list of programs availible from History Channel. These shows are owned by the channel.