Best History Movies of 2006

A real time account of the events on United Flight 93, one of the planes hijacked on 9/11 that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when passengers foiled the terrorist plot.

In 1966, Texas Western coach Don Haskins led the first all-black starting line-up for a college basketball team to the NCAA national championship.

Inspired by the true story of Vince Papale, a man with nothing to lose who ignored the staggering odds and made his dream come true. When the coach of Papale's beloved hometown football team hosted an unprecedented open tryout, the public consensus was that it was a waste of time – no one good enough to play professional football was going to be found this way.

The adventures of the Lafayette Escadrille, young Americans who volunteered for the French military before the U.S. entered World War I, and became the country's first fighter pilots.

On September, 11th 2001, after the terrorist attack to the World Trade Center, the building collapses over the rescue team from the Port Authority Police Department. Will Jimeno and his sergeant John McLoughlin are found alive trapped under the wreckage while the rescue teams fight to save them.

This one hour documentary examines the life of the famed Sharp Shooter and Wild West performer, Annie Oakley from her birth in mid nineteenth century rural Pennsylvania to her death in 1926. Many myths are overturned and the program also features a little known trial when Annie Oakley had to sue The Hearst Newspaper chain all throughout the country for libel when they reported the activities of someone who was impersonating the famed sharpshooter and besmirching her reputation.

The Armenian Genocide is a 2006 television documentary is a film exploring the Ottoman Empire killings of more than one million Armenians during World War I. The documentary was broadcast by most 348 PBS affiliate stations on April 17, 2006. Because of the controversial nature of the subject in Turkey, PBS attempted to give both sides a voice and produced a four expert panel discussion to be aired immediately afterwards. However, due to an intense lobbying effort by Armenian groups and some members of Congress, the follow-up panel discussion was cancelled on a third of those stations broadcasting the documentary over concerns of offending human rights groups and the descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors. Produced in conjunction with Oregon Public Broadcasting, it was written and directed by Andrew Goldberg and narrated by Hollywood celebrities Orlando Bloom, Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Jared Leto, Julianna Margulies and Natalie Portman.

An oracle has prophesied that a child will grow up to become the Prince of Egypt, and in order to prevent this from happening The Egyptian Pharaoh orders the immediate slaughter of all newborn males. No child in the entire kingdom is spared except for one. His name was Moses, the son of a Hebrew slave. Set adrift on the Nile immediately after he was born, Moses escapes certain death and enjoys a lavish upbringing in a royal Egyptian household. Moses has no memory of his past, and soon rises to the rank of prince. After Moses receives a fiery message from God and learns of his true heritage, he vows to reclaim his destiny by delivering his people from persecution and realizing his fate as the liberator of the Hebrews.

Based on diaries, records and eyewitness accounts, this is the story of the two Battles of the Somme from the perspective of British and German soldiers. It shows how the major lessons learned by the British Army leadership after the disastrous first attacks of July 1916 were turned into victory at the second attempt in September 1916, arguably the turning point for the First World War.