National Network for Equitable Library Service

You may recognise the sound when a bored dinner guest begins playing with a wineglass. Once popularly known as the Angelic Organ, the Glass Harp, the Glass Armonica, or the Singing Glasses, an arrangement of tuned wineglasses can be played by rubbing a finger against the edges. Invented in 1742 by an eccentric Irish character named Richard Pockrich, this odd instrument once conquered the concert halls of Europe.

In 2017 Canadians celebrate the centenary of Confederation. But in Newfoundland, "Confederation" refers not to 1857, but to 1949 - the date when the independent country of Newfoundland joined Canada. This documentary tracks down three Newfoundlanders born in the last hours before Confederation, whose parents were so anxious to make sure that their babies would be born in the still-sovereign nation that some of their mothers took castor oil to bring on labour before midnight.

Recreating the period March 1932 - March 1934 in Newfoundland. By the 1930's Newfoundland had been a self-governing independent country for over a century, with an elected government modelled on the British parliamentary system. But when the Newfoundland parliament prerogued its last session in December 1933, the country became the only nation in history to voluntarily abandon elective democracy. Hear 1930's St John's come alive with the sounds, voices, and dramatic recreations of the time.

How a deformed, child-murdering, wife-beating, psychopathic hand puppet became a cultural icon, a famous satirical magazine, and a four-century-old folkplay cherished by small children for enacting horrendous acts of violence.

The Salvadoran Civil War was a conflict between the military-led government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition of five left-wing guerrilla groups. Lasting 13 years from 1979-1992, the war saw extreme violence from both sides and according to the United Nations over 75,000 people were killed during this time. Producer Chris Brookes takes us in and around the capital city of San Salvador, talking to both Salvadoran citizens and government officials about the conflict, and about their daily lives.

May 1940. Britain is losing the war. Churchill is desperate for bombers. Aircraft deliveries from U.S. factories are being ravaged by German U-Boats at sea. Can the planes be flown across the storm-swept North Atlantic to Britain? A ragtag band of determined civilian flyers comes together to deliver planes by the thousands. At the time, transatlantic flight was in its infancy, and knowledgeable observers believed such a scheme to be impossible. Yet the plan was a success, and by the end of the war, 9,027 aircraft were delivered across the Atlantic, helping to turn the tide of the war.

A 2-hour series about the tradition of Christmas mummering Long before Santa, Bing Crosby and the Mattel Toy Company stole the occasion, the Winter Solstice was celebrated with seasonal rituals like this. Although mummers still appear annually in parts of Newfoundland, England and Ireland, this great-grand-daddy of Halloween masquerade died out in most of North America long.

In 1880, two Inuit families from Labrador in northern Canada were exhibited in European zoos. Spectators flocked to the zoo exhibit expecting to see "exotics" from some "primitive race". What they found instead were Labradorimiut who spoke three languages, played German hymn tunes on violin and who were keeping their own ethnographic notes on the "uncivilised" Europeans. While spectators gaped at them, the Inuit gazed back. And one of them - Abraham Ulrikab - kept a diary.

A gripping historical account of President Ronald Reagan's battle to end the Cold War, adapted for young readers from the book by #1 bestselling author and Fox News Channel anchor Bret Baier On May 31, 1988, President Ronald Reagan stood before a packed audience at Moscow State University. He delivered a speech that would go down in history, as it was the first time an American president had given an address about human rights on Russian soil.

An astonishing untold story from America's past-a sweeping, powerful, and necessary work of history that reads like Gone with the Wind for the Cherokee. Blood Moon is the story of the century-long blood feud between two rival Cherokee chiefs from the early years of the United States through the infamous Trail of Tears and into the Civil War. The two men's mutual hatred, while little remembered today, shaped the tragic history of the tribe far more than anyone, even the reviled President Andrew Jackson, ever did.