National Geographic to Explore Great Mysteries Throughout History on Fridays, Begin. 1/11

For 125 years, National Geographic has been at the forefront in exploration, conservation and scientific research. But exploration is about more than just climbing mountains and crossing oceans. It means asking tough questions, taking on challenges and relentlessly pushing toward the next frontier. Exploration is also about getting involved, breaking down barriers and looking at the world in a whole new way.

In celebration of the National Geographic Society's 125th anniversary, National Geographic Channel is launching a Night of Exploration beginning Friday, January 11, 2013 - a programming block every Friday night from 8 to 10 p.m. ET/PT dedicated to the hotshots, the mavericks and the best in their fields who have devoted their lives to exploring the world around us, and the groundbreaking discoveries that are making a difference.

Each week, the National Geographic Channel Night of Exploration will feature exciting world premieres, as well as award-winning, critically acclaimed programming that has left audiences and critics asking for more.

The weekly programing event kicks off Friday, January 11, 2013, at 8 p.m. ET/PT with A NEW AGE OF EXPLORATION: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC AT 125, a 125th anniversary world premiere special. Trek across the globe, plunge to the greatest depths, investigate the microcosm of the human genome and explore distant regions in space to uncover mind-blowing discoveries and the latest innovations. Meet the trailblazers who are working on the unexplored frontiers of human imagination and innovation.

A NEW AGE OF EXPLORATION: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC AT 125 also captures the compelling behind-the-scenes stories that make going to extremes worth the blood, sweat and tears. The special features legendary National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Robert Ballard, who discovered Titanic's location, and emerging explorers like Albert Lin , who is using virtual reality and the latest advances in satellite imagery to find and excavate the lost tomb of Genghis Khan - without removing a single stone. Find out how surgeon Sam Bhayani is uniting man and machine to achieve superhuman results in the battle against cancer. Watch as intrepid virus hunters like Dr. Gary Kobinger put their lives on the line to develop breakthrough biological weapons that could stop the deadly Ebola virus once and for all.

Join storm chaser Tim Samaras on the ultimate daredevil hunt for one of the most mysterious phenomena on our planet: lightning. Then see how anthropologist and geneticist Spencer Wells and the Genographic Project are charting the incredible history of our ancestors, one cheek swab at a time.

Each week we will continue to celebrate the spirit of exploration with other exciting world premieres and critically acclaimed programing - from leading the ultimate cold-case investigation into the Titanic's final moments with Oscar-winning filmmaker and National Geographic Explorer-In-Residence James Cameron to following a husband-and-wife filmmaking team over their 30-year quest to track lions and leopards through Africa's harshest environments. The Friday night programming block will also champion a new age of exploration by inspiring viewers to take action through a variety of online initiatives that can change the world right in their own communities and across the planet.

NIGHT OF EXPLORATION PROGRAMMING INCLUDES:
A New Age of Exploration: National Geographic at 125 (WORLD PREMIERE)
Friday, January 11, 2013, at 8 p.m. ET/PT
(with a special encore Sunday, January 13 - the actual 125th anniversary)
Like characters from science fiction, humans are shattering boundaries long considered unbreakable. We are exploring the deepest, darkest regions of the planet as well as The Edges of the known universe. We're morphing with machines and eradicating disease. Meet the trailblazers who are working on the unexplored frontiers of exploration and innovation. Join Dr. Gary Kobinger as he battles the world's deadliest viruses and designs a blueprint for stopping the next pandemic. Tag along with storm chaser Tim Samaras as he attempts to do the impossible: film a lightning bolt the moment it hits the ground, using a camera so powerful, it can shoot at one million frames per second. Travel to Mongolia, where research scientist and engineer Albert Lin believes he's located the burial ground of the legendary warrior Genghis Khan . Join explorer and filmmaker James Cameron as he dives into the darkest depths of the ocean, and accompany Bob Ballard as he deploys a network of underwater scientists around the world to explore the uncharted mysteries of the deep. Experience an incredible odyssey that reveals that superhuman abilities lie not just in strength or intelligence but in the dogged determination of the human spirit to continually seek the next frontier.

Titanic: The Final Word with James Cameron (Special Encore)
Friday, January 11, 2013, at 9 p.m. ET/PT
Oscar-winning filmmaker and National Geographic Explorer-In-Residence James Cameron leads the ultimate cold-case investigation into the legendary tragedy that claimed more than 1,500 lives. Combining remarkable underwater footage from Cameron's 30+ dives to the wreck, historical records, eyewitness accounts and scenes from Cameron's 1997 feature film, a team of the world's foremost Titanic experts tries to answer the baffling questions that still surround how and why this supposedly "unsinkable" ship sank. How exactly did the ship break up? Why is one section of the ship so far away from the rest of the wreck? How long did the lights really stay on? And what could the ship's crew have done to save more passengers? Cameron and his team of forensic experts throw everything they have at a tragedy that still intrigues and fascinates a century later.

The Human Family Tree (Special Encore)
Friday, January 18, 2013, at 8 p.m. ET/PT
Regardless of race, country or creed, we can all trace our genetic lineage back some 60,000 years to the cradle of humanity in East Africa. But how did we get to where we are today, and what did our collective journey look like? When did we really first cross paths with the "strangers" living in our neighborhood? Join the Genographic team as they take random DNA samples from 200 New Yorkers to trace the ancestral footsteps of humanity and reveal just how interconnected they really are. Using a selection of people from various walks of life, including a waitress, a teacher, a fashion designer, a councilman, a musician, an actor and a mother, find out how this seemingly disparate group of people are actually members of the same family tree.

Stonehenge Decoded (Special Encore)
Friday, January 25, 2013, at 8 p.m. ET/PT
British archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson offers a groundbreaking theory on Stonehenge, shrouded in mystery for more than 4,500 years - one that places this ancient monument at the center of one of the largest prehistoric religious complexes in the world. His team is unearthing surprising new evidence, supporting a radical new vision of Stonehenge and the people who built it. Parker Pearson believes that Stonehenge was built for the ancestors, a monument in stone to house the spirits of the dead. His excavations reveal that it was linked by grand processional avenues to another great circle, built of wood. And now further evidence suggests what may have happened here: On those special days, at the summer and winter solstices, thousands of people gathered from across Britain - and perhaps beyond - for two great festivals that marked the cycle of their year, and their lives.

Easter Island Underworld (Special Encore)
Friday, January 25, 2013, at 9 p.m. ET/PT
The story of Easter Island is one of the most compelling and controversial in human history. For centuries, visitors have marveled at its silent monuments and wondered about the civilization that left them here. Scientists too have scoured the land, searching for traces that might reveal where these people came from, how they built their society and what happened to them. Now a group of explorers will go where few have ever ventured ? into the labyrinth of caves of Easter Island . No one has ever systematically explored the island's many caves. Will new evidence shed light on these people? We'll discover clues to why the islanders were fighting for resources and killing each other. Then, we'll examine how ancient population expansion and deforestation of this remote environment could be a cautionary tale for us all.

Drain the Ocean (Special Encore)
Friday, February 1, 2013, at 8 p.m. ET/PT
This is a world you have never seen before - a world normally hidden under miles of water, the landscape of the ocean bed. Combining the latest scientific data with state-of-the-art CGI computer hardware and specially written software, we drain the water from the oceans to reveal the mountains, canyons, plains and volcanoes that are more dramatic than anything on dry land.

King Tut and the Lost Dynasty (Special Encore)
Friday, February 8, 2013, at 8 p.m. ET/PT
More than 3,000 years ago, Nefertiti, the legendary beauty, and Akhenaten, the radical king, tore ancient Egypt apart...and then they vanished. This revolutionary couple shook the foundations of Egypt as they set out to reinvent a civilization. In less than 20 years they would turn Egypt on its head, and they themselves would disappear from history. The debate has been raging for decades. Now, an international team, funded by National Geographic and led by Dr. Zahi Hawass , Egypt's top archaeologist, is bringing state-of-the-art CT scans to the Valley of the Kings, for only the second time in history, on the hunt for this mysterious family of pharaohs, a family most famous for the little boy believed to be Akhenaten's son - the son who would grow up to be King Tut. Using noninvasive three-dimensional volumetric imagery, the team conducts a pharaonic forensic investigation of a kind never before undertaken - tracking 21st century clues to a mystery from 1,300 B.C.

King Tut's Final Secrets (Special Encore)
Friday, February 8, 2013, at 9 p.m. ET/PT
The treasure of Tutankhamun is a fabulous gold hoard, the story of its discovery the stuff of legend. But for thousands of years the life of the boy king has remained shrouded in mystery. Now Lord Carnarvon, whose great-grandfather helped discover Tutankhamun's tomb, travels to Egypt, examining recent finds that will change our image of the boy king forever. Lord Carnarvon examines new research that calls into question earlier theories about the life and death of the boy king.

Additional premieres and special encores will include documentaries tied to the Cause an Uproar initiative working to save big cats around the world, as well as other award-winning natural history programming.

Based at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C., the National Geographic Channel (NGC) is a joint venture between National Geographic Ventures (NGV) and Fox Cable Networks (FCN). Since launching in January 2001, NGC initially earned some of the fastest distribution growth in the history of cable and more recently the fastest ratings growth in television. The network celebrated its fifth anniversary in January 2006 with the launch of NGC HD, which provides the spectacular imagery that National Geographic is known for in stunning high definition. NGC has carriage with all of the nation's major cable and satellite television providers, making it currently available in over 70 million homes. For more information, please visit www.natgeotv.com.

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