User reviews

I watched this show through the first and part of the second season. What I gathered from watching both hosts is that the show seemed like it had much more energy during the first season with David Eisenbach. The first season is presented much quicker and it seemed to have more enthusiasm than the version hosted by Henry Rollins. No offense to Henry, but his version seems long and drawn out, with a focus on interviewing people instead of just presenting facts and tidbits.

I'm not sure why the History Channel replaced Eisenbach with Rollins, except for maybe popularity, but it would seem like a history professor would have more knowledge than a punk rock icon. If you're looking to watch something to help you fall asleep, watch the version with Rollins. If you are enthusiastic about history and want some quick fun facts, watch Eisenbach's version. I stopped watching the show after the 3rd or 4th episode with Rollins because frankly, he makes the show boring and less appealing.

Some of my favorite tidbits of trivia come from the episodes about the OK Corral, the Rat Pack and the episode about Hitler. You might learn a thing or two watching the show, and it's great for students in history class, whether high school or college. Everyone can learn something new, I know I did.

I grew up a fan of Henry Rollins. I remember seeing Black Flag for the first time in Hollywood back in 81. That being said I might be a little partial. Henry is smart,informed, but inquisitive. I think it works, well for me anyway. I loved the Edison VS Tesla episode. I learned so much I did not know. I am pleased that some shows that actually show things about history are coming back. I could care less how much someone pawns a family heirloom for. Teach me stuff I didn't know!

Keep up the good work Henry

Jealous cowards try to control Rise above! We're gonna rise above!

2 episodes in and it's not worth any more time. They take great leaps to reach their conclusions, and their facts fail to line up with history. It's an attempt to generate interest in history by using tabloid tactics of today. When you have programming for multiple different shows, with "experts", historians, scientists, and even professors, and their "facts" are drastically different? You cannot have two different truths, as 1 would be 100% wrong. Studying history the way that I have, the "facts" in this show are comical and generated by Hollywood to gain viewers. 2 episodes in and I won't watch the rest, knowing the false historical content that it contains.

The Host seems nice, but the content is not worth it, it's like exaggerated listverse or similar web page, where they take 10 random facts about something and try to make an interesting show. Just put 5 minutes read into 20+ minutes TV show with a lot of repetition (i guess it's for USA viewers) + add some "random" street folks who has no clue about anything and happens to be really unnaturally surprised. Also most of those facts were told in school and nothing new, but i am from Europe, so maybe we had more advanced history lessons. There are better episodes in Youtube and without repetitions as thinking that viewer is dumb and has extremely short memory span (one of he biggest things i hate in American television)

The most obscure show ever. 7% of people in America don't know that Caligula was an orphan. The percentages don't make sense and they interview the same 20 people. It's an interesting show but the polling perce don't make sense. How would even 1 % of people know FDR has a hem roof. That's how obscure the 10 topics are. I like the show but you can't appoint these percentages as facts. You interview the same questions. I'm just saying you have all different precise and mathematical doesn't make any sense. Are you rounding up? Are you rounding down? Your show just doesn't make sense? Why create great content and ruin it?

54 channels and nothing on. Not exactly (10,054 if you include shopping total crap channels), but you get it. More to the point is the time wasted looking for something remotely appealing then investing some time initially to watch only to have all hopes dashed and valuable time wasted.

With the "optimistic" angle mentioned, I figured it is great to know something surprising about an iconic historical figure which, for some reason, is hardly known.

A good start for my generation seemed the JFK episode. If any of this series should be worth the time this one should. Well, not so much. Watching on Hulu proved totally insulting due to immense number of ads which are likely worse than even when it originally aired on The History Channel. Uh...did someone at Amazon call Hulu and say: "hey, we've been way too kind (i.e. Stupid, you know running a business segment not greedy enough), anyway we're now inserting ads on Amazon Prime video even though our subscribers pay and have been use to free video and we're laughing (even more) to the bank. Perhaps refreshing Hulu on the P. T. Barnum axiom of suckers popping out by the minute was inspiring?

Greed, that's one thing, but O. K., content is king, right? Well of the ten things I didn't know only 2 made the cut. This is stretching things out largely already known to recycle history and repackage it with nary any imagination or reason other than to snare a sucker. I give it a 4 because it's JFK and someone born in the last decade might find some value. I won't be watching the other episodes as the combo of dashed hope and insulting number of adverts really ticks me off. If I can find a platform without annoying ads I might try season 2 as the Henry Rollins might be less BS like his persona?