Theodore Strauss

A breathtaking trip down Earth's longest river reveals its fabled past and complex, challenging present. Wild hippopotami, the mysteries of the deadly tsetse fly, the ancient Dinka and Shilluk African tribes and the Sudd- a swamp as large as England - are among the natural wonders encountered along the trek from Uganda to Khartoum to Egypt, before concluding at the manmade wonders of the Nile, the Jonglei Canal and the Aswan High Dam.

During a 9-month trip, the Cousteau team will explore the longest river on the planet: the Nile. It flows north to the Mediterranean, crosses half a continent and over 7000 years of history. On its shores, civilizations have built marvels of architecture. Kingdoms rose and then fell, each person's destiny still intimately linked to that of the river... without anyone having mastered it. The Calypso team studies life around the Nile, which has remained almost unchanged since the time of the pharaohs.

For 70 years, the sudden sinking of the mighty British ship Britannic - larger than the sister ship Titanic - has been shrouded in mystery. Jacques Cousteau reveals the full story of November 21, 1916 when, on her sixth journey as a hospital ship, Britannic exploded and sank into the Aegean Sea.

The Jacques Cousteau Odyssey includes all 12 episodes of the 1978 television series featuring the research adventures of Cousteau, a celebrated documentarian and public conscience of mankind's stewardship of our oceans. Alongside his son Philippe Cousteau, Jacques's adventures begin with an ambitious expedition (on Cousteau's famous Calypso ship and a seaplane called the Catalina) following the course of the Nile River from Central Africa to the Mediterranean.