New Year's Eve on the HISTORY Channel: Documentary highlights with Costner & Trejo!

New Year's Eve on the HISTORY Channel: Documentary highlights with Costner & Trejo!

On December 31, 2025, the HISTORY Channel will present an exciting New Year's Eve program with documentaries that address significant historical topics. The series, which begins at 8:00 a.m. with the episode of the short film series “On the Trail of History,” is moderated by Niklas Marian Müller. The documentary “Jim Thorpe – The Forgotten Champion” follows at 2:15 p.m., before the two-part documentary “Sitting Bull,” directed by Leonardo DiCaprio and starring Michael Spears, is broadcast at 3:45 p.m. Starting at 6:45 p.m., the channel will show the documentary series “Kevin Costner’s The West,” which offers new perspectives on the impressive history of the American West. At 8:15 p.m. the documentary series “Incredible Discoveries with Danny Trejo” rounds off the program, with eight episodes providing information about important historical finds and secrets. Further details are available on the HISTORY Channel website.

A central highlight of “Kevin Costner’s The West” is its examination of relevant themes such as land, power and identity in the history of the United States. These reflections are complemented by the documentary Sitting Bull, which explores the life of the Lakota Sioux leader, including pivotal events in Indigenous history such as the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The upcoming “Mystery January” will be ceremoniously opened on January 2nd, 2026 and offers numerous new documentaries about unusual phenomena and mysterious places.

Documentary highlights and top-class cast

The HISTORY Channel focuses on first-class entertainment with over 300 hours of programming during the theme month. Viewers can look forward to new episodes of well-known formats such as “Ancient Aliens”, “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch”, “History’s Greatest Mysteries” and “The UnXplained”. High-profile names such as William Shatner, Danny Trejo and Laurence Fishburne are part of this ambitious program and bring additional interest to the content.

Context to the settlement of America

In the context of North American history, the Arte documentary “In the Footsteps of the First Americans” is also noteworthy. This sheds light on the settlement of the continent, which, according to a reference book by Laurent Testot, began as early as 11,000 BC. C.E. is said to have taken place as far as Patagonia. A significant archaeological find are human footprints discovered in White Sands National Park in New Mexico alongside mammoth prints and dated to up to 23,000 years old. These finds date from a time when the ice sheets in the north made it impossible for people to arrive in America. The documentary presents these discoveries as a science thriller and highlights the importance of indigenous peoples and their oral traditions, suggesting that colonization may have occurred differently than previously thought.

For further information about the HISTORY Channel's programs and documentaries and more, please visit their official website or the links to the respective documentaries.

HISTORY Channels New Year's Eve program
Information about the documentary
Arte documentation on the settlement of America