The first half of the 20th century was a truly incredible time for scientific discovery. Roman Kroitor and Colin Low’s immense 1960 documentary, Universe, is a beautifully captured snapshot of what we knew about the Solar system at that time. That we were able to glean about the Universe well before we were able to send spacecraft out to explore it, is just remarkable.

You can watch the documentary in all its splendour at the National Film Board of Canada.

Another remarkable piece of science recording history is the The Very Best of the Feynman Lectures. There are some real gems within this set, and some challenging ideas, but not too challenging… well, mostly.

It loses a little in translation to audio. Microsoft has recently posted some classic Feynman lectures at Project Tuva. And there are some more recent videos at The Vega Science Trust.