If you only know conservationist Peter Brown from his appearance on Whale Wars, you only know a sliver of his story.

The bigger picture is contained in Brown’s documentary, Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist, which compiles three decades of the director’s exploits with Capt. Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the marine activist group made famous by the Animal Planet show.

“I’ve been here long before Whale Wars and all these other people who are jumping in because they think it makes great TV,” Brown says in the Wired.com video above. “After they’re gone, I’ll still be there do...

1916: The tank makes its debut as a battlefield weapon, attacking the Germans as part of a British assault near Bois d’Elville, or Delville Wood, on the Western Front.

The crude, 14-ton monster that breasted the German trenches that day was the culmination of an idea 145 years in the making.

The concept of an armored assault vehicle dated back to 1770, with the first appearance of the caterpillar track. A precursor of the modern tank — a steam-powered tractor — was actually used by the British army during the Crimean War. Only a few of these vehicles were built, though, and they carried no off...