Every factual claim in MDK Archive documentaries is sourced to primary documents, peer-reviewed scholarship, authoritative reference works, major news organizations, or credentialed research institutions. No Wikipedia. No shortcuts.
A standalone documentary by MDK Archive, with bridging continuity to The Iran Conflict — Episode 1.
Citation format: Chicago Manual of Style (Notes-Bibliography), the standard format for historical and documentary scholarship.
Sourcing standard: Primary documents, peer-reviewed academic works, authoritative reference works, major news organizations, and credentialed research institutions. No Wikipedia.
Statement on Sourcing. This documentary is independently produced and rigorously fact-checked. Every factual claim in this video has been verified against a primary government document, peer-reviewed academic work, authoritative reference, major news organization, or credentialed research institution. Internal source-check workflow logged 11 narration revisions, 3 on-screen attribution refinements, 1 source replacement, and 1 cut prior to release.
If you believe any claim in this video is inaccurate, please contact us with the specific claim and your source. We take factual accuracy seriously and will issue public corrections when warranted.
Image credits follow the Wikimedia Commons TASL (Title, Author, Source, License) standard, organized by license type. A separate Public Domain subsection is reserved for government imagery and other public-domain works. Where any image has been modified for use in this documentary (cropped, color-graded, etc.), the modification is indicated as required by the underlying license.
Some images used in MDK Archive documentaries are licensed under CC BY-SA (ShareAlike) variants. The ShareAlike condition means that if any of these images are modified significantly, the derivative work must be released under the same or a compatible license. For incidental use within a documentary (where the image is shown within a larger original work), standard industry practice is that the documentary film itself is not required to be relicensed — only the individual modified image would be, if redistributed separately. Attribution alone satisfies the ShareAlike condition in this use case.
Archival footage incorporated under fair use of US copyright law (17 U.S.C. § 107) for purposes of commentary, criticism, and historical reference will be credited here, alongside any public-domain government footage (Title 17 U.S.C. § 105). The C-SPAN clip cited above [11] is the only confirmed archival video at script lock; additional footage credits will be appended as production finalizes.
Last updated: May 7, 2026.
From the series The Iran Conflict: How Did We Get Here?
Citation format: Chicago Manual of Style (Notes-Bibliography), the standard format for historical and documentary scholarship.
Sourcing standard: Primary documents, peer-reviewed academic works, authoritative reference works, major news organizations, and credentialed research institutions. No Wikipedia.
Statement on Sourcing. This documentary is independently produced and rigorously fact-checked. Every factual claim in this episode has been verified against a primary document, peer-reviewed academic work, authoritative reference, major news organization, or credentialed research institution.
If you believe any claim in this video is inaccurate, please contact us with the specific claim and your source. We take factual accuracy seriously and will issue public corrections when warranted.
All archival and contemporary photographs used in this episode are sourced from Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licenses, with one additional image from NASA (public domain). Creators are credited below per the terms of each license (Title, Author, Source, License — "TASL"). AI-generated imagery and Pexels imagery used elsewhere in production do not require attribution under their respective licenses.
Several of the images above are licensed under CC BY-SA (ShareAlike) variants. The ShareAlike condition means that if any of these images are modified significantly, the derivative work must be released under the same or a compatible license. For incidental use within this documentary (where the image is shown within a larger original work), standard industry practice is that the documentary film itself is not required to be relicensed — only the individual modified image would be, if redistributed separately. Attribution alone satisfies the ShareAlike condition in this use case.
News footage used in this episode is incorporated under the fair use doctrine of US copyright law (17 U.S.C. § 107) for purposes of commentary, criticism, and historical reference. All clips are brief excerpts (approximately 3–8 seconds each), with original audio muted and replaced by the documentary's own narration and score. Full credit to original sources is provided below.
Last updated: April 28, 2026.