Spark of Civilization • 2017 • episode "S1E1" • Origins: The Journey of Humankind

44:13

In episode two we explore the Ottoman Empire’s Golden Age and chart the height of its expansion into Europe, climaxing with the 1683 siege of Vienna. The episode opens in Istanbul where Presenter Julian Davison explores the reign of the Empire’s most successful Sultan, Sulieman the Magnificent. A sophisticated ruler, Sulieman not only encouraged artistic and architectural achievement but helped to organise and unify the wide range of cultures and religions across his growing empire.

S1E2 • Ottomans Versus Christians: Battle for Europe • 2016 • History

26:01

The Story of the Escadrille Lafayette Well before their country entered the Great War a number of adventurous Americans volunteered to fight for the British and French. Among them were a number of pilots, and in early 1916 they were formed into a special French fighter squadron, which fought with great distinction on the Western Front. Amazing aerial footage shows WW1 dog-fights as they really were. If the Wright brothers' 1903 flights in Kitty Hawk marked the birth of aviation, World War I can be called its violent adolescence—a brief but bloody era that completely changed the way planes were designed, fabricated, and flown. France's Yankee Fliers tells the story of the men who were at the forefront of that revolution: the daredevil Americans of the Lafayette Escadrille, who flew in French planes, wore French uniforms, and showed the world an American brand of heroism before the United States entered the Great War.

14/20 • The True Action Adventures of the Twentieth Century • 1996 • History

21:52

Man uses plants to feed, heal and clothe himself, to build his world and even to alter how he feels. The use of plants like corn, tobacco and cotton become such an important part of our lives that they play a central role in our evolution.

6/12 • Mankind Decoded • 2013 • History

51:27

The series starts with that great paradox. How could the settlement at the end of World War One - the 'war to end all wars' - lead to an even greater conflict just a few years later ? The answer is a tale with terrible resonancy today. This film shows how the Great Depression sapped the will of the democracies of the West to face up to a new and disturbing political phenomenon - the rise of militaristic dictators, in Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain. The result was that the major powers ignored all the warning signs and allowed the likes of Mussolini and above all Hitler to begin the course that would lead the world into catastrophe. The programme ends as Hitler plots his attack upon Poland.

1/13 • World War II In HD Colour • 2009 • History

177:37

Ch1. Barbarossa Focuses on the Eastern Front during the Second World War, which many see as the defining arena of the conflict. In the autumn of 1940, Adolf Hitler has to decide what to do about the Soviet Union and its leader Joseph Stalin. He offers to carve up the post-war world in exchange for his fellow dictator's support in the war against Britain, but is actually preparing an attack on the USSR. Ch2. Stalingrad In January 1942 the German army loses the battle for Moscow and a furious Hitler sacks or side-lines his top generals and appoints himself commander-in-Chief of the army. He decides on a bold new plan, focusing his forces on seizing the Soviets oil fields and stealing the fuel from the Red Army to supply his own. Stalin unveils his own plan to drive the Germans out of the Soviet Union by launching a huge offensive from Leningrad to the Black Sea. Zhukov warns him that the Red Army is in no shape to attack, but Stalin banishes the former chief of the general staff to the front and takes control. Ch3. The Home Front Hitler retreats from public life as he faces defeat on the Eastern Front after the Red Army's triumph at Stalingrad, with senior Nazis competing to prove themselves as his most valuable deputy, and each has a different strategy. Meanwhile, student resistance group the White Rose call on the youth of Germany to rise up and overthrow Hitler and the Nazi party, and Claus von Stauffenberg is part of a military resistance network who are planning to kill Hitler.

S2 • Rise of the Nazis • 2019 • History

44:01

A look at the decisive final months of the Second World War, from the American attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the race to reach Berlin.

S1E6 • World War II: Race to Victory • 2020 • History