When Homo sapiens arrived in Australia, they were, for the first time, truly alone, surrounded by wildly different flora and fauna. How did they survive and populate a continent? There is a close cultural and genetic link between the First Australians and modern-day Aborigines. The ancient and modern story intersect here as nowhere else in the world. The secret to this continuity is diversity. Intuitively, they found the right balance between being separate and connected.
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As early humans spread out across the world, their toughest challenge was colonizing the Americas — because a huge ice sheet blocked the route. It has long been thought that the pioneers, known as Clovis people, arrived about 13,000 years ago, but an underwater discovery in Mexico suggests people arrived earlier than previously thought — and by boat, not on foot. How closely related were these First Americans to today’s Native Americans? It’s a controversial matter, focused on Kennewick Man. Few other skeletons engender such strong feelings.
2015 • History
Around 200,000 years ago, a new species, Homo sapiens, appeared on the African landscape. While scientists have imagined eastern Africa as a real-life Garden of Eden, the latest research suggests humans evolved in many places across the continent at the same time. DNA from a 19th-century African-American slave is forcing geneticists to re-think the origins of our species. The theory is that our ancestors met, mated and hybridized with other human types in Africa — creating ever greater diversity within our species.
2015 • History
What happened when early humans ventured out of Africa and into Asia? Where did they go and whom did they meet along the way? The latest evidence suggests they left far earlier than previously thought and interbred with other types of ancient human - Homo erectus, Neanderthals and also the Denisovans, whose existence was established only five years ago when geneticists extracted DNA from a tiny fragment of finger bone. Because these ancient humans mated with our ancestors, their genes have found a home in our DNA. More than that, they’ve helped us survive and thrive.
2015 • History
When Homo sapiens arrived in Australia, they were, for the first time, truly alone, surrounded by wildly different flora and fauna. How did they survive and populate a continent? There is a close cultural and genetic link between the First Australians and modern-day Aborigines. The ancient and modern story intersect here as nowhere else in the world. The secret to this continuity is diversity. Intuitively, they found the right balance between being separate and connected.
2015 • History
When Homo sapiens turned up in prehistoric Europe, they ran into the Neanderthals. The two types of human were similar enough to interbreed — and both created artifacts of similar complexity. But as more and more Homo sapiens moved into Europe, the balance of power shifted. Neanderthals were overwhelmed. Ever since, we’ve had Europe and the rest of the world to ourselves.
2015 • History
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
In France, Henry III still has no heir. Catherine de Medici is determined to prevent him from being the last of the Valois line and leaving the throne to Henry of Navarre. Yet again, the wind of revolt blows over the kingdom of France and leads to the assassination of Henry, Duke of Guise.
S2E6 • The Real War of Thrones: The True History of Europe • 2018 • History
This is one of the last and greatest untold stories of the Second World War, revealed by the last surviving Chief of State, King Michael I of Romania. “We took the train to Berlin to see the other side of the coin and we had lunch with Hitler. It wasn’t an enjoyable meeting.” It is the story of a King’s decision who, in a critical moment of the Second World War, relinquished Germany’s support, guiding Romania towards the Allies, thus bringing about a quicker end to the war. It is a story of palatial intrigues. And a story of deceptions. From Buckingham Palace to Bucharest. From Moscow to Washington. Lost diplomatic signals, aristocrat spies and blackmail at gun point. And the courage of a young king who dared. Romania, at the outbreak of the Second World War, was a very young nation, with an age of only 20 years.
2017 • History
Also known by the acronym SS, the Schutzstaffel organization was a privileged instrument within the German state. Created in April 1925 to ensure the close protection of Adolf Hitler, it became over the years a real state within a state, organizing the extermination of the Jews of Europe, but also assuming political functions, repressive, ideological and even military with the creation of the Waffen-SS. This documentary looks back on its origins and its workings. Nuremberg. In 1945 the main war criminals were tried in this city where Hitler gathered fanatical crowds. The Allies judge Nazi leaders and officials of the Third Reich. Among the defendants - the Fuhrer's closest collaborators.
2019 • History
Between 1950 and 1953, more than 24 nations sent troops to Korea as the opposing ambitions and ideologies of the emerging Cold War superpowers - China, Russia and the USA - fought for supremacy on the peninsula. With first-hand testimony and new historical material, Korea: The Never Ending War retraces the history of a conflict that resulted in millions of deaths, brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, and continues to shape history to this day. The 1953 armistice brought a fragile peace to the Korean Peninsula, but the war has never officially ended and deep divisions - and the threat of nuclear conflict - remain.
2019 • History
The personalities behind the creation of the world's first atomic bomb were as extraordinary, and often as explosive, as the science they were working in. This is the inside-the-barbed-wire story of the men and women who worked on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. Through first-hand accounts and never-before-seen interviews, this documentary looks inside the atomic insiders' hearts and minds, their triumphs and failures, their bravery in the face of paralyzing fear and, ultimately, their war-winning and world-changing accomplishments.
2015 • History