Connecting the World • 2013 • episode "4/12" • Mankind Decoded

45:32

In year 1459 a book was written which contained images so bizarre that even 500 years later their meaning is still shrouded in mystery. Violent, secretive, and packed full of knowledge, Medieval Fight Book uncovers the real story of Europe in the Middle Ages. Its 150 beautifully illustrated paper folios depicts a unique imagery of bloody, highly sophisticated combat, strange futuristic designs and inventions, ingenious engineering and judicial duels. Its timeworn leather cover bears one simple inscription: Talhoffer. The mysterious fightmaster of the middle ages and the author of the mysterious medieval fight book. Hans Talhoffer's 1459 Fightbook (Fechtbuch) is one of medieval worlds' most mysterious manuscripts, challenging the legends and myths that surrounded this so often misunderstood period of our history. Today, the manuscript is located deep in the vaults of the Danish Royal Library. Using historical recreations, amazing CGI and leading historians, Medieval Fight Book reveals that medieval society was far more sophisticated and peculiar than we realized. Hidden in a dusty library, this obscure and strange manuscript contains unique imagery of bloody but highly sophisticated combat, futuristic designs and inventions, ingenious engineering and judicial duels. Hans Talhoffer's 1459 fightbook is one of the medieval worlds' most mysterious manuscripts, challenging the legends and myths that surrounded this often misunderstood period of our history. In Medieval Fight Book we'll join a documentary film crew and a team of historians as they test out most of the designs and inventions within Talhoffer's book. Will the inventions live up to being usable?

2010 • History

46:04

A mysterious band of pirates plunders the Mediterranean coast – leaving destruction in its wake. Empires fall, but out of the chaos, we discover iron. Armed with this wonder metal, ordinary folk can overthrow tyrants and build a new world order. From the birth of democracy in Athens, to the creation of the Bible in Babylon – people power reshapes Mankind.

2/12 • Mankind: The Story of All of Us • 2012 • History

58:49

Alastair explores the surprising roots of Greek art, beginning his journey in Crete at the palace of Knossos, legendary home of the Minotaur. He travels to Santorini to the 'Greek Pompeii', and finds gold in the fabled stronghold of Mycenae and dazzling remains from Greece's Dark Ages. Alastair discovers the beginnings of a defining spirit in Greek art, embracing mythology, a passion for symmetry, and an obsession with the human body.

S1E1 • Treasures of Ancient Greece • 2015 • History

51:56

By assassinating nearly a third of Europe's workers in some countries, World War 1 reduced the militant mass to silence. But it was above all the repressive measures of the major democracies that, from deportations to executions, dealt a blow to the anarchist movement. In this fertile inter-war period, where capitalism gave birth to its two foul beasts, Stalinism and fascism, more than ever before, anarchism continued to be the only force of resistance for the people, in the face of the totalitarian hydra that was increasingly generalising theft and industrialising death. From Boston to Barcelona, from Tokyo to Paris, anarchism was to lead a struggle on all fronts. It was eventually in Spain, during the course of a war resembling a revolution that the movement finally came within reach of utopia.

S1E3 • No Gods, No Masters: A History of Anarchism • 2016 • History

176:36

[3 episodes] How the invention of writing gave humanity a history. From hieroglyphs to emojis, an exploration of the way in which the technology of writing has shaped the world we live in.

2020 • History

109:30

The South Vietnamese fight on their own, succumbing to terrible losses in Laos. After he is reelected, President Richard Nixon strikes a peace deal with Hanoi that sees the release of American prisoners of war.

S1E9 • The Vietnam War • 2017 • History