Conquest & Collapse • 2016 • episode "S1E3" • Bronze Age

45:05

Hendrik Poinar is a bit of a mystery man – as in, he likes to solve them. And he’s part time traveller – as in, he likes to dig up the past. Think Doctor Who meets Indiana Jones. Poinar is an evolutionary biologist - which means he studies the nature of how we humans got here and where we’re going. He happily admits his childhood dream was to travel the world and travel back in time. “No-one imagines that there’s actually something still hidden within a bone that’s been buried for a few thousand years or 100,000 years, let alone the possibility of resurrecting it or bringing it back to life,” says Poinar. “I mean, that’s sort of completely bizarre. It’s like a time machine, yeah, it’s a kid’s dream.” Secrets in the Bones follows Poinar on an epic journey to Italy, Germany, Britain, and across the Unites States. His mission: solve one of the greatest mysteries of science, a mystery that has eluded researchers for more than six centuries: unlock the secrets of the fourteenth century killer disease that caused the Black Death and wiped out more than 50 million people.

S53E12 • The Nature of Things • 2014 • History

59:30

Simon Sebag Montefiore charts the rocky course of Rome's rise to become the capital of western Christendom and its impact on the lives of its citizens, elites and high priests. Rome casts aside its pantheon of pagan gods and a radical new religion takes hold. Christianity was just a persecuted sect until Emperor Constantine took a huge leap of faith, promoting it as the religion of Empire. But would this divine gamble pay off?

S1E2 • Rome: A History of the Eternal City • 2012 • History

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

58:22

Archaeologist and historian Richard Miles explores the roots of one of the most profound innovations in the human story - civilisation - in the first episode of an epic series that runs from the creation of the first cities in Mesopotamia some 6,000 years ago, to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Starting in Uruk, the 'mother of all cities', in southern Iraq, Richard travels to Syria, Egypt, Anatolia and Greece, tracing the birth and development of technology and culture.

S1E1 • Ancient Worlds • 2010 • History

44:38

How the First World War transformed life on the home front, from a greater number of women in the workplace to increased government interference in everyday life.

S01E04 • The Great War in Numbers • 2017 • History

67:28

For the last 35 years, they have been exploring the most mythical wreck in the world, but now 108 years after it sank, the Titanic is under threat. Resting at over 12,500 feet below sea level and 380 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland, in pitch darkness, the most famous shipwreck in the world is being consumed by a colony of iron-eating bacteria. This slow and irreversible decay, according to the most concerned experts, will sweep away all the secrets of the mythic liner within a few decades.

2021 • History