Through public relations spin, revisionist history and censorship. Soviet autocrat Joseph Stalin found a certain flexibility with the truth useful.
Interested in becoming a tyrant? There are rules, and the playbook for a rise to dictatorship starts with one of history's most brutal: Adolf Hitler.
2021 • History
You've secured your place at the top, but maintaining power means watching your back. Nobody did that better or more ruthlessly than Saddam Hussein.
2021 • History
When keeping your population under control, is it better to be loved or feared? Idi Amin certainly thought he knew the right answer to that question.
2021 • History
Through public relations spin, revisionist history and censorship. Soviet autocrat Joseph Stalin found a certain flexibility with the truth useful.
2021 • History
Free speech? Right to assembly? Rebel-turned-dictator Muammar Gaddafi realized that civil liberties had to go when reshaping society. But he got soft.
2021 • History
Seizing power is hard, but keeping it is harder. In North Korea, the Kim dynasty unlocked the secret to ruling forever: They declared themselves gods.
2021 • History
Get the inside track on five of the greatest heists in history. These are not petty robberies, but high-stakes operations meticulously planned and audaciously executed, with a cast of colorful characters from the mastermind to the snitch. Find out who gets away with the loot, and who doesn't.
S1E4 • History By The Numbers • 2021 • History
Mehmed's men dig underground tunnels in an attempt to shatter city walls. The tides turn against the Ottomans when a naval blockade founders.
S1E3 • Rise of Empires: Ottoman • 2020 • History
Professor Mary Beard broaches the controversial, sometimes dangerous, topic of religion and art. For millennia, art has inspired religion as much as religion has inspired art.
4/10 • Civilisations • 2018 • History
Fighting an implacable enemy in Germania, Marcus Aurelius trains his decadent son Commodus to succeed him, while rumor and intrigues brew back in Rome.
S1E1 • Roman Empire • 2016 • History
Imprisoned and his followers scattered, Hitler in 1923 seems to be finished, until he and Rudolf Hess devise a new strategy and a new path to power
2/10 • Hitler's Circle of Evil • 2017 • History
How the Atlantic was conquered by air ranging from the pioneering epic of Lt Cdr Read USN in his Curtis flying boat and Alcock and Brown in their converted Vickers Vimy bomber in 1919, to Charles Lindbergh's epic solo crossing of 1927 and the record speed flights, including Concorde. Once man had conquered the power of flight, his next goal was to find a way to cross the Atlantic. The pioneer was Lt Commander Read of the US Navy who crossed the North Atlantic in a Curtiss NC-4 flying boat. In 1919 he was followed by Alcock and Brown in their converted Vickers Vimy bomber; and a few years later Charles Lindbergh made his epic solo flight across the Atlantic. In the following years the record breaking attempts were aimed at speed with Concorde's breaking of the sound barrier.
1/20 • The True Action Adventures of the Twentieth Century • 1996 • History