Nation • 2015 • episode "S1E3" • Blood and Gold: The Making of Spain

90:13

Historical documentary featuring colourised archive footage charting the First World War's aftermath in Europe and beyond once celebrations marking the end of hostilities had ceased. Ch1. Vengeance Traumatised by combat, demobilised soldiers return home to the four corners of a war-shattered world. At the Palace of Versailles, the victors draw the borders of new nations, created through strife. Ch2. Return to Hell Nations try to rebuild, but the USA withdraws into isolation, the threat of communism frightens European democracies and populist movements spring up, determined to impose their totalitarian ideology.

2019 • History

58:45

Historian Michael Scott begins his journey through Sicily on the slopes of Mount Etna, Europe's largest active volcano. For the ancient Greeks, the island was a land of gods and monsters - a dangerous and unpredictable world. Michael discovers how 3,000 years ago, the Greeks began to settle on Sicily's east coast - planting their olives and vines and building great city states that soon came to rival even Athens itself. He learns how great battles were fought between the Greeks and the Carthaginians for control of the island. How the Romans made it their first foreign colony and stripped Sicily of its forests to plant vast fields of grain.

S1E1 • Sicily: The Wonder of the Mediterranean • 2017 • History

59:00

By 1800 the East India Company had grown from a tiny band of merchants into a colossal trading empire. But scandal and corruption in the 18th century had led to a curtailment of its powers by the British government. The state now controlled the company's affairs in India and, throughout the 19th century, would chip away at its remaining powers and trading privileges. The company was transformed from a trading enterprise into the rulers of India, and governed vast swathes of the subcontinent on behalf of the British Crown. Its territory expanded enormously and an empire was born. As the company traded opium to a reluctant Chinese Empire, in India a dangerous chasm opened up between the British rulers and the Indian people. Alienated and disaffected, significant numbers of the company's massive army of Indian soldiers finally revolted and the Company's handling of the mutiny was its final undoing. In 1858 British India passed into Queen Victoria's hands and the Raj was born.

S1E2 • The Birth of Empire: The East India Company • 2014 • History

46:59

The story of Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, of Rommel's war against the British in North Africa and of the horrors of the murder of Russian Jews - sometimes known as the Holocaust by Bullets.

S1E3 • Apocalypse: The Second World War • 2009 • History

51:27

By July 1943, the full extent of Hitler's failed gamble in the East had become clear. After failing to deliver knock-out blows at Stalingrad and Moscow, his army was now at the mercy of the vast Soviet war machine. With its huge resources and seemingly limitless numbers of men, the Red Army slowly pushed the Germans back out of Russia through Ukraine, Poland, the Balkans and Hungary. This was war on a monster scale, pitching armies of millions against each other. But it was also a war fought by small bands of partisans, men like Tito in Yugoslavia, leading guerrilla bands against Nazi forces.

8/13 • World War II In HD Colour • 2009 • History

22:00

When ordinary people desire the luxuries of the rich, ingenuity and innovation come together to take history in a new direction. From the obsession with silk to the fall of Constantinople, our desire for luxury has shaped our history and evolution.

2/12 • Mankind Decoded • 2013 • History