Poisoning the Soil • 2024 • episode "S1E2" • Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War

53:20

More than 2,000 years after he conquered the known world, Alexander the Great continues to fascinate. Alexander the Great, a man of extremes and contradictions. A film about one of the most extraordinary military leaders of all time and who this man really was. Discover the astonishing truth in Beyond the Movie Alexander the Great. At the age of 30, he already ruled one of the most powerful empires in the world. It stretched from the olive groves of Greece to the magnificent palaces of India. Alexander brought East and West closer together for the first time and changed the ancient world forever. He was very wise and intelligent, but also a murderer. What personal demons fueled Alexander's unquenchable thirst for danger, fame and conquest. Who was this man of extremes and contradictions really? This National Geographic film attempts to unravel the myth and provides fascinating insights into the world of one of history's greatest military leaders. Impressive reconstructions and the detailed perspectives of scientists and experts reveal the secrets and myths surrounding the real Alexander. Discover how tactical battlefield savvy and reckless bravado made Alexander the most formidable warrior-leader of all time. Learn why his ferociously loyal men venerated Alexander, then finally, some say, conspired in his still controversial death. Brought stunningly to life with powerful re-creations and in-depth academic insights , it's a journey behind the mists and myths of history that reveals the real Alexander the Great as never before!

2004 • History

59:50

The 'Barbarians' are often blamed for the collapse of the Roman Empire, but in reality they were fascinating civilisations that produced magnificent art. Focusing on the Huns, Vandals and Goths, Waldemar follows each tribe's journey across Europe and discovers the incredible art they produced along the way.

Part 2 • The Dark Ages: An Age of Light • 2012 • History

59:04

Alastair Sooke charts the decline and fall of the Roman Empire through some of its hidden and most magical artistic treasures. He travels to Leptis Magna in Libya, shortly after the overthrow of Gaddafi, and finds one of the best preserved Roman cities in the world and the cradle of later Roman art. Sooke discovers glorious mosaics which have never been filmed before but also finds evidence of shocking neglect of Libya's Roman heritage by the Gaddafi regime. His artistic tour takes him to Egypt and the northern frontiers of the empire where he encounters stunning mummy paintings and exquisite silver and glassware. As Rome careered from one crisis to another, official art became more hard boiled and militaristic and an obscure cult called Christianity rose up to seize the mantle of Western art for centuries to come.

S1E3 • Treasures of Ancient Rome • 2012 • History

58:53

We visit ancient cities and battlefields, great ruins and wild countryside, all in his search to uncover how the ancient Greeks thought and lived. What he finds is that ancient Greece was a seething tornado of strange, unsettling and downright outrageous customs and beliefs, inhabited by a people who could be as brutal as they were brilliant.

S1E1 • Who Were the Greeks? • 2013 • History

55:25

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.

Part 2 • First Peoples • 2015 • History

50:33

Hitler personally arranges for a euthanasia program, underestimating the resistance of the Church. The killing of the mentally ill has to be slowed down, but the extinction of Jews is expanded to an industrial scale. Russian prisoners of war are murdered directly, abused, or left to starve. Most Germans know of these crimes even if they refuse to acknowledge them.

11/13 • The Hitler Chronicles • 2018 • History