Reconquest • 2015 • episode "S1E2" • Blood and Gold: The Making of Spain

58:58

Alastair Sooke follows in the footsteps of Rome's mad, bad and dangerous emperors in the second part of his celebration of Roman art. He dons a wetsuit to explore the underwater remains of the Emperor Claudius's pleasure palace and ventures into the cave where Tiberius held wild parties. He finds their taste in art chimes perfectly with their obsession with sex and violence. The other side of the coin was the bombastic art the Romans are best remembered for - monumental arches and columns that boast about their conquests. Trajan's Column in Rome reads like the storyboard of a modern-day propaganda film. Sooke concludes with the remarkable legacy of the Emperor Hadrian. He gave the world the magnificent Pantheon in Rome - the eternal image of his lover Antinous, the most beautiful boy in the history of art - and a villa in Tivoli where he created one of the most ambitious art collections ever created.

S1E2 • Treasures of Ancient Rome • 2012 • History

44:12

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon are known to history as the Knights Templar. They were among the most wealthy and powerful of all of the western military orders and for the 200 hundred years of their existence, were at the forefront of Christian finance. A look at the wealthiest of all the western military orders. Endorsed by the Catholic Church around 1129, these are Templar knights, and this is their story. If any single image epitomises the medieval era in the popular imagination, it is that of the heroic, chivalrous Knight. Clad in shining armour, his story was first told by authors in the 19th century before being carried on by Hollywood. But what are the truths behind the myths and legends? The Crusaders aims to find out.

S1E1 • The Crusaders • 2019 • History

44:18

For decades, scientists believed that humans were forced to wait until the end of the last Ice Age before they could enter the Americas. Evidence suggests that 11,000 years ago they crossed the Bering Land Bridge by foot, into what is now modern-day Alaska. Those peoples were called the Clovis, and their arrival and hunting practices were blamed for the sudden disappearance of many large mammals, from mastodons and woolly mammoths to giant ground sloths and sabre-toothed tigers. In recent years however, tantalizing – but often frustratingly inconclusive – evidence of an earlier human migration into the Americas has begun to emerge. It is an incredible revelation – to think that ancient humans could somehow have managed to get past a sheet of ice four kilometres thick. In this fascinating documentary, Canadian anthropologist and adventurer Niobe Thompson takes us inside the incredible scientific discoveries that are finally unraveling these mysteries

S50E10 • The Nature of Things • 2011 • History

44:17

The Knights of Lazarus were originally founded at a leper hospital around 1098 by the Crusaders of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was established to treat the disease, because the Knights were lepers themselves. Once called "The Hospitallers" The Knights of St John were founded to provide care for the poor, sick or injured pilgrims on their journey to the Holy Land. They evolved into a military order with it's own Papal Charter.

S1E3 • The Crusaders • 2019 • History

44:11

February 24, 1956. During the Soviet Communist Party's twentieth Congress, Khrushchev stuns everyone by denouncing Stalin's crimes. Without denying the ideology, the USSR's new leader seeks to distance himself from his predecessor and open up to the outside world. "Mister K" is full of surprises. He drinks Pepsi with Nixon and insists on spending a day at Disneyland when he visits America... But behind this clown-like character, the "executioner of the Ukraine" hasn't gone soft. In 1956, he didn't hesitate to crush the uprising in Budapest in bloodshed. Now, he is preparing a co-existence with newly elected President Kennedy that will not be all peaceful: construction of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban missile crisis, and not forgetting the aid to Ho Chi Minh in the preparation of his new war for reunification... The Vietnam War is beginning. Kennedy tries to retaliate: in Vietnam, he sends military advisers to train the army of the south. And in Berlin, on June 26, 1963, he gave the famous speech of hope, declaring in front of an excited crowd: "Ich bin ein Berliner".

S1E5 • Apocalypse: War of Worlds 1945-1991 • 2019 • History

101:57

This program contends that the popular perception of the Muslim occupation of Spain toward the end of the first millennium is largely wrong. The eighth century Muslim invasion of the Iberian Pennisula was largely welcomed by the locals and rejuvenated the area with advanced technology, agriculture and a construction boom. This program describes these innovations. All this changed in the eleventh century when the regional government fragmented. That set the stage for the Christian invasion and the Islamic fundamentalist resistance leading to more of a civil war than a holy war that decimated the region with corruption, destruction and exile.

2005 • History