Secrets of the Snake Altar • 2019 • episode "S1E1" • Lost Treasures of the Maya

21:45

Mankind is a building species. Inspired by the divine we create monuments to its power (Stonehenge, the Great Pyramid). New challenges create new sciences and when the Romans mixed volcanic ash with water they created a new super-material: concrete.

11/12 • Mankind Decoded • 2013 • History

51:56

Marc Antony and Octavian were part of the triumvirate seeking to avenge Caesar. The two leaders managed to combine their forces to punish Brutus and Cassius, Caesar’s assassins, following the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC. But how would the ambitions of the two men collide as time went on?

Part 1 • The Destiny of Rome: Series 1 • 2011 • History

58:56

Jeremy Paxman continues his personal account of Britain's empire, looking at how the empire began as a pirates' treasure hunt, grew into an informal empire based on trade and developed into a global financial network. He travels from Jamaica, where sugar made plantation owners rich on the backs of African slaves, to Calcutta, where British traders became the new princes of India. Jeremy then heads to Hong Kong, where British-supplied opium threatened to turn the Chinese into a nation of drug addicts - leading to the brutal opium wars, in which Britain triumphed and took the island of Hong Kong as booty. Unfair trading helped spark the independence movement in India, led by Mahatma Gandhi; in a former cotton spinning town in Lancashire, Jeremy meets two women who remember Gandhi's extraordinary visit in 1931.

S1E4 • Empire • 2012 • History

95:00

Academy Award winner Peter Jackson's poignant WWI documentary 'They Shall Not Grow Old' to commemorate the centennial of the end of the first World War. The acclaimed documentary is an extraordinary look at the soldiers and events of the Great War, using film footage captured at the time, now presented as the world has never seen. By utilizing state-of-the-art restoration, colorization and 3D technologies, and pulling from 600 hours of BBC archival interviews, Jackson puts forth an intensely gripping, immersive and authentic experience through the eyes and voices of the British soldiers who lived it. Jackson recorded a special introduction to the film offering his perspective on why the film is important for audiences, who have never experienced WWI footage as anything but grainy black & white, and silent. Jackson opens a window to the past in a way that has never been seen or heard before, noting, "Restoration is a humanizing process."

S1E3 • 2018 • History

45:02

An attack on a small religious community on the holy island of Lindisfarne in AD 793 heralded the start of the Viking Age of conquest and expansion. For 200 years, the longships from Scandinavia threatened all of Europe. But it was far from their first attack. We reveal how the Vikings' reign of terror began in Scandinavia.

S1E1 • Vikings: The Rise and Fall • 2022 • History

52:32

This PBS American Experience documentary chronicles the life of Billy the Kid, the infamous outlaw who became a legend of the Wild West. Through rare photographs, expert interviews, and dramatic reenactments, it explores his rise from a troubled youth to a folk hero pursued by lawmen across New Mexico. The film examines how myth and reality blurred around Billy the Kid, turning him into an enduring symbol of the American frontier.

American Experience • 2012 • History