Tales of the Cold War • 2018 • episode "1/3" • The Spying Game Tales from the Cold War

51:59

This episode counts down from 101 to 89 events that marketed the last century. From the discovery of king tut in the valley of the kings, to the evacuation of Dunkirk

1/8 • 101 Events that Made the 20th Century • 2018 • History

57:59

He shows how discoveries in the 18th and 19th centuries overturned ideas of when and where civilisation began, as empires competed to literally 'own' the past.

2/3 • Archaeology: A Secret History • 2013 • History

58:41

Alastair unpicks the reasons behind the dazzling revolution that gave birth to classical Greek art, asking how the Greeks got so good so quickly. He travels to the beautiful Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, and to the island of Mozia to see the astonishing charioteer found there in 1979, and marvels at the athletic bodies of the warriors dragged from the seabed - the Riace Bronzes. It was a creative explosion that covered architecture, sculpting in marble, casting in bronze, even painting on vases. Perhaps the most powerful factor was also its greatest legacy - a fascination with the naked human body.

2/3 • Treasures of Ancient Greece • 2015 • History

53:31

Cities of the Sky explores the creation of some of the ancient world's largest and most splendid cities. Were people across Native America inspired by celestial phenomenon to build their communities? Answers are revealed in American urban centers that bloomed from the Mexican jungle, a massive multi-cultural city in Central Mexico that is among the largest urban centers in history, and the capital of South America's greatest empire.

3/4 • Native America • 2018 • History

43:24

Presenter Bettany Hughes explores the day in 32BC when Octavian, Julius Caesar's adopted son, stole the secret will of Mark Antony, his most dangerous political rival. The document's release gave Octavian crucial support in the civil war that followed and allowed him to establish himself as Rome's first emperor, Augustus.

4/8 • Eight Days That Made Rome • 2017 • History

43:21

In the final part of the series Bettany Hughes recalls the time that marked Rome's symbolic break with its 1,000-year pagan past - the day in 337AD that Emperor Constantine the Great was baptised a Christian. It was a moment of profound significance not just for the empire, but for the history of the world and one of its major religions. Constantine was one of the last great Roman emperors to rule over a united empire, giving it a new capital - Constantinople, today known as Istanbul - a city which would one day eclipse Rome as the greatest city on Earth.

8/8 • Eight Days That Made Rome • 2017 • History