Neil follows the clans as they rallied behind Robert the Bruce in his against-all-odds bid to win Scotland's crown. After their crucial role in crushing the English at Bannockburn in 1314, Bruce rewarded the loyal chiefs with land and titles. They rise to shape the fate of kingdom in the centuries to come.
Neil follows the clans as they rallied behind Robert the Bruce in his against-all-odds bid to win Scotland's crown. After their crucial role in crushing the English at Bannockburn in 1314, Bruce rewarded the loyal chiefs with land and titles. They rise to shape the fate of kingdom in the centuries to come.
2108 • History
Neil follows the rise of Clan Stewart to become Scotland’s Royal dynasty. It’s the blood soaked tale of a bitter family feud. In a vicious contest, using clan power to plot, manoeuvre and murder their way to power, the story culminates with the dramatic assassination of King James I below a tennis court in Perth, 1437. Neil traces this family feud through clan combat, royal romances and spectacular Renaissance courts to the brutal torture and execution of the last rival Stewart, Walter Atholl, when the king’s widowed Queen Joan wreaks a terrible revenge for his treachery.
2018 • History
Neil reveals how the clans plotted against Mary Stewart, Queen of Scots, ultimately leading to the beheading of the most charismatic queen in Scottish history. The tale turns on a brother's plot to overthrow his sister in a ruthless bid for power. James Stewart, Earl of Moray, uses clan power to first control and then rid Scotland of his sister Mary. As she battles conspiracies, plots and counterplots, Mary is trapped in the cruel and tumultuous world of clan blood feuds. After they murder her husband Lord Darnley and Mary flees into the arms of the Earl of Bothwell, the most ruthless of Scotland's clan chiefs, civil war breaks out. Mary escapes to England, never to return again.
2018 • History
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.
2/3 • The Treasures of Ancient Rome • 2012 • History
Deep in the Bolivian Andes at the height of 13,000ft stands Tiwanaku, the awe-inspiring ruins of a monolithic temple city. Built by a civilisation who dominated a vast swathe of South America, it was abandoned 1,000 years ago. For centuries it has been a mystery - how did a civilisation flourish at such an altitude and why did it vanish? Jago Cooper journeys through Bolivia's spectacular landscape to investigate the origins of Tiwanaku and finds evidence of an ancient people with amazing understanding of their environment, whose religion was based on collective effort and ritual beer drinking.
2/4 • Lost Kingdoms of South America • 2013 • History
Henry Louis Gates Jr. explores the transformative years following the American Civil War, when the nation struggled to rebuild itself in the face of profound loss, massive destruction, and revolutionary social change. The twelve years that composed the post-war Reconstruction era (1865-77) witnessed a seismic shift in the meaning and makeup of our democracy, with millions of former slaves and free black people seeking out their rightful place as equal citizens under the law. Though tragically short-lived, this bold democratic experiment was, in the words of W. E. B. Du Bois, a 'brief moment in the sun' for African Americans, when they could advance and achieve education, exercise their right to vote, and run for and win public office.
2019 • History
The transformation of a political leader of the French to Emperor and global statesman, from a son of the French Revolution to husband of the daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, the most powerful, conservative, monarchist nation on earth. It features the Battle of Austerlitz, one of the greatest military encounters of the 19th century, the rise of a Napoleonic Empire - at its peak numbered over 40 million people - and the supreme meritocracy that was the Napoleonic regime.
Industrialized and processed food has dominated the last century. Now, the question is, what's next? We go around the world to meet pioneers in urban farming, veganism, and insect protein production to find out what will be the future of food.
5/5 • The History of Food • 2018 • History
In Episode Four Watch Manuel Noriega rise through the Panamanian military to become chief of intelligence and then, military dictator. He spied for the United States, but in the end, money laundering, drug trafficking and political crimes led to his downfall.
4/6 • The Dictator's Playbook • 2019 • History
