The Wild West • 2022 • episode "S1E5" • Vikings: The Rise and Fall

46:04

Gold from Africa kick-starts the rebirth of Europe. Money flows into Venice – creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs willing to take risks. In China, a new weapon – the gun – allows a peasant uprising to unify the country. Chinese innovations inspire Europe – leading to the printing press. Millions of books are printed. One of them will inspire a journey to the New World. America beckons.

6/12 • Mankind: The Story of All of Us • 2012 • History

29:45

13th Century: After a unique triumph, Islam became the religion of many peoples - from Spain to Indonesia. But there was no Islamic empire, just as there was no Christian empire. Middle Ages meant: small states, wars of princes and tribes against each other. This episode covers the spreading of Islamic and Arabic culture, which was based on the use of military slaves: children of non-Muslim Turkic peoples were trained to become Islamic elite warriors. Their military triumph not only spread war and the new faith, but also advanced culture: medicine, art, architecture, astronomy - a unique blossoming of knowledge, culture and intellectual freedom penetrated as far as Spain. The real threat to Allah's earthly kingdom came not from Europe, but from the steppes of Asia. The Mongols attacked their enemies ruthlessly, devastatingly and invincible. In 1258 AD, Baghdad, the center of Islamic civilization, fell into their hands. Military conflict accompanied the spread of Islam during the Middle Ages. This program reveals the ironies of that union between war and faith: how Islam was adopted rather than marginalized by invading Mongols; how the rise of strict Islamic orthodoxy countered the scholarly advances of Arabic culture, weakening the empire; and how European appreciation of Islamic culture grew after the Christian 'Reconquista' of the Iberian peninsula. Interviews with respected scholars—including Drs. Raif Georges Khoury of the University of Heidelberg and Patrick Franke of Martin Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg—illuminate key developments in Islam's Mediterranean dominance.

S1E3 • The Holy Wars: War and Religion • 2004 • History

44:13

In the name of religious tolerance, Catherine de Medici weds her Catholic daughter, Margaret of Valois, to the young Protestant heir of the Bourbon dynasty, Henry of Navarre. Protestants and Catholics are both in attendance. This event leads to the most infamous bloodbath in France's history.

S2E4 • The Real War of Thrones: The True History of Europe • 2018 • History

45:03

Commodus defeats his sister's coup but withdraws from governing, allowing others to amass power while he engages in an affair and banishes his wife.

S1E4 • Roman Empire • 2016 • History

45:55

Color footage of America in the 1940s gives a rare look at the decade's most significant moments, including Nazi sympathisers in World War Two, Pearl Harbor, the Manhattan Project and the rise of post-war prosperity.

S1E3 • America in Colour • 2017 • History

42:31

Caesar implements important reforms and grows more powerful and popular in Rome. He acts like a king and plans to become a dictator in perpetuity. To demonstrate his power, he plans to conquer Parthia. However, the Senate and Brutus in particular, are outraged.

S2E5 • Roman Empire • 2018 • History