Alexander Leith

The greatest art works of all time - born of war and bloodshed - as rival artists Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael compete to craft beauty from chaos. Starring Charles Dance.

He came. He saw. He conquered. The tale of an ambitious power-grab that turned to tyranny. How Julius Caesar dismantled five centuries of ancient Roman democracy in just 16 years.

Four mighty civilisations - Rome, Egypt, Japan's Samurai and the Aztecs. Their legends remain - now priceless artefacts reveal what led them to fall into the echoes of history.

Dominic Sandbrook takes a fresh look at a dynamic decade. 1980s Britain changed in everything from politics and sport to fashion and popular culture.

From the sweaty basement bars of 70s New York to the glittering peak of the global charts, how disco conquered the world - its origins, its triumphs, its fall and its legacy.

This three-part limited series that traces the rise and fall of maverick scientist and explorer Tommy Thompson — from his life-changing discovery of the wreck of the S.S. Central America to the turmoil that led to his prison sentence.

From the basement bars of 70s New York to the peak of the global charts, this is the story of how disco conquered the world: its origins, its triumphs, its fall and its legacy.

Documentary series in which art historian James Fox explores how the power of images has transformed the modern world.

More than two decades after it left our screens, BBC Two’s iconic and much-loved music documentary series, Rock Family Trees, is back for a one-off special. The iconic music documentary series returns to examine the real story behind the birth of Britpop and how a handful of like-minded musicians, struggling to find an authentic voice, would pave the way for a revolution in British music. It is an intricately connected story of three of the biggest bands of the 1990s – Suede, Elastica and Blur – and how, for a brief moment in the middle of that decade, they changed British music forever, kickstarting a movement that still reverberates to this day.

This documentary reveals the surprising and overlooked history of Pride: its origins, its struggles and its triumphs. Made in creative and editorial collaboration with acclaimed filmmaker Stephen Daldry and playwright Joe Robertson, it tells the story of Pride primarily through first-person testimony and archive footage.

Mary Beard is on a mission to uncover the real Julius Caesar, and to challenge public perception, exploring Caesar's surprising legacy.

Historian David Starkey tells the story of the Protestant Reformation and how it transformed the face of modern Europe, unleashing fundamentalism, terror and religious violence.

Ludwig II of Bavaria, more commonly known by his nicknames the Swan King or the Dream King, is a legendary figure - the handsome boy-king, loved by his people, betrayed by his cabinet and found dead in tragic and mysterious circumstances. He spent his life in pursuit of the ideal of beauty, an ideal that found expression in three of the most extraordinary, ornate architectural schemes imaginable - the castle of Neuschwanstein and the palaces of Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee. Today, these three buildings are among Germany's biggest tourist attractions. Dan Cruickshank explores the rich aesthetic of Ludwig II - from the mock-medievalism of Neuschwanstein, the iconic fairytale castle that became the inspiration for the one in Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty, to the rich Baroque splendour of Herrenchiemsee, Ludwig's answer to Versailles. Dan argues that Ludwig's castles are more than flamboyant kitsch and are, in fact, the key to unravelling the eternal enigma of Ludwig II.