Mike Ibeji

Stretching from the Stone Age to the year 2000, Simon Schama's Complete History of Britain does not pretend to be a definitive chronicle of the turbulent events which buffeted and shaped the British Isles. What Schama does do, however, is tell the story in vivid and gripping narrative terms, free of the fustiness of traditional academe, personalising key historical events by examining the major characters at the centre of them. Not all historians would approve of the history depicted here as shaped principally by the actions of great men and women rather than by more abstract developments, but Schama's way of telling it is a good deal more enthralling as a result. Schama successfully gives lie to the idea that the history of Britain has been moderate and temperate, passing down the generations as stately as a galleon, taking on board sensible ideas but steering clear of sillier, revolutionary ones. Nonsense. Schama retells British history the way it was--as bloody, convulsive, precarious, hot-blooded and several times within an inch of haring off onto an entirely different course. Schama seems almost to delight in the goriness of history. Themes returned to repeatedly include the wars between the Scots and the Irish and the Catholic/Protestant conflicts--only the Irish question remains unresolved by the new millennium. As Britain becomes a constitutional monarchy, Schama talks less of Kings and Queens but of poets and idea-makers like Orwell. Still, with his pungent, direct manner and against an evocative visual and aural backdrop, Schama makes history seem as though it happened yesterday, the bloodstains not yet dry.

The untold secret story of war production that shaped the Second World War.

World War II is the source of hundreds of unsolved mysteries. `World War Weird' explores some of World War II's most confounding stories, from platoons that disappeared to strange `alien' war machines, each bringing its own set of unique and bizarre twists, turns and revelations. In the fast paced and frantic chaos of battle, there was no way for these inexplicable occurrences to be investigated. However, thanks to extensive archive footage, expert interviews and eyewitness accounts, the truth behind some of these instances can now be unearthed.

Remarkable feats of British engineering require remarkable levels of maintenance and repairs to keep them in their grandiose state. With incredible levels of access to some key restoration and maintenance projects on some of Britain's most well-known buildings and structures, this series shows the detailed knowledge, craftsmanship and engineering ingenuity that is necessary to keep these important British monuments standing.

Fred Dibnah reveals the genius, the vision and the sheer bloody graft that went into creating some of Britain's greatest national monuments. All six episodes look at Britain's architectural heritage. In 'Mighty Cathedrals' Fred examines the innovations in building techniques which allowed the Normans to build some of the nation's most remarkable cathedrals. 'The Art of Castle Building' has Fred take a look at the castles of the North Wales coastline. 'The Age of the Carpenter' sees Fred learn all about the way that carpenters have used their skills to transform medieval castles into homes. In 'Scottish Style' Fred visits Glamis Castle and learns about the Scottish Baronial Style. 'Building the Canals' has Fred visit Bolton and learn about the construction of the first canals. Finally, 'Victorian Splendour' sees Fred looking at the achievements of architects in the 19th century and discovering the story behind the building of the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben.

The world's leading Egyptologists are on a quest to uncover the secrets of Howard Carter's history-making discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb on the 100th anniversary of its discovery. Now, as the treasures of Tut are being moved from the Cairo Museum to the brand new Grand Egyptian Museum at the foot of the pyramids, Zahi and others can examine them up close with the latest technology like never before. The result rewrites what we thought we knew about the Boy King.

How were the giant stone heads of Rapa Nui – also known as Easter Island – carved and raised, and why? Since Europeans arrived on this remote Pacific island over 300 years ago, controversy has swirled around the iconic ancient statues and the history of the people who created them. Now, a new generation of researchers is overturning old theories, revealing the rich history, innovation, and resilience of the Rapanui people, and uncovering intriguing new evidence about where they – and their practice of monumental stone building – came from.

Documentary using recorded figures and statistics to outline the full extent of the conflict, explaining the horrors of war and how it ever came to take place.

From the birth of the fatal iceberg to the hours after it struck the ship, this film follows the Titanic's journey from construction to catastrophe.

New evidence is revealing fresh twists to the fatal chain-of-events that caused the Titanic to sink, and using cutting-edge technology and the latest scientific methods, experts investigate the secret history of its infamous sinking.

Decades after the Nazi death camps were eventually closed; exclusive fresh material from Soviet Film Archives has appeared revealing the true degree of the shocks before what we now know as the Holocaust.