For 2,000 years, whoever controlled the Mediterranean controlled the resources of the known world. In WWII, this area was in control of the British Empire, and Mussolini wanted it back.

The Eastern Front saw Hitler's most brutal WWII campaigns, but it is also where the Soviets, with mastery of the ground on which they lived, beat him all the way back to Berlin.

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, it won a battle and inherited a geographic problem. How to hold and defend a vast island empire scattered across the largest ocean on earth?

The onset of a violent storm in Staffordshire in England announced the discovery of the largest Anglo-Saxon hoard ever uncovered, but was the storm an omen of things to come?

One of the greatest palaeontology discoveries ever is made in the Hell Creek Formation of South Dakota, but the find brought nothing but trouble and suspicion to those who uncovered it.

This episode's hunt for cursed treasure begins not with diamonds and gold, but with skin and bone unearthed in the dangerous wilds of Russia's arctic Yamal Peninsula...

In the Bay of Naples, Villa Oplontis - a 2,000-year-old villa - reveals a buried world of luxury. As excavations resume, clues point to the infamous Poppaea Sabina, Nero's second wife.

In the shadows of the Villa Oplontis, slave quarters, amphora, and Villa B recall the lives of the enslaved. The bodies of Vesuvius' victims are reminders of Rome's strict social hierarchy.

Italian archaeologists begin the biggest dig in a generation at Pompeiil; they find a bakery, a wealthy house, and a fresco of a so-called 'pizza' before making a grisly discovery.

A new excavation at Pompeii continues to unearth rich discoveries while a pioneering new investigation finds evidence that some Pompeiians survived the eruption of A.D. / C.E. 79.

The excavation of a wealthy villa, bakery and laundry in Pompeii reaches its climax with chilling revelations about what people were doing in the final terrifying hours in A.D. / C.E. 79.

This episode traces the war in the West and how the geography of Western Europe provided both the Nazis and the Allies with advantages and disadvantages.

For 2,000 years, whoever controlled the Mediterranean controlled the resources of the known world. In WWII, this area was in control of the British Empire, and Mussolini wanted it back.

The Eastern Front saw Hitler's most brutal WWII campaigns, but it is also where the Soviets, with mastery of the ground on which they lived, beat him all the way back to Berlin.

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, it won a battle and inherited a geographic problem. How to hold and defend a vast island empire scattered across the largest ocean on earth?

The Berlin Olympics of 1936 were innovative, introducing television coverage and the torch relay. We show the highlights, but also how Hitler used the Games as propaganda for his brutal regime.

In the Bay of Naples, Villa Oplontis - a 2,000-year-old villa - reveals a buried world of luxury. As excavations resume, clues point to the infamous Poppaea Sabina, Nero's second wife.

In the shadows of the Villa Oplontis, slave quarters, amphora, and Villa B recall the lives of the enslaved. The bodies of Vesuvius' victims are reminders of Rome's strict social hierarchy.

Acclaimed classicist Mary Beard explores what it was really like to be emperor of Rome, taking us behind palace walls to reveal the hidden world of the Roman imperial court and lifestyle.

The struggle for victory necessitated development of gun technologies; new inventions would emerge on the battlefields and at times surprise soldiers on both sides of the fight.

World War II fostered the emergence of both iconic and unusual tanks that were each engineered with distinct aims; we explore diverse tank innovations and the overall trajectory of armoured warfare.