With optional Hebrew subtitles. Simon Schama explores the history of the Jewish experience from ancient times to the present day. This programme begins the tale 3,000 years ago, with the emergence of a tribal people in a contested land and their extraordinary book, the Hebrew Bible, a chronicle of their stormy relationship with a faceless, formless, jealous God. It was loyalty to this 'God of Words' that defined the distinct identity of the ancient Jews and preserved it despite all that history could throw their way". The story unfolds with a dazzling cast of historical characters: Sigmund Freud dying in exile in London; Victorian evangelicals and explorers following 'in the footsteps' of Moses; Jewish mercenaries living, prospering and intermarrying in the pagan land of Egypt; Messianic Jews dreaming of the Apocalypse; and a Jewish historian, Josephus, who witnessed first-hand the moment when the apocalypse finally came and the Romans destroyed the Jewish High Temple in Jerusalem.

Beneath Yellowstone National Park, lies the biggest volcano on Earth. An eruption in the past was so big it plunged the earth into a volcanic winter that lasted years. A super-eruption would be more than millions of Hiroshima bombs going off all at once. It would be even worse than an asteroid impact: Entire cities lost beneath ash, people and animals crushed alive, power networks destroyed, sun dimmed across the globe, harvests failed, widespread famine. Could this nightmare really happen? We will use the latest scientific data to uncover the danger beneath us, as we see our planet like never before.