History

Dr. Thomas Asbridge explains how in the thirteenth century, after almost two hundred years of Holy Wars, the titanic conflict between Christianity and Islam, known to history as The Crusades, reached a decisive and shocking conclusion – a chapter that despite its drama has been virtually forgotten. He explains how, in the end, the fate of the Holy Land was decided not on the hallowed ground of Jerusalem, but in Egypt; and how the ultimate outcome of the Crusades was dictated not by Christians, but by the Mongol successors to Genghis Khan, and by a Muslim slave – a fearsome warrior whose story is now all but lost to western history.

Francisco de Orellana failed to find El Dorado, but discovered the Amazon. Early in 1541, a rumor swept Quito that beyond the mountains, there lay a land richer than Mexico, or even Peru - a land of gold. The ruler of this land was so rich that he covered himself with gold dust every day and washed it off every evening. He was "the golden man", El Dorado. They had tree goals: to find La Canela, the land of cinnamon: to assess new lands for colonization; and to find El Dorado. On march 1541, They marched eastwards with more that 200 Spanish troops and thousands of native servants.

The world knows Britney Spears: performer, artist, icon. But in the last few years, her name has been publicly tied to another, more mysterious term: conservatorship. Britney vs Spears tells the explosive story of Britney’s life and her public and private search for freedom. Featuring years-long investigative work, exclusive interviews and new documents, this featured film paints a thorough portrait of the pop star’s trajectory from girl next door to a woman trapped by fame and family and her own legal status.
Director Erin Lee Carr and journalist Jenny Eliscu work to delve deep into the tangled history of Britney's conservatorship and investigate her legal fight by way of exclusive interviews and confidential evidence.

In the third episode of the series, Steven is back in jail, charged with murder, but there are troubling questions about how he was arrested and why.

‘Retrograde’ offers a deeply intimate account of the end of Americas's longest war and humanizes the individuals most impacted through both US and Afghan perspectives. With a character-driven, cinema-verite approach, the film functions as an up-close record of a turning point in American and Afghan history while also providing an emotional reminder of the human costs of war.
‘Retrograde’ focuses in the relationship between American Green Berets and the Afghan officers they trained.

Professor Mary Beard looks beyond the stories of emperors, armies, guts and gore to meet the everyday people at the heart of Ancient Rome's vast empire. In this programme, Mary asks not what the Romans did for us, but what the empire did for Rome. She rides the Via Appia, climbs up to the top seats of the Colosseum, takes a boat to Rome's port Ostia and takes us into the bowels of Monte Testaccio. She also meets some extraordinary Romans: Eurysaces, an eccentric baker, who made a fortune out of the grain trade and built his tomb in the shape of a giant bread oven; Baricha, Zabda and Achiba, three prisoners of war who became Roman citizens; and Pupius Amicus, the purple dye seller making imperial dye from shellfish imported from Tunisia. This is Rome from the bottom up.