Whether serving as Christian church, Islamic mosque, or secular museum, Hagia Sophia and its soaring dome have inspired reverence and awe. For 800 years, it was the largest enclosed building in the world—the Statue of Liberty can fit beneath its dome with room to spare. How has it survived its location on one of the world's most active seismic faults, which has inflicted a dozen devastating earthquakes since it was built in 537?" As Istanbul braces for the next big quake, a team of architects and engineers is urgently investigating Hagia Sophia's seismic secrets. Follow engineers as they build a massive 8-ton model of the building's core structure, place it on a motorized shake table, and hit it with a series of simulated quakes, pushing it collapse—a fate that the team is determined to avoid with the real building

This stylish mix of documentary and historical epic chronicles the reign of Commodus, the emperor whose rule marked the beginning of Rome's fall. In the first episode, the death of Marcus Aurelius brings a century of Roman triumphs and victories to an end, transferring power to his spoiled, unprepared son Commodus. When his father bequeaths him the world's mightiest empire, he is forced to spill the blood of both friends and enemies alike to keep his crown.

More than 2,000 years ago, the thriving city of Petra rose up in the bone-dry desert of what is now Jordan. An oasis of culture and abundance, the city was built by wealthy merchants whose camel caravans transported incense and spices from the Arabian Gulf. They carved spectacular temple-tombs into its soaring cliffs, raised a monumental Great Temple at its heart, and devised an ingenious system that channeled water to vineyards, bathhouses, fountains, and pools. But following a catastrophic earthquake and a slump in its desert trade routes, Petra's unique culture faded and was lost to most of the world for nearly a thousand years. Now, in a daring experiment, an archaeologist and sculptors team up to carve an iconic temple-tomb to find out how the ancient people of Petra built their city of stone. Meanwhile, scientists using remote sensors and hydraulic flumes uncover the vast city and its sophisticated water system. The race is on to discover how these nomads created this oasis of culture in one of the harshest climates on Earth.

The turbulent life of soul and blues singer, the late Joe Cocker. A former gas fitter from Sheffield, catapulted to world stardom in 1969 at Woodstock with his legendary performance of the Beatles song, 'A Little Help from My Friends'. But in the early 1970s, Joe Cocker's inner demons nearly killed him. Overcoming his struggles with alcohol and drugs, he rebuilt his reputation as 'one of the great primal rock and roll vocalists of all time' (Billy Joel).

Einstein's world-shaking Theory of Relativity says that time travel is perfectly possible -- if you're going forward in time. Finding a way to travel backwards requires breaking the speed of light, which so far seems impossible. But now, strange-but-true phenomena such as quantum nonlocality (where particles instantly teleport across vast distances) may give us a way to make the dream of traveling back and forth through time a reality. Step into a time machine and rewrite history, bring loved ones back to life, control our destinies. But if succeed, what are the consequences of such freedom? Will we get trapped in a plethora of paradoxes and multiple universes that will destroy the fabric of the universe?

Every day our planet faces cataclysmic events that threaten our very existence. Whether from natural or man-made forces, rising from the earth or menacing from space, the world seems beset by more catastrophes than ever. Some believe the signs of the coming Apocalypse are all around us–as outlined in the bible’s most compelling book of prophecies: Revelation". And even the non-religious can’t ignore what appears to be a growing rate of globe-threatening disasters. Are we approaching a biblical “End of Times”? And if so–how will it happen? Will it come from an act of God? Or a colossal misstep of man? Get an uncomfortably close front row seat to some of the most likely apocalyptic scenarios our world faces today–and the history, both scientific and biblical, behind them.