Nintendo was like an impossibly huge wall. But if Mario was the undisputed king, an underdog was about to declare war. For Japanese game maker Sega, mainly known for its arcade cabinets, the battle was about winning the home console market. Sega's Genesis console and its speedy character, Sonic, hit the market.
In the early '80s, sports video games existed, but they didn't really look real. And one visionary entrepreneur had already started tackling the challenge of taking sports from the stadium onto the screen. Electronic Arts kicks off a partnership with football legend John Madden.

In 1914, Russia entered World War I in response to Austria-Hungary's declaration of war on Russia's ally Serbia. This was fought across multiple fronts while isolated from its allies. The Battle of Tannenberg, where the entire Russian Second Army was annihilated, cast an ominous shadow over the empire's future. The already-existing public distrust of the regime was deepened by the rising costs of the war and rumours of corruption. World War I takes Nicholas to the front. Back home, outrage grows over high casualties and Alexandra and Rasputin's political intrigues.

The Romanovs retreat into a bubble of luxury while the czar's forces brutally suppress protests by a starving populace. Rasputin's influence grows, never mind the rumors and scandals. Many people believe Prime minister Peter Stolypin is the last hope of the Romanov Dynasty as reformer-in-chief. He is horrified by the rise of Rasputin. The fight between Stolypin and Rasputin is a battle for influence over Nicholas II. But Stolypin is shot in the Kiev Opera in 1911.

Grasslands cover one quarter of all land and support the vast gatherings of wildlife, but to survive here animals must endure the most hostile seasonal changes on the planet. From Asia's bizarre-looking Saiga antelope to the giant anteaters of Brazil, grassland animals have adapted in extraordinary ways to cope with these extremes. In the flooded Okavango, lions take on formidable buffalo in epic battles, on the savannah bee-eaters take advantage of elephants to help catch insects and, on the freezing northern tundra, caribou embark on great migrations shadowed by hungry Arctic wolves.

The world's deserts are lands of extremes that force animals to come up with ingenious ways of coping with hostile conditions, giving rise to the most incredible survival stories on earth. A pride of desert lions are so hungry they risk hunting a giraffe several times their size, while male sandgrouse fly 120 miles each day to the nearest waterhole and dice with death to collect water for their chicks. Filmed for the first time, a tiny bat does battle with one of the world's deadliest scorpions, and in Madagascar, a locust swarm of biblical proportions is seen as never before.

Jungles provide the richest habitats on the planet - mysterious worlds of high drama where extraordinary animals attempt to survive in the most competitive place on earth. Flooded forests are home to caiman-hunting jaguars and strange dolphins that swim amongst the tree tops, while in the dense underworld, ninja frogs fight off wasps and flying dragons soar between trees. Acrobatic indri leap through the forests of Madagascar, while the jungle night conceals strange fungi and glow-in-the-dark creatures never filmed before.