Last Watched

"Travel"  Sort by

How to Stay Young The Body

   2016    Medicine
Angela Rippon and Dr Chris van Tulleken travel the world in search of the latest science that could help us all stay young and healthy for longer. They investigate the best ways to help both our bodies and brains age better. Up first is the body, and Angela travels to Germany to join a groundbreaking study which reveals the exercise that holds off ageing the most. Chris visits America to find out about the unexpected diet that can add years to our lives. And in Ecuador we meet a seventeen-year-old who looks like a child to discover how scientists hope he may hold the key to preventing the diseases of ageing.
Series: How to Stay Young

First Celts

   2015    History
The Celts - one of the world's most mysterious ancient people. In Britain and Ireland, we are never far from our Celtic past but in this series Prof. Alice Roberts and archaeologist Neil Oliver travel much further afield, discovering the origins and beliefs of these Iron Age people in artefacts and human remains right across Europe, from Turkey to Portugal. What emerges is not a wild people on the western fringes of Europe, but a highly sophisticated tribal culture that influenced vast areas of the ancient world - and even Rome". Rich with vivid drama reconstruction, we recreate this pivotal time and meet some of our most famous ancient leaders - from Queen Boudicca to Julius Caesar - and relive the battles they fought for the heart and soul of Europe. Alice and Neil discover that these key battles between the Celts and the Romans over the best part of 500 years constituted a fight for two very different forms of civilisation - a fight that came to define the world we live in today. In the first episode, we see the origins of the Celts in the Alps of central Europe and relive the moment of first contact with the Romans in a pitched battle just north of Rome - a battle that the Celts won and that left the imperial city devastated.
Series: The Celts: Blood, Iron, and Sacrifice

Building the Great Pyramid

       History
The Great Pyramid of Giza's construction is still shrouded in mystery, despite it being the only survivor among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. In Building the Great Pyramid, travel back 4,500 years with the BBC as they re-create the circumstances under which it may have been built, as well as the daily life of the population at that time. Expert archaeologists, Egyptologists, and scholars share their latest theories on what may have happened. The film combines dramatic reconstruction, location shooting and state-of-the-art CGI computer effects. Directed and written by Jonathan Stamp.

Crash Landing on Mars

   2011    Technology
What might happen if the first manned mission to Mars crashes hundreds of miles from the rocket that would take them back home? Could they survive the crash, and travel across the brutal Martian surface to their home ship? We'll show what the astronauts would have to do to survive dust storms and space radiation, while extracting vital resources like water from the Martian soil itself. It's a dramatic vision of the very near future, where survival can depend on pre-industrial technology and human ingenuity.

Caligula

   2013    History
Two thousand years ago one of history's most notorious individuals was born. Professor Mary Beard embarks on an investigative journey to explore the life and times of Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus - better known to us as Caligula. Caligula has now become known as Rome's most capricious tyrant, and the stories told about him are some of the most extraordinary told about any Roman emperor. He was said to have made his horse a consul, proclaimed himself a living God, and indulged in scandalous orgies - even with his own three sisters - and that's before you mention building vast bridges across land and sea, prostituting senators' wives and killing half the Roman elite seemingly on a whim. All that in just four short years in power before a violent and speedy assassination in a back alley of his own palace at just 28-years-old." But how much of his story is true? Travelling across the Roman world - from Germany and Capri in the bay of Naples to the astonishing luxury of his life in imperial Rome - Mary attempts to peel away the myths. Some stories are difficult to get to the bottom of as they were written by hacks long after his death, but there is plenty of surviving evidence where the 'real' Caligula can be glimpsed. Such as in the extraordinary luxury of his private yachts outside Rome; in the designs he chose for his coins when he became Emperor; in an eye-witness account of Caligula's withering humour written in 41AD; the trial documents covering the mysterious death of his father when he was just seven-years-old; and even in a record of his imperial slaves - from the palace spy to his personal trainer. Piecing together the evidence, Mary puts Caligula back into the context of his times to reveal an astonishing story of murder, intrigue and dynastic family power. Above all, she explains why Caligula has ended up with such a seemingly unredeemable reputation. In the process, she reveals a more intriguing portrait of not just the monster, but the man.

The Story of India: Freedom

   2007    History
This episode examines the British Raj and India’s struggle for freedom. Wood reveals how in South India a global corporation came to control much of the subcontinent, and explores the magical culture of Lucknow, discovering the enigmatic Briton who helped found the freedom movement. He traces the Amritsar massacre, the rise of Gandhi and Nehru, and the events that led to the Partition of India in 1947.
Series: The Story of India
Clash of the Gods

Clash of the Gods

2009  History
Clarkson Farm

Clarkson Farm

2021  Nature
Welcome to Earth

Welcome to Earth

2021  Nature
Seven Ages of Rock

Seven Ages of Rock

2007  Art
The Normans

The Normans

2010  History
Prehistoric America

Prehistoric America

2003  Nature
Leaving Neverland

Leaving Neverland

2019  Culture