This illuminating ten-part series tells the story of World War ll through the ten most pivotal turning points in the conflict. Gripping story-telling illustrated with exquisitely restored and colourised archived films and supported by a global cast of stellar historians bring this crucially important era in history to life.
In the first chapter, Britain and France declare war when Hitler invades Poland. In May 1940 the Germans attack Holland and Belgium as a decoy. As the Wehrmacht comes through the Ardennes and the Luftwaffe strikes in force, French leaders are caught like rabbits in headlights. The Germans are on a drug called Pervitin, which beats off fatigue, and reach the Atlantic coast. There is a danger that the Germans will encircle the Allies and cut them off from the sea. But Hitler issues his Halt Order and some 340,000 Allies are evacuated.

As World War II drags on into another bitter winter the Allies become desperate to end the conflict. Winston Churchill turns to his formidable bomber force to break the deadlock.
The population of an eastern German city is caught in a devastating firestorm and harnessed by the Nazis; the controversy turns the Allies on themselves.

Athens, Alexandria, Tikal and Rome: these legendary cities are some of the world's most famous archaeological sites. And yet, they still have not revealed all their secrets. The ambition of this series is to resuscitate the first megalopolises of universal history.
In the first episode, the extraordinary city of Athens, the richest and most powerful in all of ancient Greece. The film leads us in the footprints of a nation of extraordinary builders, thinkers, and inventors of incredible machines.

Located in Central America, Tikal is one of the largest of the ancient cities of the Mayan civilization. Occupied for more than a millennium, Tikal, founded in the 8th century BC and nestled in the jungle of Guatemala, will have up to 12,000 structures and reach over 2 million inhabitants.
This episode shows its extraordinary pyramid-temples, designed with human power alone. Thanks to new technologies, the ancient Mayan city is revealed there, entirely reconstituted in 3D synthetic images.

In just one generation, our ability to search for planets beyond our solar system has transformed. With modern techniques and telescopes, planetary scientists have found thousands of exoplanets in our universe, and many of them have the perfect conditions for life. Are we about to find Earth’s twin?

In 1971, after being rejected by Hollywood, Bruce Lee returned to his parents' homeland, Hong Kong. Over the next two years, he'd complete four iconic films that would define his legacy, a legacy cut short when he died, stunningly, in the summer of 1973. He was 32 years old. Directed by Bao Nguyen, 'Be Water' is a gripping, fascinating, intimate look at not just those final, defining years of Lee's life, but the complex, often difficult, and seismic journey that led to Lee's ultimate emergence as a singular icon in the histories of film, martial arts, and even the connection between the eastern and western worlds.
The film chronicles Lee's earliest days, as the son of a Chinese opera star born while his father was on tour in San Francisco, and then raised in Hong Kong over what became an at times troubled childhood. Sent to live in America at the age of 18, he began teaching Kung Fu in Seattle, and established a following that included his future wife, Linda. His ambition ever rising, Lee eventually made his way to Los Angeles, where he strove to break into American film and television. There, despite some success as a fight choreographer and actor, it was clear Hollywood wasn't ready for an Asian leading man - and so he returned to Hong Kong to make the films that would in fact make him a legend, his international star skyrocketing just as his life was cut short.
'Be Water' is told by the family, friends, and collaborators who knew Bruce Lee best, with an extraordinary trove of archive film providing an evocative, immersive visual tapestry that captures Lee's charisma, his passion, his philosophy, and the eternal beauty and wonder of his art.