This 2-part documentary series reveals the truth about King Edward VIII's affair with American divorcée Wallis Simpson, and the espionage operation that accompanied the investigation.
Jonathan Meades gives a personal perspective of British history.
Stephen K. Amos and Susan Calman present a unique series in which LGBTQ people from across the UK talk about the objects that helped to define their lives over the past 50 years.
Michael Wood argues that the most important and influential British kings were a father, son and grandson who lived over a thousand years ago during the age of the Vikings.
The Hundred Years’ war between England and France gave us the victories of Crecy and Agincourt, and made the reputations of Edward III and Henry V. It gave France a national heroine in Joan of Arc. But, even now, the jury is out as to its causes and outcome. Was it the final swansong of a redundant knightly class whose only reason for being was to fight? Was it a battle over ever more important territory to the emerging economies of England and France? Or was it the painful birth of two distinct national identities, forged through their long and violent divorce? Dr Janina Ramirez guides us through the stories of kings, great knights, bloody battles and cultural triumphs of this momentous conflict.
Historian Lucy Worsley presents a series marking the 200th anniversary of one of the most explosive and creative decades in British history, the Regency.
The Normans is a British television documentary series first aired on BBC Two in 2010. Over three episodes, it sees Professor Robert Bartlett's journey from Great Britain via Jerusalem to the Kingdom of Sicily to examine the expansion and ambition of the Normans between the 10th and 13th centuries.
Dominic Sandbrook takes a fresh look at a dynamic decade. 1980s Britain changed in everything from politics and sport to fashion and popular culture.
In this blend of historical drama and original source material, the story of this decisive year is remagined, not from the saddles of kings and conquerors, but through the eyes of the ordinary men who fought on their behalf.
In an ambitious and groundbreaking approach to drama and history featuring dramatic reconstruction, historian Lucy Worsley time travels back to the Tudor Court to witness some of the most dramatic moments in the lives of Henry VIII's six wives.
Dr Xand Van Tulleken and Raksha Dave investigate the Great Smog of 1952 - the deadliest environmental disaster ever recorded and one of the world's worst peacetime catastrophes. Lasting just over four days, the Great Smog plunged London into a terrifyingly murky gloom - the acrid pollution seeping into homes, leaving Londoners gasping for breath, shutting down transport and emergency services, and overwhelming hospitals and undertakers alike.
In this four-part documentary series, leading Hollywood actors undertake a fascinating journey into their family's past by re-tracing the footsteps of their grandparents during World War Two. We follow the moving, personal stories of Helena Bonham Carter, Mark Rylance, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Carey Mulligan as they travel to historic locations, from the beaches of Dunkirk to prisoner of war camps in Asia, to learn about the war their grandparents experienced. All of the actors have unanswered questions about the scars war left on their grandparents, and in each episode one of the actors explore how six years changed the lives of their family and the world forever while learning about the life and death decisions that their grandparents faced.
Historian Dan Jones explores the millennium of history behind six of Great Britain's most famous castles: Warwick, Dover, Caernarfon, the Tower of London, Carrickfergus, and Stirling.
This series travels the length and breadth of Britain to find out how the Victorians built Britain. It uncovers the incredible and surprising stories behind iconic landmarks; discovers the hidden heroes behind the epic constructions; and finds out how the incredible advances made by the Victorians forged the world we live in today.
Historian Dan Snow charts the defining role the Royal Navy played in Britain's struggle for modernity - a grand tale of the twists and turns which thrust the people of the British Isles into an indelible relationship with the sea and ships.
Part documentary, part historical drama, this series follows the fortunes of the different members of the Boleyn family, ultimately made notorious for daughter Anne’s marriage to Henry VIII and execution.
Presented by Dr Clare Jackson of Cambridge University, this new three-part series argues that the Stuarts, more than any other, were Britain's defining royal family.
Dr Clare Jackson tells the story of The Stuarts in Exile and sheds new light on the political, military and cultural threat the Jacobite's posed to the embryonic British state. Although the '15' ultimately failed, it crystallised the stark choice facing those living in early 18th-century Britain. Are you for the Stuarts or are you for Hanoverian's?
Dr Alice Roberts follows a year of British archaeology, joining up the results of digs and investigations the length of the country.
Through this three part series Art Historian Dr Janina Ramirez tells the story of the Medieval monarchy as preserved through stunning illuminated manuscripts from the British Library's Royal Manuscripts collection.