Best European history series

A show of heroic deeds and epic battles with a thematic depth that embraces politics, religion, warfare, courage, love, loyalty and our universal search for identity. Combining real historical figures and events with fictional characters, it is the story of how a people combined their strength under one of the most iconic kings of history in order to reclaim their land for themselves and build a place they call home.

The Doctor and his companion travel across time and space encountering incredible friends and foes.

Landmark mockumentary-maker Philomena Cunk traces the history of Britain and Earth.

An epic drama set in 43AD as the Roman Imperial Army – determined and terrified in equal measure - returns to crush the Celtic heart of Britannia - a mysterious land ruled by warrior women and powerful druids who can channel the powerful forces of the underworld. Or so they say.

The story of the Medici family of Florence, their ascent from simple merchants to power brokers sparking an economic and cultural revolution. Along the way, they also accrue a long list of powerful enemies.

The story of a young Louis XIV on his journey to become the most powerful monarch in Europe, from his battles with the fronde through his development into the Sun King. Historical and fictional characters guide us in a world of betrayal and political maneuvering, revealing Versailles in all its glory and brutality.

Count Alexander Rostov finds himself going from riches to rags following the Russian revolution. A Soviet tribunal banishes him to the attic room of an opulent hotel, where, oblivious to the world outside, he discovers the true value of friendship, family and love.

A rich story of love, intrigue, betrayal and belonging told from the perspective of the Trojan royal family at the heart of the siege of Troy.

In 17th-century Italy, a teenager learns about her destiny among a family of witches, just as her boyfriend's father hunts her down for witchcraft.

In 17th century England, Mary Villiers molds her beautiful son, George, to seduce King James I, intending to gain riches and influence through outrageous schemes.

Northman with a penchant for history, politics and travel. I seek to spread individual freedom worldwide.

A series of British television films featuring William Shakespeare's History Plays.

Amid the unification of 1860s Italy, a Sicilian prince grapples with the collision between his family's ancient privilege and revolutionary change.

The history of mankind from prehistoric times to the 20th century.

France, 1914. The destinies of four women intersect : Marguerite, a mysterious Parisian prostitute, Caroline, propelled to the head of the family factory, Agnes, Mother Superior of a requisitioned convent and Suzanne, a feminist nurse.

In the turbulent 1980s, friends Marc and Franky, and his sister Vicky, move to Brussels for a career with the Gendarmerie. Soon the three young people are sucked into a spiral of crimes that are attributed to the so-called "Bende van Nijvel" gang.

What it felt like to live through the collapse of communism and democracy. A series of films by Adam Curtis.

The rise of Stalin, from his early beginning as a bankrobber to the cold-blooded leader of the Soviet Union.

With unique personal archive from civilians and soldiers from both sides of the conflict, this series takes viewers closer to the realities of war and life under Isis than they have ever been before.

Covers the 1941 Japanese military strike on a Hawaiian naval base in never before seen detail.

In this documentary series, interspersed with historical reconstructions, Tom Waes investigates what has happened since the arrival of the first Homo sapiens, on the 14,000 square kilometers that we today call Flanders.

Svenska dialektmysterier was a Swedish television series about Swedish dialects. It was hosted by Fredrik Lindström and produced by Marcos Hellberg and broadcast on SVT2 in January–March 2006. The programme can be seen as a continuation of Värsta språket, another series hosted by Lindström. It won the television award Kristallen in the infotainment category.

The story will focus on Quisling’s final hours, as he sits in his cell at Akerhus Fortress and must be held accountable for his actions and crimes committed in the name of Nazi ideology.

The naturalist visits uncharted territory in pursuit of new discoveries. Steve Backshall takes on physical challenges, encounters extraordinary wildlife and meets remarkable people.

As told through clips from 183 female directors, this epic history of the cinema focuses on women’s integral role in the development of film art. Using almost a thousand film extracts from thirteen decades and five continents, Mark Cousins asks how films are made, shot and edited; how stories are shaped and how movies depict life, love, politics, humour and death, all through the compelling lens of some of the world’s greatest filmmakers – all of them women.

On various topics such as history, nature, wildlife, archeology, science and also fiction.

Simon Reeve sets off on an extraordinary adventure across Australia. This mad adventure, involving specially adapted off-road vehicles and a chopper, is part of an ongoing effort to stop the damaging spread of up to a million feral camels across the country.

This is the story of a power struggle between two men - one fictional, and one real. In one corner is the master of crime – the greatest detective who never lived, Sherlock Holmes. In the other is writer, physician and spiritualist leader Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Lucy Worsley explores the extraordinary love-hate relationship between author and creation.

The nation’s favourite travel companion, Dame Joanna Lumley, is on an adventure to three of the world’s greatest cities, Berlin, Paris and Rome, for this brand-new ITV documentary series.

The great story of our country. About the people and forces that shaped it - from the Ice Age to the present day. Simon J Berger is the narrator of the series. The program series consists of ten parts and is based on reconstructions of historical events and people. Over 300 experts have contributed to the content and 100 of them appear in the series. The series' signature melody is composed by Ludwig Göransson and Per-Gunnar Juliusson.

Tells the fascinating history of an island people who have truly left their mark on the world. 6 million people live on the island of Ireland, but over 80 million people worldwide say they are Irish. What does that mean? How have we been shaped by our history? Our geography? Where did we come from? Where did we go? These questions are at the heart of this series.

It spans over 5,000 years of history that have shaped the world. It is full of spectacular sites and epic stories and an evolving society of inventors, heroes, heroines, villains, artisans and pioneers. Professor Joann Fletcher reveals the highs and lows of the most beguiling civilisation in humanity’s rich history in this four-part series made for BBC2.

Each episode looks back at the news and events of a particular year, using news archive footage, along with subtitles as the means of narration, to recount notable Irish and international events of the time.

Ancient Megastructures Collection Discover the secrets of revolutionary structures in Ancient Megastructures. Certain landmarks have captured the imagination and awe of modern-day architects and engineers around the world as they work to solve the mystery of how their ancient forebears were able to construct such beautiful, timeless and revolutionary structures with none of the machines and materials available to modern engineers. From the dreams that inspired them, to the blood and sweat that built them, discover the full story behind eight magnificent structures that forever changed the landscape of architecture: Petra, Alhambra, St.Paul’s Cathedral, Hagia Sophia, Machu Picchu, The Colosseum, Angkor Wat and The Great Pyramid

Summer 1943: Hitler engages in a decisive battle in Kursk to win the war in the East. This is without counting on the pugnacity of the Red Army and the Allied intervention in the West. Month after month, the noose tightens on the Nazi tyrant who refuses to admit defeat and precipitates his country in its fall.

A murder that obsessed the nation, and a disappearance that's mystified police for 50 years. Is the son of victim Sandra Rivett about to solve the case of the fugitive aristocrat?

1895, St. Petersburg. Anastasia Ardashnikova, one of the first women to receive a diploma from the Sorbonne Faculty of Law, returns from France to her homeland. Anastasia has extensive knowledge of advanced investigative techniques that are practically unknown in Russia and is full of hopes to become a criminologist. Not everyone understands her professional fervor. Anastasia's entourage is confident that she is engaged in an unusual business for a woman, and the first experience of a collision with the Russian detective police in the person of bailiff Taras Smolokurov reveals how far Anastasia is from domestic realities.

Paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi reveals humanity's incredible story across 300,000 years of human evolution – and how the story is stranger and more surprising than ever imagined.

Empire is a major five-part series presented by Jeremy Paxman. It tells the story of the British Empire in a new way, tracing not only the rise and fall of the empire but also the complex effects of the empire on the modern world – political, technological and social – and on Britain.

Guy joins an ambitious bid to lift a lost Lancaster bomber off the bottom of a Dutch lake.

The 3-part documentary series The Irish Civil War tells the epic and often challenging story of the origins, conflict and legacy of the civil war that took place in Ireland in 1922 and 1923. Narrated by Brendan Gleeson, produced in partnership with University College Cork by RTÉ Cork as part of the Decade of Centenary commemorations and based on UCC’s “mammoth and magnificent” Atlas of the Irish Revolution, this documentary series features extensive archive film footage, photographs and materials, interviews with leading academics, archive interviews with contemporary participants and witnesses, firsthand witness accounts read by actors, detailed and dynamic graphic maps based on those featured in the Atlas of the Irish Revolution, and stunning cinematography of the very locations where events took place.

Three-part documentary about the sinking of the Spanish Armada, featuring dramatic reconstructions and information gleaned from recently recovered documents. Dan Snow takes to the sea to tell the story of how England came within a whisker of disaster in summer 1588.

Carrying nearly five million passengers per day, the London Tube is one of the world's oldest and busiest metro systems in the world. Today the Tube is undergoing a complete overhaul that is long overdue. Take a behind the scenes look into the daily lives of drivers, emergency personnel, operations managers, and many others among the near twenty thousand employees of this massive rail system, as they navigate the evolution of the London Tube.

From space, the US appears to be an immense single land mass hemmed between the planet's two greatest oceans. Look a little closer, however, and you notice something else. All around its coastline floats a gauntlet of countless islands.

It was the defining moment of the 20th Century – the scientific, technological, military, and political gamble of the world’s first atomic attack. This drama-documentary attempts to do what no other film has done before – to show what it is like to live through a nuclear explosion, millisecond by millisecond. Set in the three weeks from the first test explosion in New Mexico to the eventual dropping of the bomb, the action takes viewers into the room where the crucial political decisions are made; on board the Enola Gay on her fateful voyage; inside the bomb as it explodes; and on the streets of Hiroshima when disaster strikes. Parallel storylines interweave, unfolding the action from both US and Japanese perspectives, and revealing the tensions and conflicts in the actions and minds of people who were making history. Special effects recreate the reality of the mission – even going inside the workings of the bomb – and archive film replays the horrific aftermath.

Bettany Hughes take viewers on armchair travels to explore household-name treasures and new finds from across the world.

A documentary series which presents a modern look at the history of the Russian state from 1697 to 1917. Each episode covers the reign of one or several monarchs from Peter I to Nicholas II.

Gábor Báthory was the ruler of Principality of Transylvania from 1608 to 1613. The infamous Elisabeth Báthory was his relative. The young Báthory is daring handsome and the idol of women, and triumphantly acquires the throne of Transylvania. The young ruler is the hope of the Transylvanian people, who have long suffered from wars. However, the ambitious Báthory pursues glory. He turns into a deranged tyrant, his best friend, the wise Gábor Bethlen, also becomes his mortal enemy and infuriates the neighboring great powers. Huge armies of the Ottomans, Wallachians, Poles, Hungarians and Cossacks attack Transylvania because of Báthory's adventurism.

The story of NASA's Space Shuttle program, from its very first test flight to its final mission.

Music show that tells the story behind modern pop classics.

Heroes and Villains was a 2007-2008 BBC Television docudrama series looking at key moments in the lives and reputations of some of the greatest warriors of history. Each hour long episode featured a different historical figure, including Napoleon I of France, Attila the Hun, Spartacus, Hernán Cortés, Richard I of England, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. The statements at the beginning of each episode read: "This film depicts real events and real characters. It is based on the accounts of writers of the time. It has been written with the advice of modern historians." In the United States the show is aired on The Military Channel and was called "Warriors".

Documentary series which uses film and eyewitness accounts from both sides of the conflict that divided Spain in the years leading up to World War Two, also placing it in its international context.

Treasures of Ancient Rome is a 2012 three-part documentary written and presented by Alastair Sooke. The series was produced by the BBC, and originally aired in September 2012 on BBC Four. In the documentary Sooke sets out to "debunk the myth that Romans didn't do art and were unoriginal". This is based on the view that Romans heavily incorporated Greek style in their art, and hence produced nothing new or original. Sooke has received some criticism from the media owing to the fact that there is no consensus among academics on this topic, and hence no 'myth' exists in the first place.

An affectionate look at life in 1970s Britain - the news, fads, fashions, music and more.

As April 2015 marked the 70th anniversary of the death of Adolf Hitler, this documentary investigates the before, during and final days of the most terrifying dictator of the western world. The three-part series features rare archive footage and expert analysis from Sir Richard Evans, Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge; Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of the History of Art, Oxford University; and Nicolas O’Shaugnessy, Professor of Communication at Queen Mary, University of London.

Architectural salvage expert Drew Pritchard looks back at the most eccentric characters, the hardest hagglers and the most extraordinary places he's hunted for antique treasure. Drew gives us the inside track on his wheeling and dealing, the stories behind his picks, as well as top tips about salvaging and how to get the best deals.

Documentary about the three different orders of Crusader knights from 1000 AD to 1500 AD

Former Special Forces soldier Ant Middleton invites pop star Liam Payne to take part in the journey - and interview - of a lifetime in Namibia.

Following one of the few women in Britain to helm an auction house, Irita Marriott. The series follows her as she builds her business in south Derbyshire, helping vendors make money from unwanted items.

"Ancient Superstructures“ reveals the secrets behind the world’s most famous monuments. Some of the ancient marvels which are among the most studied and scrutinized monuments in the world still remain shrouded in mystery. What if the answers were right in front of us… but invisible to the human eye? This ground-breaking series takes a unique approach in delving into engineering mysteries behind the world’s most famous ancient structures, by observing them from different perspectives of scale. From satellite imagery and aerial views right down to macro and microscopic levels, each perspective reveals data that helps shed new light on historical and construction enigmas that have baffled historians for years.

Through new discoveries in science and archaeology, explorers take a look at the origins of the Vikings and how they influenced history.

Egypt's Cosmic Code charts Bradley Walsh's first trip to Egypt in search of answers to some of Ancient History's biggest mysteries - who built the pyramids, why and how? Could Ancient Egyptians have supernatural abilities, and is the Great Sphinx much older than we think? This three-part series sees Bradley fulfil a lifetime’s ambition to visit the monuments of Ancient Egypt and try to understand how it could have been possible to produce such 'wonders of the ancient world' 4,500 years ago. Apprenticed to Rolls Royce long before he embarked on his stellar TV career, Bradley has had an enduring fascination with ancient engineering and with the idea that the construction feats of our ancient forebears could only have been possible with the participation of some 'other worldly' or extraterrestrial influence.

Professor Catharine Edwards explores the dramatic story of the women who tasted power in the Roman Empire.