8 episodes · 4th September 2007
The criminal highwayman Dick Turpin has become a romantic figure over the years but now the man behind the myth is exposed. The 18th-century robber has enjoyed an idealised reputation as a gentleman and a swashbuckling hero who stole from the rich and was as devoted to the ladies as he was his horse Black Bess. But the truth appears to be something much more sinister. This documentary special sheds new light on the thief and suggests that he was a brutal, thuggish criminal who was anything but gallant.
Historical documentary focusing on the Aztec Empire. Between the 14th and the 16th century, the Aztecs dominated the lands of present-day Mexico, until the arrival of the Spanish brought their world to a sudden end. This film probes the mystery behind 400 dismembered bodies unearthed in the ruins of an Aztec city. Knife cuts and teeth marks on the bones indicate that the victims’ flesh was stripped off and eaten. But who were these victims and why did they meet such a terrible fate?
This programme revisits the dark days of the Cold War with a startling examination of East Germany’s secret programme to feed its top female athletes with untested drugs. For decades, the communist GDR state administered harmful drugs to thousands of young women in a desperate and dangerous bid to achieve sporting excellence.
This programme uncovers the true story of an audacious escape from Auschwitz by two young Slovak Jews in 1944 – an event which alerted the world to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps.
An insightful investigation into the infamous chapter of maritime history known as The Mutiny on the Bounty. Mark Arundel is the great, great, great, great, great grandson of Captain Bligh, and he questions whether hero and villain status has been correctly apportioned. In films, TV dramatisations, and more than two thousand books, the popular approach has been to portray Bligh as a vicious tyrant, and Fletcher Christian, the lead mutineer, as a noble romantic. Can Mark’s findings turn popular misconception on its head?
It is now 26 years since the Yorkshire Ripper was arrested in Sheffield for murdering 13 women and attacking a further seven. Claiming to have staged his attacks after hearing a message from God, Peter Sutcliffe pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but denied murder. However, the jury refused to accept that he suffered from schizophrenia, and Sutcliffe was given 20 life sentences.
Told for the first time, the extraordinary story of how heroic nuns, the Polish Resistance and a game of chess saved one Jewish family from the Holocaust.
Lord Carnarvon, the great-grandson of one of the men who discovered the tomb, travels across Egypt on a quest to reexamine the life of the Boy King. With the help of archaeological discoveries, computer graphics and new historical research, he presents a portrait of Tutankhamun that challenges pre-conceived wisdom about the famous but enigmatic pharaoh.
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