In 1178 Christians and Muslims were on the brink of total war. The blood-drenched conquest of Jerusalem by the First Crusaders had enraged Islam, and their Kurdish warlord Saladin. This clash of titans is one of the great untold battle stories of the period, with the Muslim attackers laying siege to the super-fort of Jacob's Ford.
The finest castle of its age, Baldwin's aim was to create an impregnable fortress harnessing cutting edge military technology, but his dream of security was shattered by Saladin's ferocious attack, leaving his fortunes in tatters and his kingdom on the brink of annihilation. Timewatch brings together leading scholars, archaeologists and anthropologists to piece together the story behind this bloody 12th century battle.
Up Next in Digging up History
-
Hieroglyphs: Unlocking Ancient Egypt
2022 isn't just 100 years since the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. It's also exactly 200 years since one of history's greatest linguistic puzzles was cracked: when Jean-Francois Champollion made the ultimate breakthrough and deciphered the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic code. To mark this very s...
-
A Tudor Wonder - Hardwick Hall - with...
A History Hit treat for the holidays, this special new film reveals an extraordinary Tudor life-story and an amazing creation. We meet the extraordinary Bess of Hardwick and go inside the incredible home she built, a spectacular construction in glass and stone that defined the elegance and grande...
-
The Cutting Edge: Testing the Stone Age
History Hit visits Kent State University, Ohio to film a fascinating ‘cutting-edge’ experiment that takes us to the beginnings of the Stone Age, over 2.6 million years ago.
Kent State is home to one of the world’s leading experimental archaeology laboratories, scientifically exploring the distan...
