Top Documentaries
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Divine Fury: Demeter and Persephone
1 season
Acclaimed classicist Natalie Haynes is back on History Hit. This time she explores one of the most powerful and enduring myths of the ancient world: the story of Demeter and Persephone.
Our journey begins with the kidnapping of the young goddess Persephone by Hades, the dark Lord of the Underw...
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The Dead of Winter: Medieval Ghost Stories
This winter, Dr Eleanor Janega leads us into the darker corners of the medieval imagination - a world where the boundary between the living and the dead was dangerously thin.
Drawing on medieval chronicles, religious monuments, and Icelandic sagas, we learn why people believed the dead could ret...
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Medieval Winter
Matt Lewis and Eleanor Janega make a hands-on journey into the depths of medieval winter - was it a time of feast or famine; a season of cold, dark and hunger or the time of year when medieval folk could kick back and enjoy seasonal celebrations? From food to cosy fashions and fireside tales, His...
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Big Stories from a Small Town: The Real Lives Behind Little Women and Walden
“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents”. So begins ‘Little Women’ by Louisa May Alcott.
In this special seasonal film, History Hit explores the extraordinary literary heritage of Concord, Massachusetts - a town that nurtured so many great American writers and thinkers, particularly ...
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A Very Victorian Scandal: The Trials of Oscar Wilde
In 1895, the world's first celebrity trial challenged the creaking moral core of the British Empire. Dr Anthony Delaney traces the extraordinary trajectory of Oscar Wilde—from the toast of London’s West End, a shining star on both sides of the Atlantic, to the disgraced accused standing before th...
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The Ashmolean Up Close: Origins of Ancient Egypt
The sixth and final episode in our series exploring the remarkable collections of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
Dan Snow joins Keeper of Antiquities, Liam McNamara, to journey into Egypt’s distant past, long before the Pharaohs and pyramids. Through extraordinary artefacts from the Predynastic...
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Ancient Adventures: Libya
Join Dan Snow on a special expedition that goes far off the beaten track of history as we venture to Libya in North Africa to explore extraordinary Greek and Roman sites, centred around one of the greatest cities of the ancient world, Cyrene.
After years of civil war and instability, History Hit...
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Auschwitz: The Evolution of Terror
Join Holocaust expert and historian Dr James Bulgin as he is given unprecedented access to Auschwitz-Birkenau to uncover how this site was transformed, step by step, decision by decision, from a concentration camp for political prisoners into the epicentre of one of the worst crimes in human hist...
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Paestum: A Tale of Three Cities
The story of ancient Italy is so much more than just Rome. Tristan Hughes visits the extraordinary site of Paestum in southern Italy, home to some of the greatest ancient Greek temples from anywhere in the world.
From majestic temples to pristine wall paintings more that 2,500 years old, he exp...
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What if the Gunpowder Plot Succeeded? - Not Just The Tudors...Lates
November 5th, 1605... beneath the shadowed vaults of the Houses of Parliament, a man waits with 36 barrels of gunpowder by his side, and a plan that could change the fate of a nation forever.
Then, in a moment, it's over... Guy Fawkes is caught and the plan thwarted. But what if he wasn't?
Led ...
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The Trials of Joan of Arc
We all know the name, Joan of Arc. But who really was this celebrated voice of the people of France? For some she is a simple peasant girl - one of the people. For others, she is a champion of nation and church. For the English, she was simply the enemy.
Dr Eleanor Janega is on a mission to deci...
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The Ashmolean Up Close: King Alfred's Jewel
The fifth film in our series exploring the remarkable collections of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
Dan Snow joins Museum Director Xa Sturgis, to delve into the museum's Anglo-Saxon treasures, including the famed Alfred Jewel. Alongside other exquisite artefacts, such as a warrior's sword and v...
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A Very British Murder with Lucy Worsley
1 season
The history of our curious relationship with murder is explored by Lucy Worsley.
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Witchmen: Witch Trials in the Land of Fire & Ice
17th century Iceland was a remote place. But its isolation didn’t stop it getting caught in one of the most horrifying crazes of the time, the witch hunts. But in the breathtaking landscape of Iceland something was different. In Iceland 93% of witches killed were men. Dr Kate Lister is on a missi...
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Ancient Ways: The Ridgeway
1 season
Every generation leaves a mark on Britain, but if you know where to look, you can still find the ancient tracks that our ancestors used to crisscross this land. In this two-part special, anthropologist and keen hiker Mary-Ann Ochota tracks the pathways of our ancestors from the Uffington White Ho...
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Rebels: Owain Glyndŵr
In the second part of his new series, conflict analyst Professor Michael Livingston is continuing his journey across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom on the trail of some of Britain’s best known rebels.
In this episode Michael is heading to Wales to discover the astonishing story of ...