For generations, Drake's Island, situated just outside of Plymouth harbour, had been owned by the Ministry of Defence. Recently, however, this island bastion has gone into private ownership. In this documentary Bob King, the gatekeeper of Drake's Island, gives Dan an exclusive tour of this extrem...

Dan Snow explores Biblical lands, discovering the places where religion and history intersect on the east bank of the River Jordan. It is a region full of evidence of the connections early Christians made here with places and events in the Bible, from Moses to the baptism of Jesus.

The journey b...

In the late 1850s, Britain and France were involved in an arms race. Both sides were embracing new technologies like armour plating to try and create the ultimate battleship. In 1860 this produced the revolutionary HMS Warrior, a product of Britain's naval mastery in the 19th century and the Indu...

Mark Williams, senior lecturer in Early Modern history at Cardiff University, tackles the big questions about the East India Company.

Winston Churchill, wartime Prime Minister of Great Britain and its empire during the Second World War, is one of the most recognisable figures of world history. The man dominated Whitehall and Westminster, but many of his most vital decisions during the war years were taken away from the public e...

Sir David Cannadine shows Dan around the iconic Westminster Abbey, in the heart of London. With an unrivalled arrange of monuments - ranging from grand royal tombs to the grave of The Unknown Warrior - and spectacular architecture spanning nearly 1,000 years, join the two historians as they explo...

At noon on 10 April 1912, crowds gathered at Southampton to watch the maiden voyage of the World's largest ship RMS Titanic. A sleek, modern luxurious liner that was offering a safe and fast crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. Titanic was said to be invincible. She cruised down Southampton waters on ...

200 years ago, Britain's Royal Navy was the most technologically advanced and supremely efficient force in the history of naval warfare.

But what was it like to live and work on board these ships? What did the men eat? How did the ships sail? What were the weapons they used?

In this documentar...

Captain James Cook is one of the greatest maritime navigators in history. Born in 1728 to a Scottish father and English mother, Cook grew up in Yorkshire and soon developed a great fascination with the sea and exploration. In 1746 Cook joined the merchant shipping industry when he moved to the ne...

In August 1941, the Allies launched Operation Dervish. This was the first of the Arctic Convoys, ships which sailed from the United Kingdom, Iceland and North America, and brought essential supplies to the Soviet Union.

After the successful launch of Operation Barbarossa, the USSR was in despe...

In early 1789, Captain Bligh in the South Pacific suffered a mutiny among his crew on HMS Bounty. Put to sea with a small group of loyal sailors in one of the ship's boats, what followed was one of the epic stories of maritime history. For more than 40 days, Bligh and his men sailed across open P...

Tracy Borman unravels the web of messages and secrets hidden in one of the most spectacular and mysterious Tudor paintings, Holbein’s the Ambassadors.

In 1533 England was in turmoil - Henry VIII had secretly married Anne Boleyn and had his marriage to Katherine of Aragon annulled.

This was the ...

The Battle of Brunanburh was one of the bloodiest and biggest battles of early medieval history. Fought 1100 years ago, Athelstan - the king of the English - opposed a coalition of Irish, Scots, Northumbrians and Vikings and won a decisive victory. The enemy shield wall was penetrated. Their troo...

All around the UK, in rivers and streams, and in the mud on the side of riverbeds are the remains of our maritime past, which helps us understand who were are today.

In 2013, a survey around the UK identified 199 different assemblages of hulks, remains of craft. These included paddle ships, ferr...

At the end of May and the beginning of June 1940, over 370,000 Allied soldiers found themselves at great risk, surrounded by German forces on all sides & with their backs to the Channel. The eyes of the World fixed their gaze on the small Allied perimeter that remained, around the beaches of Dunk...

In 1845, a British voyage of Arctic exploration led by Captain Sir John Franklin departed England aboard two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. The expedition was assigned to traverse the last unnavigated sections of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic and to record magnetic data to help ...

Dan joins author and mudlark expert Lara Maiklem for a spot of mudlarking.

For centuries the city of Timbuktu was famed as a golden metropolis situated on the southern fringes of the Sahara; tales of its immense wealth and its reputation as a key centre of learning obsessed travellers and adventurers for many hundreds of years. Timbuktu certainly has one of the most ill...

In this fascinating interview, Dan Snow chats to the world's greatest living explorer Ranulph Fiennes about Ernest Shackleton and his heroic expeditions in the Golden Age of Antarctic Exploration.

Victory was total. An enemy fleet obliterated. The course of a great war determined. A hero struck down and a legend born. In October 1805 the British Royal Navy defeated the combined battle fleets of the French and Spanish empires 20 miles northwest of a promontory of rock and sand in southern S...