Detailed digital re-creations of aerial combat are the obvious highlight of Dogfights, but the greatest value of this popular History Channel series lies in its assembly of priceless interviews with veteran pilots who fought in history's most dangerous dogfights and lived to tell the tale. As an oral and visual history that will enthrall viewers of all ages, the series pays tribute to these men and their remarkable skill, and their vivid recollections ensure that this series will be discussed and studied for many years to come. As you learn about strategic maneuvers like the "Thatch Weave" and "Rolling Scissors," the only thing missing is the G-forces you'd feel if you were actually flying the planes.
Eight episodes.
For thousands of years the holy lands of the Middle East have run with blood. Here the scars of battle fought between three of the great religions of the world are etched into the earth.
But the deepest wound was made by a war between Christians and Muslims, that began in the 11th century and fought for 200 years. At stake: A tiny strip of land just a few hundred miles long, but with the greatest prize, Jerusalem. Now this holy war’s past is a legend, but there were those who saw it with their own eyes. Great chronicles from two different worlds, Christian and Muslim, who wrote of great deeds, great battles, great warriors and men who would lay down their lives for their god. This was the collision of two great faiths, the clash between the crescent and the cross.
Around 400 AD, two Barbarian babies were born. One would grow up to become the most feared of all - Attila the Hun. The other, Geiseric, led the Vandals whom history has cast as destroyers. Jones claims that Roman civilization wasn't destroyed by the invasion of these tribes, but by the loss of the North African tax base. He sees the common view of Rome and "Barbarians" as a result of the Roman Catholic Church popularizing the Roman version of the truth.
At its height in the second century A.D., the Roman Empire was the beacon of learning, power, and prosperity in the western world. But the once-powerful Rome – rotten to the core by the fifth century lay open to barbarian warriors who came in wave after wave of invasion, slaughtering, stealing, and ultimately, settling. As chaos replaced culture, Europe was beset by famine, plague, persecutions, and a state of war that was so persistent it was only rarely interrupted by peace.
One of the world’s greatest authorities on the Middle Ages, Professor Robert Bartlett of St Andrew’s University, investigates the intellectual landscape of the medieval world. Inequality was a part of the natural order, the life of serfs was little better than those of animals, while the knight’s code of chivalry was based more on caste solidarity than morality. The class you were born into determined who you were.
The age of Celtic Britain a time of warriors, druids, and kings of unimaginable wealth. The epic story of how Britain and its people came to be. Diving for 3,000 year-old treasure and pot-holing through an ancient copper mine discover how a golden age of bronze collapsed into social and economic crisis set against a period of sharp climate change, eventually to be replaced by a new era, of iron.
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