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Ludwig Van Beethoven, like his precursor and possible acquaintance Mozart, is one of the most famous figures in Western musical history. With his wild hair and furrowed brow, his was a genius marked n...
· 1 hr 6 min 16 sec
In 1756 a musical prodigy was born in Salzburg, Austria: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Thanks to the efforts of his exacting father, Mozart's genius was exhibited and celebrated in some of the greatest cou...
· 1 hr 9 min 22 sec
“And from that moment on, he was addressed as emperor and Augustus!”The coronation of Charlemagne on Christmas Day 800 AD, is one of the landmark moments in all world history. More than three centurie...
· 1 hr 5 min 47 sec
“Here was a program to wet the ambitions of warlords as well as scholars, and to send men into battle beneath the fluttering of banners, the hiss of arrows, and the shadow of carrion crows…”The year i...
· 55 min 51 sec
The Frankish king, Charlemagne the Great, is one of the titanic figures of European history, simultaneously renowned and shadowy. His rise to supreme power is a staggering story of warring religious e...
· 52 min 31 sec
By 711 Europe and the Frankish warlords were facing a graver threat than ever before. Bands of Northern African, nominally Muslim raiders had begun a steady incursion throughout the West, loosely unif...
· 1 hr 1 min 41 sec
Following the death of the legendary Frankish King Clovis, his son Clothar I divided the mighty realm his father had hacked out from the warring warlords of Europe between his four sons. But peace was...
· 1 hr 2 min 12 sec
The Rise of the Franks - a mighty host of warlords; forefathers of the western world and forgers of medieval civilisation, under the totemic leadership of history’s most glorious King: Charlemagne. It...
· 53 min 54 sec
In as early as 5000 BC the vast and spectacular city of Uruk - replete with towering walls, glistening temples and complex irrigation systems - lay sprawled across the face of Southern Mesopotamia. No...
· 52 min 53 sec
The 1st of August 1798 saw the British fleet sailing towards Alexandria into a land of classical history and mythology, the sun setting like blood over the River Nile and French flags flying over the...
· 53 min 48 sec
In the wake of the Battle of Cape St. Vincent in 1797, Horatio Nelson, though a much acclaimed public hero for his bravery during the battle, is in the doldrums. Having led a harebrained attack on Ten...
· 54 min 0 sec
Valentine’s day, 1797: the British Royal Navy are hoping for a decisive clash with the Spanish enemy, off the coast of Portugal, at Cape St. Vincent. Nelson has already narrowly avoided capture at the...
· 40 min 32 sec
It is 1793 and France has declared war on Britain, meaning that the British navy must serve as both sword and shield to Europe. Horatio Nelson is at this time a slim and sickly 34 year old captain who...
· 39 min 46 sec
It’s 1758 and Britain’s greatest naval commander has just been born. The young Horatio Nelson has inherited his father’s love of god and his mother’s hatred of the French. At age 12, he leaves Norfolk...
· 1 hr 8 min 29 sec
“Nixon now! Nixon now! More than ever we need Nixon now!”It's the 5th of November 1968, and Richard M. Nixon is on tenterhooks, alone in his dark hotel room. He watches as the final states are called...
· 59 min 45 sec
The Democratic National Convention is in Chicago, and the incumbent president, Lyndon B. Johnson, has pulled out of the race. Anti-war protestors are flooding the streets of the city, and Johnson cont...
· 1 hr 11 min 35 sec
“Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” George Wallace, Governor of Alabama, was one of the most successful third-party presidential candidates in American history. In 1968, he r...
· 1 hr 8 min 49 sec
“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and com...
· 1 hr 6 min 46 sec
The peaceful figurehead of the Civil Rights movement in the early 1960s, Dr Martin Luther King had inspired hundreds of thousands to demand equal rights for African Americans. But by 1968, the once un...
· 1 hr 4 min 48 sec