Explores the scientific, social, economic and environmental consequences of supposedly time-saving inventions, ideas and objects. Throughout a lifetime, the minutes that are actually lost or saved can add up to days, weeks, months or even years.
Social & External
The three-part series tells the story of British architects Richard Rogers, Norman Foster, Nicholas Grimshaw, Michael Hopkins and Terry Farrell.
Take a mind-blowing journey through human history, told through six iconic objects that modern people take for granted, and see how science, invention and technology built on one another to change everything.
Every time we switch on a light or boil a kettle we rely on power - but most people don't stop to think about the inventions and discoveries that allow us to live the way we do. In an exciting new four-part series for BBC Two, The Genius of Invention reveals the fascinating chain of events behind inventions that make everyday life possible.
HISTORY’s longest-running series moves to H2. Modern Marvels celebrates the ingenuity, invention and imagination found in the world around us. From commonplace items like ink and coffee to architectural masterpieces and engineering disasters, the hit series goes beyond the basics to provide insight and history into things we wonder about and that impact our lives. This series tells fascinating stories of the doers, the dreamers and sometime-schemers that create everyday items, technological breakthroughs and manmade wonders. The hit series goes deep to explore the leading edge of human inspiration and ambition.
James May takes a look at some of the greatest developments of the 20th century.
In the series, "Wallace will take a light hearted and humorous look at the real-life inventors, contraptions, gadgets and inventions, with the silent help of Gromit. The series aims to inspire a whole new generation of innovative minds by showing them real, but mind-boggling, machines and inventions from around the world that have influenced his illustrious inventing career" (the BBC press statement). Peter Sallis reprised his role as the voice of Wallace. The filmed inserts are mostly narrated by Ashley Jensen, with one in each episode presented in-vision by Jem Stansfield. John Sparkes also voices a portion in the unseen character of archivist Goronwy.
Asking how you tell what's real and what isn't sounds like an obvious question. But in this series of six programmes, James Burke shows that the more you think about it the harder it is to answer. After all, what have you got, apart from your five senses, to prove those senses are giving you the real thing?
Sir David Jason explores his favourite great British inventions and discovers how and why they were first thought up
The Secret Life of Machines is an educational television series presented by Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod, in which the two explain the inner workings and history of common household and office machinery. According to Hunkin, the show's creator, the programme was developed from his comic strip The Rudiments of Wisdom, which he researched and drew for the Observer newspaper over a period of 14 years. Three separate groupings of the broadcast were produced and originally shown between 1988 and 1993 on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, with the production subsequently airing on The Learning Channel and the Discovery Channel.
Since the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, light has sculpted the cosmos. It traverses the void, interacts with matter, and dances with shadows. It multiplies and proliferates, offering the world ever more complex and luminous structures. If it could speak, what would it tell us?
Climate change is real. It’s happening now. Big policy, implemented properly and urgently, is needed to change our world … but some people are quietly doing amazing things to make our island a better place. Heated tells their stories. Heated is a new 6-part series on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player dealing with climate change.
Time is a 2006 documentary television series first broadcast on BBC Four in the United Kingdom. It is written and presented by Michio Kaku.
The UK's leading inventors create ingenious new solutions to every-day problems and build life-changing solutions for people in desperate need.
Life After People is a television series on which scientists, structural engineers, and other experts speculate about what might become of Earth should humanity instantly disappear. The featured experts also talk about the impact of human extinction on the environment, and the vestiges of civilization thus left behind.
Ancient Inventions was a BBC historical documentary series released in 1998. It was presented by ex-Monty Python member Terry Jones and looked at great inventions of the ancient world. The series is split into 3 episodes, namely City Life, Sex and Love, and War and Conflicts, all around 50 min long.
Following the men and women who work around the clock on Britain's longest and most iconic road, ensuring the traffic keeps moving and the public is kept safe.
Professor Brian Cox reveals how the fundamental scientific principles and laws explain not only the story of the universe but also answer mankind's greatest questions.
Follow Matt Hunter and Jeremy MacPherson as they dig up original patent designs from history’s lost inventions and build them, test them, and try to make them work. From a snow annihilator from the 1930s to a Chinese dragon rocket over 600 years old to a solar powered crematorium, Matt and Jeremy take us through the strange and entertaining world of invention.
Japanese inventions are used and loved around the world. Through interviews and reenactments, go behind the scenes and discover how Japanese craftsmanship brought these top inventions into being.
The fascinating stories of the families behind the food that built America, those who used brains, muscle, blood, sweat and tears to get to America's heart through its stomach, those who invented new technologies and helped win wars.
TV's most-watched history series brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.
Hit rewind and explore the most iconic moments and influential people of The Nineties, the decade that gave us the Internet, DVDs, and other cultural and political milestones.
Infographics and archival footage deliver bite-size history lessons on scientific breakthroughs, social movements and world-changing discoveries.
Documentary series investigating why some of the world's most advanced architectural achievements were abandoned.
Gadget Man shows the world's collection of handy gadgets throughout the ages, from today's smart devices to decades old electronics to even older mechanical devices.
Motoring programme featuring reviews of and reports about cars of all types.
The history of the sport of baseball in America, told through archival photos, film footage, and the words of those who contributed to the game in each era. Writers, historians, players, baseball personnel, and fans review key events and the significance of the game in America's history.
Experience the wonders of our world like never before in this epic series from Jon Favreau and the producers of Planet Earth. Travel back 66 million years to when majestic dinosaurs and extraordinary creatures roamed the lands, seas, and skies.
Don Wildman unearths relics from the world's greatest institutions to reveal secrets from the past. He examines each artifact to illuminate history's most incredible triumphs, sensational crimes and bizarre encounters.
Noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has been helping people discover long-lost relatives hidden for generations within the branches of their family trees. Professor Gates utilizes a team of genealogists to reconstruct the paper trail left behind by our ancestors and the world’s leading geneticists to decode our DNA and help us travel thousands of years into the past to discover the origins of our earliest forebears.
An insider's look at the engineering and scientific miracles behind the things that form the modern world.
Biography is a documentary television series. It was originally a half-hour filmed series produced for CBS by David Wolper from 1961 to 1964 and hosted by Mike Wallace. The A&E Network later re-ran it and has produced new episodes since 1987. The older version featured historical figures such as Helen Keller and Mark Twain, or long-dead entertainment figures such as Will Rogers or John Barrymore. The A&E series has placed the emphasis on such people as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Plácido Domingo, Freddie Mercury, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Eric Clapton, Pope John Paul II, Gene Tierney, Selena, Diego Rivera, Mao Zedong and Queen Elizabeth II, and fictional characters like The Phantom, Superman, Hamlet, Betty Boop, and Santa Claus. The program ended up profiling enough figures that in 1999, A&E spun it off into an entire network, The Biography Channel.
Horizon tells amazing science stories, unravels mysteries and reveals worlds you've never seen before.
Drivers, managers and team owners live life in the fast lane — both on and off the track — during each cutthroat season of Formula 1 racing.
Investigates a wide range of historically compelling topics and the mysteries surrounding each including the Titanic, D.B. Cooper, Roswell, John Wilkes Booth, and more. Fresh, new evidence and perspectives will be showcased, such as never-before-released documents, personal diaries and DNA evidence.
Antiques Roadshow is a British television show in which antiques appraisers travel to various regions of the United Kingdom to appraise antiques brought in by local people. It has been running since 1979. There are also international versions of the programme.
30 for 30 is the title for a series of documentary films airing on ESPN, its sister networks, and online highlighting interesting people and events in sports history. This currently includes four "volumes" of 30 episodes each, a 13-episode series under the ESPN Films Presents title in 2011–2012, and a series of 30 for 30 Shorts shown through the ESPN.com website. The series has also expanded to include Soccer Stories, which aired in advance of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and audio podcasts. This entry refers to the main Volumes of the series presented by ESPN
Part detective story, part true-life drama, long-running series explores some of the most iconic moments in history to debunk myths and shed new light on past events. Using the latest investigative techniques, forensic science and historical examination, it shatters accepted wisdom, challenges prevailing ideas, overturns existing hypotheses, spotlights forgotten mysteries, and ultimately rewrites history.