In the early years of anno domini, China experienced one of its most formidable and brilliant rulers in the personage of Qin Shi Huang, or 'The First Emperor of Qin.' By all accounts a visionary, Huang is now credited with laying the groundwork for the Chinese empire, setting forth the plans for the Great Wall (the first ruler to do so) and establishing the largest burial site on Earth - a site gu
It's a palaeontologist's dream: the chance to live in a world where dinosaurs are not something to be dug out of the ground but are living among us. It may sound far-fetched but dinosaurs were actually rather unlucky. The meteorite impact that doomed them to extinction was an event with a probability of millions to one. What if the meteorite had missed?Had dinosaurs survived, the world today wou
Physicist Jim Al-Khalili travels through Syria, Iran, Tunisia and Spain to tell the story of the great leap in scientific knowledge that took place in the Islamic world between the 8th and 14th centuries.Its legacy is tangible, with terms like algebra, algorithm and alkali all being Arabic in origin and at the very heart of modern science - there would be no modern mathematics or physics without
Professor Niall Ferguson examines the origins of the pillars of the world’s financial system, and how behind every great historical phenomenon – empires and republics, wars and revolutions – there lies a financial secret.Episode 1: Dreams of Avarice. From Shylock’s pound of flesh to the loan sharks of Glasgow, from the ‘promises to pay’ on Babylonian clay tablets to the Medici banking system, Pr
Its every parents worst nightmare. One moment their child is perfectly healthy. The next, theyve stopped breathing and are turning blue. For many children, the merest hint of nut is all it takes to send them into anaphylactic shock. Food allergies are on the increase and the number of children affected has more than doubled in the past ten years. Yet simple precautions could significantly cut the
As a Pararescueman in Iraq, David Broyles saved lives and helped those in need. After leaving the military, he wanted to continue that mission. He found a charity providing assistance to severely wounded and disabled veterans. To raise funds and awareness through the charity, he wanted a tough challenge in their honor. David discovered that fewer Americans had swum across the Strait of Gibraltar t
Iraq war vets from across the country talk about why many of them oppose the war. Most of these vets remain loyal to their branch of the service, but believe that U.S. involvement in Iraq is wrong. This documentary is not a statement from the political left– many of these vets who now abhor the war come from conservative backgrounds. You will meet Dave, from Illinois, who believed he was there to
Mordechai Vanunu, Israel's nuclear whistle blower, was jailed in 1986 for publishing photographs of Israel's nuclear bomb factory at Dimona. Olenka Frenkiel reveals the extent of Israel's nuclear gagging. The Sunday Times Revelations hit the press in October 1986. Vanunu has spent 17 years in jail, a11 of which were in a minute solitary confinement cell - and he has just had his appeal for parole
We are bad at making decisions. According to science, our decisions are based on oversimplification, laziness and prejudice. And that's assuming that we haven't already been hijacked by our surroundings or led astray by our subconscious!Featuring exclusive footage of experiments that show how our choices can be confounded by temperature, warped by post-rationalisation and even manipulated by the