The 80s with Dominic Sandbrook

Great Southern Landscapes

June 2025 •English

Great Southern Landscapes follows art lover and actor Rachel Griffiths as she explores Australia's most iconic landscapes and the untold personal, social and cultural stories behind them.

La Grande-Bretagne Sauvage

June 2025 •French

How the Victorians Built Britain

June 2025 •English

This series travels the length and breadth of Britain to find out how the Victorians built Britain. It uncovers the incredible and surprising stories behind iconic landmarks; discovers the hidden heroes behind the epic constructions; and finds out how the incredible advances made by the Victorians forged the world we live in today.

The Great Smog: Winter of '52

June 2025 •English

Dr Xand Van Tulleken and Raksha Dave investigate the Great Smog of 1952 - the deadliest environmental disaster ever recorded and one of the world's worst peacetime catastrophes. Lasting just over four days, the Great Smog plunged London into a terrifyingly murky gloom - the acrid pollution seeping into homes, leaving Londoners gasping for breath, shutting down transport and emergency services, and overwhelming hospitals and undertakers alike.

Empire Of The Seas

June 2025 •English

Historian Dan Snow charts the defining role the Royal Navy played in Britain's struggle for modernity - a grand tale of the twists and turns which thrust the people of the British Isles into an indelible relationship with the sea and ships.

The Stuarts

June 2025 •English

Presented by Dr Clare Jackson of Cambridge University, this new three-part series argues that the Stuarts, more than any other, were Britain's defining royal family.

The Stuarts in Exile

June 2025 •English

Dr Clare Jackson tells the story of The Stuarts in Exile and sheds new light on the political, military and cultural threat the Jacobite's posed to the embryonic British state. Although the '15' ultimately failed, it crystallised the stark choice facing those living in early 18th-century Britain. Are you for the Stuarts or are you for Hanoverian's?

Inside Hampton Court Palace

June 2025 •English

On the edge of London stands Hampton Court, one of Britain's biggest palaces and most popular tourist spots, attracting almost a million visitors every year. Spanning 750 acres of grounds, it boasts 1,300 rooms and 23 courtyards...along with a host of secrets and historic stories. This two-part special provides an exclusive and intimate look at life inside the court today for the people keeping Henry VIII's world alive in the modern age, and also explores what life was like in the palace where the private world of the Tudors began.

My Grandparents' War

June 2025 •English

In this four-part documentary series, leading Hollywood actors undertake a fascinating journey into their family's past by re-tracing the footsteps of their grandparents during World War Two. We follow the moving, personal stories of Helena Bonham Carter, Mark Rylance, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Carey Mulligan as they travel to historic locations, from the beaches of Dunkirk to prisoner of war camps in Asia, to learn about the war their grandparents experienced. All of the actors have unanswered questions about the scars war left on their grandparents, and in each episode one of the actors explore how six years changed the lives of their family and the world forever while learning about the life and death decisions that their grandparents faced.

Timeshift

June 2025 •English

Documentary series which ranges widely over Britain's social and cultural history, its narrative-led storytelling offering a richly immersive and varied window onto the past.

Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings

June 2025 •English

Through this three part series Art Historian Dr Janina Ramirez tells the story of the Medieval monarchy as preserved through stunning illuminated manuscripts from the British Library's Royal Manuscripts collection.

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency

June 2025 •English

Historian Lucy Worsley presents a series marking the 200th anniversary of one of the most explosive and creative decades in British history, the Regency.

Britain's Bloodiest Dynasty

June 2025 •English

Acclaimed historian Dan Jones tells the story of the dynasty who ruled England and much of France during the Middle Ages. More shocking, brutal and exhilarating than Game of Thrones, these events actually happened.

Fit to Rule: How Royal Illness Changed History

June 2025 •English

Lucy Worsley, chief curator at Historic Royal Palaces, explores how the physical and mental health of our past monarchs has shaped the history of the nation.

1066: The Battle for Middle Earth

June 2025 •English

In this blend of historical drama and original source material, the story of this decisive year is remagined, not from the saddles of kings and conquerors, but through the eyes of the ordinary men who fought on their behalf.

Secrets of Great British Castles

June 2025 •English

Historian Dan Jones explores the millennium of history behind six of Great Britain's most famous castles: Warwick, Dover, Caernarfon, the Tower of London, Carrickfergus, and Stirling.

The Normans

June 2025 •English

The Normans is a British television documentary series first aired on BBC Two in 2010. Over three episodes, it sees Professor Robert Bartlett's journey from Great Britain via Jerusalem to the Kingdom of Sicily to examine the expansion and ambition of the Normans between the 10th and 13th centuries.

Bone Detectives: Britain's Buried Secrets

June 2025 •English

Tori Herridge and a team of scientists piece together life stories behind unearthed bones

Railway Murders

June 2025 •English

Investigating the most notorious murders ever to take place on the British railways. The cases start from 1864 with the the first murder on a British railway.

Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years

June 2025 •English

Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years is an 8-part 1981 drama serial based on the life of Winston Churchill, and particularly his years in enforced exile from political position during the 1920s and 30s. It was written and directed by Ferdinand Fairfax and Churchill was played by Robert Hardy. Hardy's brilliant performance as Churchill won critical acclaim and a BAFTA award in 1982. He reprised the role in The Sittaford Mystery, Bomber Harris and War and Remembrance and at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the end of World War II in 1995 when he quoted a number of Churchill's wartime speeches in character.