Ötzi the Iceman

The Pharisees are one of the most familiar names in the ancient world, but are they also one of the most misunderstood?Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr Helen Bond to step back into first-century Judea, where the Pharisees were debating law, purity and resurrection under foreign rul ...  Show more

In July 1799, French soldiers unearthed a stone that would transform our understanding of the ancient world. Discovered in a fort at Rashid, the Rosetta Stone became the key to deciphering Egypt’s long-lost hieroglyphs. Within two decades, scholars began unlocking its secrets. Bu ...  Show more

Five thousand years ago, a man died more than 10,000 feet high in the Alps of northern Italy. He had been shot in the back with an arrow, the corpse left behind, where he was frozen into a glacier along with all of his belongings. He stayed there until two hikers found him - s ...

In the autumn of 1909, the American explorer Frederick Cook arrived in Copenhagen, claiming to have become the first person to reach the North Pole. His dramatic return had been eagerly anticipated, but one young journalist was skeptical. Philip Gibbs contested Cook's version ...

On a summer morning in 1945, a device known simply as 'Gadget' was detonated. An enormous explosion tore a crater into the New Mexico desert, melting sand into radioactive green glass and sending a mushroom cloud 7.5 miles into the sky. This was the first controlled detonation ...

Is there a lost colony of Vikings somewhere in Greenland, shut off from the rest of the world? For hundreds of years, that question has taxed many minds for a variety of reasons that often reflect changes in outlook.

In this episode of Gone Medieval, Ma ...