It is perhaps the most famous love story in history, so famous that it needs no introduction. Even so, its tragic aspects are worth discussing. Although it shares many of the qualities of tragedy in the classical sense, it concerns a love that is doomed not for any fault in the hero or heroine but because their love is too good for their world. This play follows young drama students who prepare, perform, and share their thoughts on Act II, Scene 2,...

Part of the series The Wars of the Roses.

This epic adaptation of William Shakespeare's two plays explores father-son relationships and relentless ambition. In episode two, Henry IV and Prince Hal face off against their rivals, the Percys, in battle. This episode of Performance was filmed in 1995 stars and Ronald Pickup, Jonathan Firth, Rufus Sewell, and David Calder.

We unwrap a tiny mummy to find out how an Egyptian baby died 2000 years ago, then test two theories about 12th Century Islamic pottery by smoking hashish and blowing things up. We tell the embarrassing tale of a dinosaur lost for decades within the museum's walls, then visit a hard-hat construction zone where curators piece bones together into the colossal skeleton of a Barosaurus. We field test a crossbow against a musket to find out which is the...

On this episode of Camera Three, Robert Lansing portrays the role of Prince Hal and Henry V in excerpts from Henry IV part 1, Henry IV part 2, and Henry V. The program chose scenes from William Shakespeare's Henriad that demonstrate Prince Hal's maturity and growth.

Lucy Worsley investigates the inside story of the English Reformation. Was Henry VIII’s desire to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn the real reason for England’s split from Catholic Europe. Or was there a secret political agenda at work behind the scenes?

At a time when revolutionary France was assailed from all sides, there emerged a young military officer whose genius and ambition assured him of great fame-and notoriety. In this program, Dr. David Chandler-world-renowned authority on the Emperor Napoleon and author of The Campaigns of Napoleon-provides full commentary on the strategies and tactics of the Napoleonic Wars. Large-scale reenactments bring to life the military campaigns that so strongly...

In this series, Professor Robert Bartlett tells the extraordinary story of England's most dysfunctional, yet longest ruling, royal dynasty. The third part charts the downfall of the Plantagenet dynasty. In the last century of their rule, four Plantagenet kings are violently deposed and murdered by members of their own family. It is the bloodiest episode in the entire history of the English monarchy. As the Plantagenets turn in on themselves, England...

This program provides an introduction to medieval Europe by showing surviving traces to provide a feel of medieval style and practice and by tracing the roots of the fall of civilization and the onset of darkness. Much that is medieval survives, sometimes in unlikely places: in a feudal community in sub-Saharan Africa, where an absolute ruler holds court surrounded by ministers, courtiers, and hangers-on, with paladins in mail and mercenaries who,...

Art historian and critic Andrew Graham-Dixon opens this series with the dramatic story of French art, a story of the most powerful kings ever to rule in Europe, with their glittering palaces and astoundingart to go in them. He also reveals how art emerged from a struggle between tradition and revolution, between rulers and a people who didn't always want to be ruled. Starting with the first great revolution in art, the invention of Gothic architecture,...