Ed Stobart

Awesome parties for amazing people - and everyone's invited. LGBTQ+ party planners compete to plan epic blow-outs and bring their fabulous queer parties to life.

Ardal O’Hanlon explores a 1930s quest to find the first Irish men and women using archaeology, answering his deepest questions about what it means to be Irish.

Dr Fern Riddell is a young historian and author who goes back to the archives to challenge more traditional historical views of Victorian society. Her investigation into a sensational Victorian high court trial, which took place in 1877, sheds new light on the ‘no sex please, we are British’ cliché often associated with Victorian England.

The Kush Empire was an ancient superpower that dominated the Nile Valley and rivaled the Egyptians, and now, a new, cutting-edge investigation at a mysterious tomb could reveal the secrets of this formidable lost kingdom.

The English language is spoken by 450 million people around the globe, with a further one billion using it as a second language. It is arguably Britain’s most famous export. The man often given credit for the global triumph of English, and the invention of many of our modern words, is William Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s plays first hit the stage four centuries ago, as the explorers of Elizabethan England were laying the foundations for the British empire. It was this empire that would carry English around the world. Language historian and BBC New Generation Thinker Dr John Gallagher asks whether the real story of how English became a global linguistic superpower is more complex.

The true story of the seven weeks that changed China forever. On June 4, 1989, pro-democracy demonstrations were violently and bloodily repressed. Thousands of people died, but the basis for China's future was definitely planted.

Janina Ramirez explores the BBC archives to create a TV history of Leonardo Da Vinci, discovering what lies beneath the Mona Lisa and even how he acquired his anatomical knowledge.

In a long-form interview, Kate recalls how she was wounded by gunfire and narrowly escaped death herself as she and her cameraman remained in the line of fire while an estimated 2,000 pro-democracy demonstrators were shot down by Chinese government troops. Kate reviews the reports she made on the ground, with additional insight from leading historian Professor Steve Tsang, and draws on the BBC's archive to assess how film-makers have portrayed China before and after the upheaval.

The extraordinary untold story of how an NYPD bomb disposal expert played a key role in helping defuse the decades old "Troubles" in Northern Ireland. In 1975, Irish immigrant Denis Mulcahy of the NYPD bomb squad – gathered a group of family, friends and neighbours to start a scheme offering children from Northern Ireland a chance to temporarily escape the violent turmoil of their daily lives. From modest beginnings, Project Children ultimately brought over 20,000 Catholic and Protestant children to suburban US for summer-long visits where they forged unexpected friendships and found they had more in common with the 'enemy' than they thought. Now this extraordinary untold story is being brought to the screen in a new documentary by Des Henderson, and narrated by Liam Neeson, entitled How To Defuse A Bomb: The Project Children Story.

A documentary following the atypical path of soul singer Roberta Flack and her rise to fame, set against the turbulent backdrop of America's Civil Rights movement. Features interviews with Dionne Warwick, Johnny Mathis and Cissy Houston.

The explorers Bruce Parry and Mark Anstice Climb the remote and little known mountain Puncak Mandala in the Indonesian part of New Guinea. They have to cross remote jungles, climb icy cliffs and navigate the curiosity and fear of indigenous peoples in order to get to the top.