A series of documentaries examining the history of local people, places, inventions and events that changed the world. Adam Hart-Davis tells the remarkable story of Thomas Newcomen, the Devon man who invented the world's first working steam-powered engine.

Chris Tarrant discovers how one simple invention revolutionised the industrial heart of Britain. He travels by narrow boat to see how the Brindley Lock created a canal network that would transform the Midlands from rural backwater to industrial giant.

Coal had powered Britain's industrial rise, with her mills and furnaces, railways and steamships depending on it. In the peak years a million men laboured in the mines, many in poor and dangerous working conditions like those contributor Dick Martin found when he began as pit boy aged 14.

Professor Stephen Hawking examines how science is striving for humankind's next leap forward

The team showcase breakthroughs in technology and engineering that are creating a new generation of machines.

The experts examine how scientists are fighting for our survival by battling the world's big killer diseases.

Science turns superhero as it battles to save the planet and preserve the human race.

The experts unearth the amazing breakthroughs that are transforming the resilience and strength of the human body.

A century and a half ago, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Britain's most famous engineer, was about to launch a ship five times bigger than any that had ever been built before, the most revolutionary vessel the world had ever seen: the SS Great Eastern.

A team of experts try to recreate astounding feats of engineering. Prof Chris Wise and Dr Caroline Baillie attempt to build a replica of the first submarine.

The unexpected marriage of high-tech glamour with the gritty reality of 1970s Northern Ireland captured the public's imagination but this early optimism would end in failure. Although the cars looked great, the windows leaked and the engines seized; as his financial problems mounted the maverick DeLorean faced charges of drugs trafficking. Adrian Dunbar narrates the story.

When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon in 1969, America went down in popular history as the winner of the space race. But that history is bunk. The real pioneers of space exploration were the Soviet cosmonauts.

It's a voyage of exploration like no other - to Titan, Saturn's largest moon and thought to resemble our own early Earth. For a small team of British scientists this would be the culmination of a lifetime's endeavour - the flight alone, some 2 billion miles, would take a full seven years. This is the story of the space probe they built, the sacrifices they made and their hopes for the landing.

The world's most enormous machines are stripped down and torn apart to discover their hidden secrets and to reveal out how each one has changed our world in its own unique way

Engineer turned comedian Tom Wrigglesworth and Rob Bell, rising star of mechanical engineering, climb on board Victor X-ray, a 200 ton, £200 million Boeing 747.

Engineer turned comedian Tom Wrigglesworth and Rob Bell, rising star of mechanical engineering, tell the story as an entire North Sea Gas installation, the Lima Platform, is pulled from the sea by floating cranes, brought back to Newcastle, and then torn into tiny pieces for recycling.

Engineer turned comedian Tom Wrigglesworth and Rob Bell, rising star of mechanical engineering, climb on board the Pride of Bruges, a massive, 25,000 tonne North Sea ferry as it is brought into dry dock in Newcastle.

Mark Miodownik reveals the amazing stories behind everyday objects of desire and how they are miraculously transformed from raw materials into the very stuff of the modern world.

Professor Mark Miodownik concludes his odyssey of the stuff of modern life. This time he looks at how materials have enabled us to indulge our curiosity about the world around us.

Engineer Jem Stansfield is used to creating explosions, but in this programme he uncovers the story of how we have learnt to control them and harness their power for our own means.

Documentary which tells the story of a dream of happy families on wheels that the Ford Motor Company brought from Detroit to Dagenham, then sold to Britain.

Michael Palin explores China, staying in the Governor's Castle in Qingdao where Mao slept, meeting the owner of a Chinese vineyard which produces Chardonay and having a street massage. He travels to Shanghai and then by train and boat to the Yangtse Gorge, where a huge engineering project to create a dam is in progress, which will flood the towns and areas in which he is now travelling. Third in the series

Horizon reveals the untold story of the 87-day battle to kill the Deepwater Horizon oil blowout a mile beneath the waves - a crisis that became America\'s worst environmental disaster.

Iain Stewart investigates a new and controversial energy rush for the natural gas found deep underground. Sometimes, this is right under the places people live in. Getting it out of the ground involves hydraulic fracturing - or fracking.

It's a macabre paradox, but almost every advance in aviation safety has been driven by a crash. After every crash, investigators determine its cause and scientists make every effort to ensure the same mistakes never happen again.