Making History

Making History is a fast-moving four-part series that looks at the significant points in history that cameras weren’t around to catch. Using the latest theories from experts and scientists, the show blends hard historical research with dramatic reconstructions and shows step-by-step how the latest computer trickery can make history really come alive.

In the first episode, Hitler: Rise and Fall, the team recreates the future Führer’s experiences in the First World War trenches to find out how a brush with an exploding bomb helped turn a young soldier into the leader of Nazi Germany. They also reconstruct Hitler’s famous Nuremburg rallies, recreate a secret weapon he hoped would win the war and revisit his final squalid days in a Berlin bunker.

The Nostradamus Prophecies – sees a team of historians and CGI magicians conjure up some of the Frenchman’s most controversial predictions, from the death of France’s King Henry II, to the moon landings and a predicted asteroid shower that will one day bring devastation to the planet.

Episode three, Rise of the Gangster, sees a return to the 1920s with the filmmakers recreating some of history’s most notorious mobsters, an assassination attempt on Al Capone and a re-enactment of Bonnie and Clyde’s legendary shoot out.

And finally, in the fourth and final episode, Stonehenge, the Making History team demonstrates how ancient people could have created such an iconic and long lasting structure without all the actual heavy lifting.

Commenting on the series, executive producer John Farren says: “We’ve all wondered about those historic moments the cameras missed. And we’ve all wondered how accurate those TV re-enactments were. Making History is a new paradigm – where you see both the research and the making of cutting- edge CGI re-enactments come together to capture those moments. The results are funny, surprising and visually startling.”