How The Victorians Celebrated Christmas

There's an enormous amount of farm work to be done on the estate in the lead-up to the festive season, including the hay harvest to make food for the animals over winter. Peter travels to the Royal Agricultural Society's annual show with sheep expert Richard Spencer to choose a new ram for the flock. Back at the farm, Ruth makes mincemeat for the Christmas mince pies. She also prepares for the hoped-for hay harvest celebration with some essentials - bread and butter.

By 1949, America’s nuclear monopoly shattered when the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb—fueled by a deadly network of Western spies. As the Cold War intensified, proxy conflict erupted in Korea, drawing UN, Chinese, and covert Soviet forces into a brutal struggle. Back home, paranoia fueled McCarthyism, while scientists unleashed the Hydrogen Bomb, locking the world in an era of Mutually Assured Destruction. From secret spy trials to the shootdown of a U2 reconnaissance aircraft, explore how close humanity came to total annihilation. 💚 Join the Absolute History club to get access to exclusive member benefits! 📺 You can now become a History Hit member right here on the original video platform! Join for access to a new exclusive documentary every week, and access to over 160+ of our documentaries presented by world renowned historians like Dan Snow, Eleanor Janega, Tristan Hughes, Mary Beard, Matt Lewis and more. This channel is part of the History Hit Network. Any queries please contact: owned-enquiries@littledotstudios.com

A group of modern shopkeepers and their families are on the journey of a lifetime - they're taking over empty shops in a neglected market square in Shepton Mallet to see if they can turn back time for the British High Street. They'll live and trade through six key eras of history and in this episode they begin their journey in the 1870s, when the high street was born. The shopkeepers make up the key trades; there's the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker and the grocer. Overseeing it all is an expert Chamber of Commerce, headed up by greengrocer and Masterchef judge Gregg Wallace.

The team arrive in a large square field about 20 miles from Colchester. This is an area typically rich in Roman activity. Several remains have previously been dug up, including coins, an elaborate key, and Samian ware. Adrian Thorpe, the farmer, wants to know more. The indications are of a settlement with high status buildings, maybe timber-framed. With recycled fragments of genuine Roman glass, fired up in a homemade furnace, glassblower Ed Iglehart creates an authentic conical beaker. Among hundreds of finds is a metal owl brooch.

The team excavate a Saxon burial ground in a Wiltshire village which is situated on a building site owned by developer, David Buckland. Until all the graves have been mapped he is unable to continue with the development. They are joined by osteoarchaeologist Margaret Cox, archaeologists Peter Cox and Helena Cave-Penney, and conservator Meg Brooks; while blacksmith Ivor Lawton forges a Saxon blade from alternate leaves of steel and iron.

Who were the first Europeans, and what did they actually look like? In this feature-length documentary, cutting-edge genetic science and archaeology combine to rewrite thousands of years of human history. By extracting ancient DNA from skull bones buried deep within ancient tombs and ring forts, researchers are peeling back the millennia to uncover the truth about our ancestors—from dark-skinned, blue-eyed hunter-gatherers to the Neolithic farmers who erected Europe’s most magnificent megaliths. Plus, journey into the early Middle Ages to uncover shocking "deviant burials," pagan rituals that survived the arrival of Christianity, and the chilling ancient fear of the living dead. 💚 Join the Absolute History club to get access to exclusive member benefits! 📺 You can now become a History Hit member right here on the original video platform! Join for access to a new exclusive documentary every week, and access to over 160+ of our documentaries presented by world renowned historians like Dan Snow, Eleanor Janega, Tristan Hughes, Mary Beard, Matt Lewis and more.