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Scientists seek to uncover celebrated mysteries of the past in this occasional British series.
2000
A 3000-year-old human remains have been found near Stonehenge. Was the person murdered and why?
Where did syphilis come from?
Was the horrific fate that befell Jamestown, the first English colony in the Americas founded around 1607, a consequence of great misfortune or someone's malice?
Modern science analyses the medieval reports of witchcraft as well as the Salem Witch Trials.
Did ancient Phoenicians, a powerful Mediterranean nation of seafaring traders also known as the Canaanites in the Bible, really sacrifice their children in rituals involving human sacrifice, or was this claim just a fabrication?
What sank the powerful carrack-type warship Mary Rose, pride of British navy and King Henry VIII, during the battle against the French invasion fleet on 19 July 1545 .
2003
Scientists try to identify the remains of a child found at sea after the Titanic disaster, one of more than 40 victims whose bodies were recovered but never identified. One of the results later proved to be erroneous and PBS apologized.
In 1912, experienced British Royal Navy officer and explorer Robert Falcon Scott went on his, as it turned out final, expedition to reach South Pole first. Why things went so horribly wrong for him and his Terra Nova expedition?
As WWI finally ended, the world was thrown into another turmoil when 1918 influenza pandemic known as the Spanish Flu broke out and spread all over the world claiming 100 million more lives. What caused it?
Scientists investigate the Shroud of Turin, a controversial linen cloth that's said to bear the image of Jesus of Nazareth, as it was supposedly used as his death shroud after the crucifixion.
1999
Building work uncovers a mass grave containing the bodies of the fallen in one of the bloodiest battles of the War of the Roses, the Battle of Towton of 1461 in which 28,000 men died in a single day's fighting.
A former NASA scientist tries to solve the mystery of what caused the German airship Hindenburg to go up in flames in New Jersey in 1937 and tests his theory with a laboratory experiment.
An international team of archaeologists, forensic anthropologists and botanists attempt to discover what caused the Viking colony on Greenland to mysteriously disappear.
When a palaeoanthropologist presents controversial evidence of cannibalism among the Anasazi culture Native Americans are outraged. The truth behind the evidence may be more complex than first thought.
Could an unrecorded massive explosion of the volcano Krakatoa be responsible for the cataclysmic extreme weather events of 535-536 A.D. that resembled a nuclear winter.
How the suspected extreme weather events of 535-536 A.D. brought about world wide famine, helped a plague epidemic hit Asia and Europe and indirectly influenced the fall of Ancient Rome and Arthurian England and the emergence of Islam.
2002
Geneticist Steven O'Brien investigates whether a genetic mutation that helped the inhabitants of a village called Eyam in Derbyshire survive the Black Death pandemic in the 14th century help scientists find a cure for AIDS.
2001
In the year 79 A.D. volcanic eruption of Vesuvius buried the rich ancient Roman town of Pompeii killing everyone there. However, the way the bodies were preserved contradicts the theory on how they died. So, what really killed them?
How during WWII British scientists developed a navigation system that helped their bombers drop their explosive load with deadly accuracy.
Scientists investigate whether the apocalyptic flood from the Noah's story in the Bible was based on a real disastrous event from history.
In AD 79, towns such as Herculaneum and Pompeii were buried in a volcanic eruption. Hundreds of carbonized scrolls were found in a library In Herculaneum's Villa of the Papyri owned by Julius Caesar's father-in-law. What's on them?
In 1997, the London Museum unearthed a second century Roman grave of a woman in her mid thirties in London, England. Are these the first found remains of the fabled female gladiators?
Is Stonehenge a masterpiece of acoustics made by the people of Neolithic to amplify sound in just the right way for greater effect during their religious ceremonies?
In the year 2000 in Kenya, a team of scientists found the remains of a 6-million-year-old Homininae species they named Orrorin tugenensis. Is this the oldest known direct human ancestor?
How did Zulu tribesmen defeat the British army in the Battle of Isandlwana in South Africa in 1879.
Who burnt Rome in AD 64? Was it the supposedly unhinged Roman emperor Nero or did the zealots among the Christians he prosecuted do it?
Scientists analyze the funeral feast found at King Midas' tomb and top chefs attempt to recreate some of these dishes and beverages including Midas' mysterious elixir.
