Best movies & TV Shows like Engineering an Empire

As a young boy, future emperor Nero witnesses the mad Emperor Caligula kill his father and exile his mother. While in exile in the pontine islands, Agrippina, his mother, sees a vision telling her that her son can become emperor, but she will have to die first. She accepts the proposal. Back in Rome, Nero, now being raised by emperor Claudius after Caligula's death, Agrippina returns. She poisons Claudius' food and Nero becomes emperor. At first, Nero cuts taxes and introduces successful programs and invades Brittania. Soon he meets a beautiful slave named Claudia Acte, and marries her, throwing off his engagement with Claudius' daughter, Claudia Octavia, telling her she can marry someone she will be happy with. Heartbroken, she arrives at an island and kills herself. Nero enjoys being married to Claudia Acte, but soon he gradually goes mad with power and sets fire to Rome.

Ancient Rome, during the time of Emperor Nero. Vinicius, a young patrician, falls in love with the beautiful Lygia, the daughter of a Barbarian commander who was killed in battle, and wants her for his concubine. For Lygia, a Christian, being a pagan's concubine is a severe sin and disgrace. However, when Vinicius is wounded, Lygia cares for him, and starts to reciprocate his feelings. Vinicius, in return, becomes interested in Christian learning and asks Apostle Peter to teach him. In the meantime, Emperor Nero accuses Christians of having started a great fire in Rome. He encourages the imprisonment, torture and murder of his Christian subjects.

What is true and what is false in the hideous stories spread about the controversial figure of the Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (12-41), nicknamed Caligula? Professor Mary Beard explains what is accurate and what is mythical in the historical accounts that portray him as an unbalanced despot. Was he a sadistic tyrant, as Roman historians have told, or perhaps the truth about him was manipulated because of political interests?

The glories of Ancient Rome are explored in ROMAN CITY, based on David Macaulay's acclaimed book. This animated and live-action video recounts life in Verbonia, a fictional city in Gaul. A well-planned town with all modern conveniences, it is threatened by conflict between conquerors and conquered. Macaulay also visits Pompeii, Herculaneum, Ostia, Nimes, Orange, and Rome, to view actual Roman architecture and engineering greatness.

In 79 AD, one of the infamous natural disasters in human history occurred when Mount Vesuvius erupted. With speculative dramatizations of various inhabitants' final hours along with detailed documentation of the known facts concerning the eruption, the horrific day is vividly brought to life.

Mozart's La Clemenza Di Tito was originally commissioned to celebrate the coronation of the Emperor Leopold II as King of Bohemia in 1791. This rarely-seen masterpiece was Mozart's last opera. Nicholas Hytner's elegant staging for the Glyndebourne Festival Opera sheds new light on the compelling story of passion that overrides loyalty and integrity that is tested to the extreme.

Mobsters is an American documentary television series that profiles the lives of infamous individuals in history; the series puts the spotlight on some of history's most infamous gangsters and all that went on during their reigns. The series airs on The Biography Channel. Some episodes of Mobsters are rehashes of the similar TV Series American Justice as well as Notorious (TV series), both series that were originally broadcast on Biography Channel's sister channel, A&E Network; some episodes also rehash segments from another A&E series American Gangster, which began airing on the Black Entertainment Television channel. The only differences are the intro of the episodes and the lead-in's after commercials. Besides this, the rehashed episodes are no different in any way.

Soul Train is an American musical variety show that aired in syndication from 1971 to 2006. In its 35-year history, the show primarily featured performances by R&B, soul, and hip hop artists, although funk, jazz, disco, and gospel artists have also appeared. The series was created by Don Cornelius, who also served as its first host and executive producer. Production was suspended following the 2005–06 season, with a rerun package airing for two years after that. As a nod to Soul Train's longevity, the show's opening sequence contained a claim that it was the "longest-running first-run, nationally syndicated program in television history," with over 1,100 episodes produced from the show's debut through the 2005-06 season. Despite the production hiatus, Soul Train will continue to hold this honor until at least 2016, if and when its nearest competitor, Entertainment Tonight, completes its 35th season.

Angry Planet is a 39-part television series broadcast around the world featuring the adventures of storm chaser George Kourounis, Angry Planet is produced by Peter Rowe of Pinewood Films. The series plays on the following networks: ⁕Outdoor Life Network ⁕Travel Channel ⁕Weather Channel ⁕TV8 ⁕MTV3 ⁕Canal Evasion ⁕TVB The first season of the series has also been released on DVD as a box set. Each episode focuses on a different force of nature as Kourounis gets up close to investigate and document the most fierce natural phenomena the Earth has to dish out.

NOVA scienceNOW is a News magazine version of the long-running and venerable PBS science program Nova. Premiering on January 25, 2005, the series was originally hosted by Robert Krulwich, who described it as an experiment in coverage of "breaking science, science that's right out of the lab, science that sometimes bumps up against politics, art, culture". At the beginning of season two, Neil deGrasse Tyson replaced Krulwich as the show's host. Tyson announced he would leave the show and was replaced by David Pogue beginning season 6.

Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern is a travel and cuisine television show hosted by Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel. The first season debuted on Monday, February 26, 2007 at 9pm ET/PT. Bizarre Foods focuses on regional cuisine from around the world which is typically perceived by Americans as being disgusting, exotic, or bizarre. In each episode, Zimmern focuses on the cuisine of a particular country or region. He typically shows how the food is procured, where it is served, and, usually without hesitation, eats it. Originally a one-hour documentary titled Bizarre Foods of Asia, repeated showings on the Travel Channel drew consistent, considerable audiences. In late 2006, it was decided to turn the documentary into a weekly, one-hour show with the same premise and with Andrew Zimmern as the host. In 2009, Zimmern took a break from Bizarre Foods to work on one season of the spin-off Bizarre World.

Seven Wonders of the Industrial World is a 7-part British documentary/docudrama television miniseries that originally aired from 4 September 2003 to 16 October 2003 on BBC. The programme examines seven engineering feats that occurred during the Industrial Revolution.

Lost Worlds is a documentary television series by The History Channel that explores a variety of "lost" locations from ancient to modern times. These "great feats of engineering, technology, and culture" are revealed through the use of archaeological evidence, interviews with relevant experts while examining the sites, and CGI reproductions. These visual re-creations take the form of rendered 3D environments and photo manipulated overlays, allowing the "lost world" to be seen over its present-day state. The pilot episode "Palenque: Metropolis of the Maya" was first aired on April 4, 2005. It was followed by 12 more episodes in 2006, and a further 19 episodes in 2007.

Whale Wars is a weekly American documentary-style reality television series that premiered on November 7, 2008 on the Animal Planet cable channel. The program follows Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, as he and the crew aboard their various vessels harass Japanese whalers off the coast of Antarctica. On January 5, 2013, Animal Planet renewed the series for a sixth season.

Prehistoric Planet is a re-version of the BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs and Walking with Beasts series, done by Discovery Channel and NBC for the Discovery Kids network. Though the producers kept nearly all of the original animation, David Bock and Peter Sherman wrote new text for a younger target audience, narrated by Ben Stiller and Christian Slater, and interspersed the scenes with occasional quizzes to act as bumpers around the commercial breaks. New music was incorporated as well. Most marketing and advertising for the series focused on the dinosaur episodes. In addition, the final episode, the Prehistoric Planet Top 10 focused solely on the creatures from Walking With Dinosaurs. Some small content edits were done to allow original programs to fit in the 23 minutes of non-commercial time that a normal half-hour program has on network TV. At present, only Season 1 has been released on home video and DVD.

A study in animal behaviour, it was the third in a trilogy of major series (beginning with Life on Earth) that took a broad overview of nature, rather than the more specialised surveys of Attenborough's later productions. Each of the twelve 50-minute episodes features a different aspect of the journey through life, from birth to adulthood and continuation of the species through reproduction. The series was produced in conjunction with the Australian Broadcasting Service and Turner Broadcasting System Inc. The executive producer was Peter Jones and the music was composed by George Fenton. Part of David Attenborough's 'Life' series, it was preceded by The Living Planet (1984) and followed by Life in the Freezer (1993).

Closer to Truth is a continuing television series on PBS & public television originally created, produced and hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn. The first premiere series aired in 2000 for 2 seasons, followed by a second series aired in 2003 for a single season. The current / third series of the program, Closer to Truth: Cosmos. Consciousness. God., launched in 2008, with 12 full seasons to date. Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the creator, executive producer, writer and presenter of the series. Peter Getzels is the co-creator and producer / director. The show is centered on on-camera conversations with leading scientists, philosophers, theologians, and scholars, covering a diverse range of topics or questions from the size and nature of the universe, to the existence and essence of God, to the mystery of consciousness and the notion of free will.

The Caesars is a British television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network in 1968. Made in black-and-white and written and produced by Philip Mackie, it covered similar dramatic territory to the later BBC adaptation of I, Claudius, dealing with the lives of the early emperors of Ancient Rome, but differed in its less sensationalist depictions of historical characters and their motives.

The Forest Rangers was a Canadian television series that ran from 1963 to 1965. It was a co-production between CBC Television and ITC Entertainment and was Canada's first television show produced in colour. Executive producer Maxine Samuels founded the show. The series ran for three seasons, a total of 104 30-minute colour episodes. Early episodes of the series were broadcast in serialized form as part of a CBC children's series entitled Razzle Dazzle, hosted by Alan Hamel and Michelle Finney. This was the first appearance in a major series by Gordon Pinsent. He left the series in 1965 to star in Quentin Durgens, M.P. In June 2004, there was a reunion for ex-cast and fans just south of Kleinburg, where the show was originally filmed. Six of the ex-junior rangers appeared and Peter Tully flew in from his home in Ireland. Another reunion occurred June 15, 2013 at the actual studios where the show was filmed. This time nine junior rangers and Gordon Pinsent were in attendance. The show's first season was released on DVD by Imavision in early 2007.

The Roman Holidays is a Hanna-Barbera animated television series that was broadcast in 1972 on NBC. It ran for 13 episodes before being cancelled. Very similar in theme to both The Flintstones and The Jetsons, The Roman Holidays brought a look at "modern-day" life in Ancient Rome, around 63 AD, as seen through the eyes of Augustus "Gus" Holiday and his family. The opening showed a chariot traffic jam and a TV showing football on Channel "IV" An Ancient Roman setting was actually one of the ideas that Hanna-Barbera considered as they were working to create The Flintstones.

A Roman general leads the epic 1st-century siege of Masada, the mountain fortress where more than 900 Jews made a heroic stand against 5,000 Roman soldiers.

Turning points in ancient Roman history and some of the Empire's greatest stories are brought to life in this drama documentary series.

Ghostly Encounters is a Canadian paranormal documentary television series that premiered on July 16, 2005 to January 19, 2011. on Viva/W Network. The program also airs on A&E's The Biography Channel in the United States. The show was created by executive producer Phyllis Platt, is produced by Brian Dennis, and is hosted by Lawrence Chau. The program uses a combination of interviews and dramatic recreations, examining the events that led its subjects to accept or reject occurrences as supernatural, and how the experience has helped or hindered them. Ghostly Encounters won a Gemini Award for best original score in 2007.

The West, sometimes marketed as Ken Burns Presents: The West, is a documentary film about the American Old West. It was directed by Stephen Ives and the executive producer was Ken Burns. The film originally aired on PBS in September 1996.

Clash of the Gods is a one-hour weekly mythology television series that premiered on August 3, 2009 on the History channel. The program covers many of the ancient Greek and Norse Gods, monsters and heroes including Hades, Hercules, Medusa, Minotaur, Odysseus and Zeus.

WWII in HD is a 10-part American documentary television miniseries that originally aired from November 15 to November 19, 2009 on the History Channel. The program focuses on the firsthand experiences of twelve American service members during World War II, including an Army nurse, a member of the Tuskegee Airmen, a second generation Japanese American and prisoner of war, and an Austrian Jewish immigrant. The twelve members recorded their time in both theaters and some had later interviews; found footage from the battlefield was paired with the stories of the twelve service members. The episodes premiered on five consecutive days, with two episodes per day. The series is narrated by Gary Sinise and was produced by Lou Reda Productions in Easton, Pennsylvania, United States.

Chasing Mummies: The Amazing Adventures of Zahi Hawass is a reality television series which is airing on The History Channel in the United States. Produced by Boutique TV, this series depicts the adventures of archaeologist and Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass and his discoveries in Egypt as he is followed by young archeological fellows and a camera crew. The series began on Wednesday, 14 July 2010 and aired Wednesdays at 10pm on the History Channel. The shows illustrates the complexities in the almost never-ending quest to preserve and discover artifacts from ancient Egypt.

Decisive Battles was a television show on the History Channel that depicted historic battles. It ran for thirteen episodes in mid-2004. The show used the game engine from Rome: Total War to present 3-D versions of the battles. The show was hosted by Matthew Settle, who usually traveled to the sites of the battle. Reruns of the show air on the History International channel and the Military History channel.

Conspiracy? is a documentary television series that was created and originally aired on The History Channel that examines recent historical events from the perspective of conspiracy theory. Premiering in 2004 and hosted by Tom Kane, notable episodes have examined the President John F. Kennedy assassination, the Senator Robert F. Kennedy assassination, the conspiracy theory that President Franklin Roosevelt had knowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor before December 7, 1941, and theories about government agencies covering up UFO reports.

Archaeologist and historian Richard Miles traces the development of Western civilization, from the first cities in Mesopotamia to the fall of the Roman Empire. In this six-part series, Miles travels through the Middle East, Egypt, Pakistan and the Mediterranean to discover how the challenges of society -- religion and politics, art and culture, war and diplomacy, technology and trade -- were dealt with and fought over in order to maintain a functioning civilization. Stories are told of disappeared, ruined and modern cities, from ancient Iraq to modern Damascus, to reveal how successes and failures of the ancients shaped the world today.

Curiosity is an American documentary television series that premiered on August 7, 2011, on the Discovery Channel. Each episode focuses on one question in science, technology, and society and features a different celebrity host. Stephen Hawking hosted the premiere episode titled "Did God Create the Universe?", which aired simultaneously on seven Discovery Communications networks: Discovery Channel, TLC, Discovery Fit and Health, Animal Planet, Science, Investigation Discovery, and Planet Green. Season one consists of 16 episodes.

Son of God is an award-winning British documentary series that chronicles the life of Jesus Christ using scientific and contemporary historical evidence. It was presented by Jeremy Bowen, and its first episode premiered in the United Kingdom on 1 April 2001. The executive producer was Ruth Pitt and it was directed by Jean-Claude Bragard—it took a total of 16 months to produce and cost GB£1.5 million. A full symphonic score was composed by James Whitbourn. Son of God featured interviews with 21 historians and other Biblical experts, live action reenactments of the life of Jesus with Leron Livo in the lead role, and computer-generated images of what locations from Jesus's time might have looked like. These images, created by design team Red Vision, were praised by critics and received an Outstanding Achievement Award at the 2001 Royal Television Society North Awards.

The Germanic, Britannic and other barbarian tribal wars with Rome ultimately led to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. This series is centered on the campaigns and battles with the barbarian tribes and extensive examinations of the reigns of little known Roman emperors and generals.

Travel back in time to one of the most glorious empires in history. For over 1,000 years, Rome was the center of the known world, bringing to her subjects a common language, shared culture and wealth beyond imagination. But war, barbarian attacks and moral decay eventually took their toll, and the empire slowly began to crumble. Experience ancient history come to life, from Rome's primitive beginnings to the height of its glory – and its eventual downfall. Filmed in 10 countries, this documentary combines location footage of ancient monuments, detailed reenactments, period art and writings, and fascinating insights from scholars and public figures. Witness the ancient world come to life – and see history in all its drama.

For many decades, archaeological excavations and scientific expeditions throughout the entire region have been attempting to solve the mystery of what held the Empire by the Nile together for so long. The four-part series Planet Egypt delves deep into crucial periods in the history of the Pharaohs. The documentary depicts the founding of the Empire under King Narmer, the rise of Egypt to a world power under Thutmose III, the revolution during the reign of Akhenaten and the enormous surge in construction activity under Pharaoh Ramses the Great. By means of dramatic re-enactments and lavish computer animations, Terra-X resurrects the world of Ancient Egypt. Entire cities such as Hierakonpolis, Thebes and Amarna are reconstructed in 3-D animations and brought back to life. Each episode sheds light on one of the vital foundation stones at the base of this extraordinary civilisation.

Professor Mary Beard looks beyond the stories of emperors, armies, guts and gore to meet the everyday people at the heart of Ancient Rome's vast empire.

Christianity slowly emerged from being a persecuted minority to the state religion of the Roman Empire. This episode is a history of the ways believers grappled with a way to depict Jesus. Simple symbolic meaning developed into splendid art and churches.

First broadcast on October 2, 1989, these 18 original 30-minute episodes provide a panorama of 2000 years of architecture, painting and sculpture, and studies the art masterpieces as reflections of the Western culture that produced them.

Ancient Impossible, the new H2 series, picks up where HISTORY’s long running Ancient Discoveries left off. In this next generation of storytelling, Ancient Impossible reveals how many of today’s technological achievements were actually developed centuries ago. Colossal monuments, impossible feats of engineering and technologies so precise they defy reinvention–the ancient world was far more advanced than we ever imagined. We’ll travel through history to reveal a radically different picture of the past, with innovations so far ahead of their time, they’re still in use today. New science uncovers a lost world more like our own than we ever suspected, and reveals how modern technology has its blueprint in the ancient world.

Told from the perspective of the rebel leaders, the series chronicles a wave of rebellions against absolute power by those the Roman Empire called “barbarians” – tribes they viewed as beyond the fringe of civilization that lived a brutish and violent existence. But these also were men and women who launched epic struggles that shaped the world to come with a centuries-long fight to defeat the sprawling empire.

This stylish mix of documentary and historical epic chronicles the reign of Commodus, the emperor whose rule marked the beginning of Rome's fall.

Bettany Hughes relives eight pivotal days that defined the Roman Empire and made it the world's first superpower.

In the fourth and fifth centuries, B.C., the Greeks built an empire that stretched across the Mediterranean from Asia to Spain. They laid the foundation of modern science, politics, warfare and philosophy, and produced some of the most breathtaking art and architecture the world has ever seen. It was perhaps the most spectacular flourishing of imagination and achievement in recorded history.

Using the latest technological insights, this series sheds new light on how incredible feats of ancient engineering were achieved and how they continue to influence modern-day engineers and shape our world.

Secrets to Civilisation is a groundbreaking History series which explores the recent explosion in data about our planet's past, offering a completely fresh perspective on the ancient world from the Bronze Age to the fall of Rome.

The stories behind the iconic structures and engineering feats that have shaped and defined our nation and our world.

This new series follows International teams of archaeologists on the front line, as they embark on a season of excavations to unravel the secrets of life in the Roman Empire. Crawling beneath Pompeii, unearthing an enormous lost coliseum, and hauling a 2000 year old battleship ram from the depths of the ocean, they race to unlock the secrets of this ancient civilization.

As Egypt's last pharaoh, Cleopatra fights to protect her throne, family and legacy in this docuseries featuring reenactments and expert interviews.

MasterClass is a documentary television series airing on HBO. Each half-hour episode documents the experience of a small group of young artists working with a famous mentor. The series premiered on HBO on April 18, 2010 with opera star Plácido Domingo working with three aspiring young singers. The students in the program are chosen from participants in the Miami-based organization, YoungArts, a program of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, which supports emerging artists. The series is produced and directed by Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon of the Simon & Goodman Picture Company. The Executive Producer is Lin Arison. In July 2011 the series was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Nonfiction, Reality or Reality-Competition Program in 2011.

Over the course of 15 episodes, we’re going to learn about botany—the study of plants. Alexis Nikole Nelson will teach you about how plants evolved, how they function, and just how vital they are to human societies and all of life on Earth. This content is based on an introductory university-level curriculum. By the end of this course, you should be able to: *Describe the evolutionary history of plants *List and describe fundamental anatomical and morphological characteristics of plants *Understand what plant hormones are and how they work *Explain what roles plants play in ecosystems and why they are important *Understand how plant genes play an important role in the diversity of plants we see on Earth *Understand why plants are important, and how botanical knowledge can be useful in everyday life