The final hours of WW2 change the course of history; as the Americans inch closer to Japan, the Japanese fight with greater intensity. The question now is how to force capitulation.

The inter-war years saw the rise of dictators, appeasement and the policies of the Third Reich until the invasion of Poland, and Japan's 1937 invasion of China escalated into a full-scale conflict.

The invasion of Poland forces even resistant nations into declaring war, Chamberlain is replaced by Winston Churchill, and hardly-remembered early naval encounters start to shape the war.

The architectural mastermind of the Third Reich, Albert Speer escaped the noose at the end of the Second World War; is there a monstrous truth behind Speer's carefully crafted lies?

Ramses II launched the construction of two temples dedicated to the Pharaoh and to his wife Nefertari; how did the Egyptians organise and manage such a project 1,500 kilometres from the Nile delta?

December 1944: Hitler has picked the Ardennes sector for a major offensive. The surprise attack, spearheaded by elite divisions, initially sends American units reeling.

March 1945: the Allies have reached the River Rhine. Montgomery plans a giant operation to cross the river in the north, but luck hands the Americans a bridge over the Rhine at Remagen.

Hermann Göring, Hitler's designated successor, was one of the regime's most visible leaders; as the war slipped away, so did his influence ending in a final act of defiance at Nuremberg.

Karl Dönitz, Hitler's loyal naval commander, led a deadly U-boat war beneath the seas and unexpectedly inherited the crumbling Third Reich as he ruled a defeated nation for ten fleeting days.

Wilhelm Keitel, Hitler's top military yes-man, signed orders that unleashed war crimes and mass murder across Europe; blindly obedient to the end, he ended up answering to justice at Nuremberg.

Friedrich Paulus and Erich von Manstein, two generals who charted opposite paths through the Nazi war machine - one broke under pressure, the other clung to his reputation.

WWII began with a deadly deception inside a Polish radio station; the early years of the war saw deception in its infancy, from code-breaking and spies to fake bombing sites and even inflatable tanks.

By 1942, deception had become extremely sophisticated; the most cunning operation used a deceased homeless man to trick the entire Nazi leadership about the Normandy invasion.

Technology was used to deceive the enemy; radio and transmitters spread false information, and a ghost army tricked entire enemy forces by using sound effects.

With the war swinging toward the Allies, both sides still used some masterful deceptions; the post-war era saw the US and Soviet Union in a deadly game of espionage in the race for atomic supremacy.

In 229 B.C. / B.C.E., Rome's fleet of 200 ships and 20,000 legionaries crossed the Adriatic, Queen Teuta's piracy sparked conflict, and Liburni allies faced assimilation while the Delmati resisted.

In 1992, the Yugoslav army left the Croatian island of Vis abandoning 30 military facilities, an underground hospital, a submarine shelter and tunnels; after centuries of war, Vis embraced peace.

The games and entertainment, plus violence as a political instrument, with the Battle of Laugaricio (modern-day Slovakia), portraits of Commodus and Lucilla, and the legendary Colosseum.

War, loyalty, citizenship and the plots of a changing empire with the massacres of Alexandria, portraits of Caracalla and Julia Domna, and the extraordinary Baths of Caracalla.

The Manhattan Project built the first atomic bombs in 1945; this documentary brings the story to life with restored footage and powerful testimonies from builders and survivors.

Deep sea divers hunt for the wrecks of Hitler's dreaded U-Boat fleet off Ireland's Northwest coast while historians unravel the early stages of WWII's longest campaign.

Divers hunt for the wrecks of WWII's longest campaign that lie off Ireland's Northwest coast as historians explore the Allied fight back at sea and the human cost of war.

We witness the final moments and aftermath of World War II with the establishment of war crime trials - such as the ones in Nuremberg - and move towards peace with the creation of the United Nations.

WWII began with a deadly deception inside a Polish radio station; the early years of the war saw deception in its infancy, from code-breaking and spies to fake bombing sites and even inflatable tanks.