Blowing Up History

Grant Williams presents the definitive analysis of gold. To understand why gold became money and has outlasted every alternative currency for thousands of years. Featuring an incredible collection of experts and market analysts. Episode One charts the history of the yellow metal, and shows us why gold has retained its unique place at the centre of the global financial system.

Hampton Court Palace has history coursing through the brickwork. Famous for being the home of King Henry VIII, the magnificent rooms have played host to some of the most celebrated royals in England. Decisions that were made here changed the course of British history. Hampton Court was the brainchild of the Archbishop of York, Thomas Wolsey. Starting out life as a Tudor palace in 1515, it was updated by Sir Christopher Wren for joint monarchs, William and Mary in 1689 to a Baroque design. The two styles combine to create a truly unique royal residence. Within the grounds of the palace is the oldest hedge planted maze in the world, which takes, on average, 20 minutes to navigate to the centre.

Bigger is better. As the scale of war grew over the centuries, so too did the size of machinery used to create war. From the first moments the British heavy tanks of WWI broke through the stalemates of trench warfare, the shape of war was changed forever. Bigger artillery pieces to increase battlefield supremacy, bigger planes to move bigger machines, bigger ships to deliver bigger payloads. The influence of the increasing size of warmachines even spread beyond the battlefield too, demanding bigger machines to transport these behemoths and bigger factories to create them. This episode looks at the behemoths of war; the grumbling armoured monsters like the Panzer III and the gravity-defying bulk of the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, that dominate their arenas of war with their incredible size and power.