Bbc The Story of China

'Revolution', Michael Wood observes, 'has been a fact of life in Chinese history'. Between 1850 and 1950, three cataclysmic revolutions shook China to the core, but out of them, today's China emerged. The film begins in Canton with the meeting of a US missionary and a Chinese student. Inspired by the Christian story and calling himself God's second son, Hong unleashed the bloodiest war of the 19th century, the Taiping Rebellion.

Four-part series about the history of mathematics, presented by Oxford professor Marcus du Sautoy.

Composer and musician Neil Brand presents a series on the movie musical - from Hollywood to China and the USSR, and from Snow White and Gene Kelly to Grease and La La Land.

Documentary that goes behind the scenes at the British Museum. A curious breed of experts cares for some of the BM's most important and fragile treasures; they are the conservators. Metals conservator Alex Baldwin is giving a makeover to a corroded Roman bronze statue affectionately known as Charlie, Karen Birkholzer is approaching the end of a six-year project conserving Egyptian wall paintings from the tomb of Nebamun, and gallery manager Brendan Moore has a problem with a stuffed monkey.

In February 2021, orbiters from China and the UAE settled into their positions above Mars, and Nasa’s Perseverance rover touched down on its surface. Maggie Aderin-Pocock reviews the astonishing footage the rover has already sent back, and talks with its legendary chief designer Adam Seltzer about the challenges of missions to the red planet.

With access to the first nationwide survey and state-of-the-art drones mapping the Great Wall of China, this documentary offers new evidence that reveals its extraordinary magnitude, rewrites its millennia-long history and decodes its complex signals system. Using cutting-edge chemistry, the programme also finds out what has kept the wall standing for so long - a simple cooking ingredient found in kitchens across the world.