Metal Days

Uriah Heep was one of a handful of important progressive rock bands to emerge from Britain during the 1970s, alongside Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. Formed in London in 1969, the band debuted in explosive fashion way back in 1970, rapidly following their heavy metal-pioneering first record "Very 'Eavy …Very 'Umble" with a string of classics, including the definitive Heep album "Demons and Wizards" and "The Magician's Birthday", both from 1972, arguably two of the founding documents of the hard rock subgenres known as progressive metal and power metal.

Gunny's back — Marine Corps veteran R. Lee Ermey, acclaimed for his role as a Marine Drill Instructor in the movie Full Metal Jacket, previously hosted the popular "Mail Call" show on the History Channel. He now returns in Lock N' Load, an hour-long weekly series featuring the engineering and development of military weapons. The focus of Lock N' Load is firepower — and lots of it.

Hysteria is the fourth studio album by British hard rock band Def Leppard, released on August 3, 1987. It is the band's best-selling album to date, selling over 20 million copies worldwide, and spawning seven hit singles. It was produced by Robert John "Mutt" Lange.The second single from the album, "Animal," reached #6 in the UK and finally turned the band into stars in their home country.

An antidote to throwaway culture, The Repair Shop’s second series shines a light on the wonderful treasures to be found in homes across the country.

On a February day in 1969, off the shore of northern California, a US Navy crane carefully lowered 300 tons of metal into the Pacific Ocean. The massive tubular structure was an audacious feat of engineering — a pressurized underwater habitat, complete with science labs and living quarters for an elite group of divers who hoped to spend days or even months at a stretch living and working on the ocean floor. The Sealab project, as it was known, was the brainchild of a country doctor turned naval pioneer who dreamed of pushing the limits of ocean exploration the same way NASA was pushing the limits of space exploration.

Suzy Klein and West-End star Alexandra Burke chart how, in the 80s and 90s, a new generation of young musicians – from Simon Rattle and Nigel Kennedy to Vanessa-Mae - defied tradition and burst out of the accepted confines of the classical genre. We look at Torvill and Dean's triumph at the Winter Olympics, the Three Tenors at Italia 90, Tavener's haunting anthem accompanying the funeral of Princess Diana and the successful launch of Classic FM.

Politics, tragedy and conquest combine in stories behind the building of Australia. The Bridge, Pipe Dreams and A Wire Through the Heart combine rare archival images with dramatic storytelling in showcasing three landmark events that would allow Australia to mark its place in the world. The Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Kalgoorlie Pipeline and the Overland Telegraph line were engineering triumphs, but the human drama in constructing Australia is even more fascinating.

Accounts of World War II events, as told by those that were actually there.

On a February day in 1969, off the shore of northern California, a US Navy crane carefully lowered 300 tons of metal into the Pacific Ocean. The massive tubular structure was an audacious feat of engineering - a pressurized underwater habitat, complete with science labs and living quarters for an elite group of divers who hoped to spend days or even months at a stretch living and working on the ocean floor. The Sealab project, as it was known, was the brainchild of a country doctor turned naval pioneer who dreamed of pushing the limits of ocean exploration the same way NASA was pushing the limits of space exploration.