Great Battles in History - Season 1 (2009)

A series giving a bird's-eye view of some of the bloodiest battles in history. This programme looks at a pivotal point of the Second World War, when the Russian army stopped the Nazi advance at Stalingrad

Trafalgar is perhaps the most famous naval engagement in military history. Admiral Lord Nelson's victory over a combined fleet of French and Spanish ships put an end to Napoleon's dream of invading England. Follow the strategy of the famous battle that killed Britain's most famous naval hero.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, just before 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941.

The Battle of Marathon was an armed confrontation that defined the outcome of the first medical war. It happened in the year 490 a. C. and took place in the fields and the beach of the city of Marathon, located a few kilometers from Athens, on the east coast of Attica. He faced on the one hand the Persian king Darius I, who wanted to invade and conquer Athens for his participation in the Ionian revolt, and, on the other hand, the Athenians and their allies (from Plataea, among others). A feat remembered in this battle by Herodotus was that of Pheidippides, who walked the road from Athens to Sparta to ask for help from the Spartan army. Sparta refused to help the Athenians, claiming to meet on dates of religious celebrations.

The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and United States Navy (USN) landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II. The American invasion, designated Operation Detachment, had the purpose of capturing the island with its two airfields: South Field and Central Field.