Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

D-Day: As It Happens D-Day: As It Happens tells the story of this pivotal event in 20th-century history in a completely new way. Using newly-analysed archive footage, viewers can track the progress of seven people who were there on the day, each of them a real participant in the 1944 invasion. And they can do so moment by moment in real time, encountering the twists and turns of the fighting at the same time as the D-Day seven did, and learning their fate as the action unfolds in parallel with the present, Narrated by Peter Snow, with Channel 4 presenter and former marine Arthur Williams, and experts including former British Army officer Colonel Tim Collins and front-line journalist Lorna Ward. The first programme tells the back stories of the real people that the event is following in real time and sets out their missions over the following 24 hours. The D-Day seven include a paratrooper, a midget submariner, a nurse and a military cameraman.

Hundreds of years ago in faraway Iceland the Vikings began to write down dozens of stories called sagas - sweeping narratives based on real people and real events. But as Oxford University's Janina Ramirez discovers, these sagas are not just great works of art, they are also priceless historical documents which bring to life the Viking world. Dr Ramirez travels across glaciers and through the lava fields of Iceland to the far north west of the country to find out about one of the most compelling of these stories - the Laxdaela Saga.

Andrew Graham-Dixon begins his exploration of German art by looking at the rich and often neglected art of the German middle ages and Renaissance. He visits the towering cathedral of Cologne, a place which encapsulates the varied and often contradictory character of German art. In Munch he gets to grips with the earliest paintings of the Northern Renaissance, the woodcuts of Albrecht Durer and the cosmic visions of the painter Albrecht Altdorfer. Andrew also embarks on a tour of the Bavarian countryside, discovering some of the little-known treasures of German limewood sculpture.

This acclaimed multi-million dollar 4 part series shows the rise of the tribes of a primitive culture on the fringe of northern Europe to become the heirs of the Roman Empire. Since the age of Caesar this Roman-Germanic conflict was characterized not only by fierce battles but also by phases of co-existence & cooperation. the Germans dug the grave of the Roman Empire, but were also the preserves of the Roman legacy.

An epic true story set against the backdrop of one of the wildest places on Earth, African Cats captures the real-life love, humour and determination of the majestic kings of the savannah. Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, the story features Mara, an endearing lion cub who strives to grow up with her mother’s strength, spirit and wisdom; Sita, a fearless cheetah and single mother of five mischievous newborns; and Fang, a proud leader of the pride who must defend his family from a rival lion and his sons.

Open your eyes to the bizarre, ferocious and surprisingly beautiful world of the invertebrates, a ground-breaking exploration into a spectacular miniature universe never normally seen but teeming all around us. In the first episode, the story of the land-living invertebrates. Discover the private life of Europe's dramatic leopard slug, a common garden resident with a truly bizarre end to its marathon mating ritual; watches the courtship ballet of tiny springtails on the underside of a leaf; sees swarms of bright red South African millipedes find partners, and in the caves of Venezuela meets the giant bat-eating centipede.