The Crusaders endure immense hardships outside the city walls, but finally take Antioch thanks to a ruse by Bohemond of Taranto. Against the odds, and inspired by their recent discovery of a relic believed to be the 'Holy Lance', the Crusaders then defeat the Seljuk army of Kur Burgha. After disagreements within the Crusader camp, the army finally moves on to Jerusalem in the spring of 1099. During a full-scale assault of the city walls, Godfrey of Bouillon's troops gain a foothold in the defences, and Crusader troops pour into the city. A bloodbath follows. Victory results in the creation of four Crusader states, but their existence is precarious, surrounded by hostile Muslim powers, who will one day return with a vengeance.

In 1804 Napoleon created 18 'Marshals of the Empire', to serve as the senior officers of the Grande Armée. He created a further 8 before his abdication in 1814. A few were aristocrats, but others were the sons of shopkeepers or tailors. The most favoured became princes and kings. Among their ranks were legendary figures such as Marshals Lannes, Ney, Soult, Davout and Masséna, but also less well know figures like Pérignon, Brune and Moncey. Our series explores the lives of all 26 Marshals, and ranks them according to our own judgement of their achievements as Marshals.

Part 1 of our animated timeline of the first 44 U.S. Presidents, from George Washington and the Founding Fathers to the trauma of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Russia Part 1 traces the origins of modern Russia and Ukraine among Slavic tribes, Viking raiders, and the medieval kingdom of Kievan Rus. Mongol hordes brought death and destruction, but under the first Tsars, a strong Russian state slowly emerged.

In 1796, at the height of the Revolutionary Wars, Napoleon Bonaparte took command of French forces in northern Italy. He was just 26 years old and had never commanded an army before. Within weeks, he had turned his ragged, demoralised troops into a ferocious fighting force, defeating the Austrians and knocking Piedmont out of the war.

In 1809, while Napoleon was fighting Austria at Wagram, the war in Spain and Portugal raged on. The French had inflicted terrible defeats on the Spanish armies, but now faced popular uprisings as well as well-trained Anglo-Portuguese forces led by General Lord Wellington.

In 1807, Napoleon Bonaparte hoped to follow up his brilliant victories over Austria and Prussia with another decisive victory over the Russians in Poland. But amid freezing winter conditions, his attempted encirclement of General Bennigsen's Russian army near the East Prussian town of Eylau led, instead, to one of the most notorious battles of the Napoleonic Wars, fought in terrible conditions, with appalling losses on both sides.

A quick guide to infantry tactics and formations of the Napoleonic period, which first appeared in our video on the Battle of Aspern.

The complete story of the dreaded pirate Edward Thatch, AKA Blackbeard,

By 1812, the French forces in Spain were spread too thin, as Napoleon withdrew his best troops for his invasion of Russia. Wellington saw an opportunity to attack. He first secured the strategic fortress cities of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, both taken in bloody assaults, then advanced to Salamanca, where his Anglo-Portuguese army met Marshal Marmont's French army in one of the most decisive engagements of the Peninsular War.