It is Christmas Day in the house of Hastings. The time (the 1830s), the place (a suburban Victorian home), and the atmosphere (after the pudding with the children waiting to be entertained) are ripe for father to stun his audience with his knowledge of the world of natural philosophy. It is a world of exploding biscuit tins, unpredictable hard-boiled eggs, singing drainpipes, and enough amateur science to make young enthusiasts reach for their bunsen burners, and mothers for their smelling salts. Air Date : 25th-Dec-1966  Read More

In this special episode, Horizon reports on Erich von Däniken and his theories about astronauts visiting Earth long ago. Air Date : 25th-Nov-1977  Read More

This special episode of Horizon shows the latest advances in research into how the visual eyesight system of humans and animals work. Air Date : 28th-Jan-1980  Read More

This Horizon special episode recalls the highlights of the past 25 years of the space age. Air Date : 25th-Dec-1982  Read More

In the first part of this special two-part series, Horizon reports on the yellow rain problem in South-east Asia. Air Date : 15th-May-1984  Read More

In this special episode, Horizon brings you a report on space exploration and exploitation. The first half of this episode looks back at the Apollo 11 moon landing, and second the second half looks at the future plans of the space program. Air Date : 21st-Jul-1984  Read More

This is the second part, of a two-part special series. In this episode, Horizon looks at the history of germ warfare and the research still continuing today in military labs under deceptive name of defensive biology. Air Date : 29th-Oct-1984  Read More

Horizon celebrates twenty one years of work, achievement, and awards with a birthday compilation of highlights from past episodes. Air Date : 20th-May-1985  Read More

This report by Horizon looks into how the apparitions of Halley's comet came to be predicted so accurately. Air Date : 25th-Nov-1985  Read More

Special on Halley's comet Air Date : 13th-Mar-1986  Read More

This Horizon special follows the 20 months preparation of the five astronauts who are to man the American space shuttle Discovery launching on the 29th of September in 1988. This is the first shuttle flight since the Challenger disaster in January 1986. Air Date : 28th-Sep-1988  Read More

This Horizon special explores the production and processes behind the scenes of the new five pound note to be launched on the 7the June, 1990, in Britain. It considers the design and production of money and the intricate techniques developed to prevent forgeries. Air Date : 6th-Jun-1990  Read More

This Horizon special episode is part one of a three part series on the projects, cosmonauts, and engineers involved in the Soviet Union space program. Air Date : 7th-Dec-1990  Read More

This Horizon special episode is part two of a three part series on the projects, cosmonauts, and engineers involved in the Soviet Union space program. Air Date : 14th-Dec-1990  Read More

This Horizon special episode is the last part of a three part series on the projects, cosmonauts, and engineers involved in the Soviet Union space program. In this episode, two Soviet cosmonauts risk their lives earlier this year in a dangerous space walk to try and repair their stricken craft. Air Date : 21st-Dec-1990  Read More

This Horizon special program explores what happened when the "Giotto" explorer spacecraft passed within 100 kilometres of Halley's Comet. Air Date : 10th-Jul-1992  Read More

This documentary by Horizon reveals the disturbing discoveries made in over 40 inspections looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Air Date : 23rd-Aug-1992  Read More

This report by Horizon brings you the results of a landmark survey about sex. Air Date : 12th-Oct-1992  Read More

This Horizon special looks at the mysterious changes in wildlife that has been reported in the USA and that man's reproduction may also be adversely effected. Air Date : 31st-Oct-1993  Read More

Horizon celebrates its 30th birthday by checking on some of the scientific predictions of last three decades. Air Date : 23rd-May-1994  Read More

In this special episode, Horizon examines the use of foetal surgery for life saving operations. Air Date : 14th-Feb-1995  Read More

First part of a two-part drama looking at the work and life of Albert Einstein. Mixes archival material with dramatised sequences. Looks at his turbulent private life and the six month period in which he worked out the size of atoms, the quantum theory of light and invented the Special Theory of Relativity. Air Date : 17th-Mar-1996  Read More

This is the second part of a two-part Horizon series on Albert Einstein looking at Einstein's life and work. This program deals with the break up of his first marriage, his second marriage to his cousin, and the completion of the General Theory of Relativity which replaced Newton's view on gravity. Air Date : 18th-Mar-1996  Read More

First part of a two-part investigation into BSE. Looks into the scientific confusion and official bungling surrounding the problem, which allowed BSE to spread into the human population. Includes an interview with Sir Richard Southwood, Chairman of the first Government advisory committee, who reconsiders evidence they first weighed up in 1988. Air Date : 17th-Nov-1996  Read More

This is part two of a two-part Horizon series on Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), more commonly known as "mad cow" disease, and how it is transmitted to humans, becoming CJD (Creutzfeldt Jakob disease), how many people are at risk, and what the chances are of finding a cure. Air Date : 18th-Nov-1996  Read More

An update on the earlier 1992 episode, and the continuing story of the Carbon 60 molecule. Air Date : 9th-Dec-1996  Read More

Follows archeologist Natalya Polosmok as she journeys to the Altay Mountains in southern Siberia to search for traces of an ancient people known as the Pazyryk. * Polosmok and her team discover and unearth a wooden tomb surrounded by the frozen remains of six horses, uncovering a 2,400-year-old woman dubbed the Siberian Ice Maiden. * The Ice Maiden is buried alone, lying as if asleep, in a wood coffin with a headdress and a mirror. An afterlife meal, a yak horn vessel and a wooden table are also found outside the coffin. Archeologists record the Ice Maiden's height, and discover a hole in her skull and peat packed in her body. *They use radiocarbon dating, tree-ring chronology and biological testing to determine the age of the remains and time of death. *The body is excavated and taken to Moscow for preservation and facial reconstruction. Another mummy, and other skeletons, are discovered elsewhere. *The program concludes by raising the question of who has rights to the ancient graves. Air Date : 30th-Jan-1997  Read More

In this second part of the Ice Mummies trilogy, attention turns to Ötzi, the Neolithic man plucked with an ice pick and some not inconsiderable brute force from an Alpine glacier. Once again, as with the Ice Maiden, an impressive set of relationships are on display in the vicinity of the leathery character and his bedraggled belongings. By far the most important man in Ötzi's life is Konrad Spindler, whose chance identification of the age of the mummy upon its discovery catapulted him to stardom and a life of analysis and scientific monitoring. Spindler is fiercely defensive of Ötzi, like Frankenstein and his monster, although the relationship is much less emotional than Natalia and her Ice Maiden. A bewildering array of more minor characters emerge during the course of the film, my particular favourite being a yodeling mountain dweller, included as a representation of how Ötzi has effected the local population. All varieties of archaeological life appear in this film, from Professors zur Nedden and Seidler, whose double act hints at the Muppets Stadtler and Waldorf, to an extra from This is Spinal Tap, Hanspeter Schrattenthaler, whose bare chest and rock star poses suggest he dearly wishes his copper axe were a guitar. Also worthy of mention is the lovable Harm Paulsen, who lives and works in a reconstruction of a Neolithic village and whose lilting Danish tones express some of the more human elements of the sad demise of Ötzi, such as the family he may have left behind, providing a stark contrast to the strictly 'scientific' views of Spindler. Air Date : 6th-Feb-1997  Read More

This is the bizarre and fascinating story of the remains of Inca culture, frozen for posterity high in the mountains of the Andes. Evidence has emerged of sacrifice to the mountain gods, whose existence dominated the civilization over 500 years ago. The film traces the frozen bodies of children uncovered by archaeologists in South America, and follows an archaeological expedition to a high-altitude sacred site in search of ritual remains and another body. How did they come to be there? Why did they go to their deaths willingly? What was the religious framework that dictated their sacrifice to fierce gods? Air Date : 13th-Feb-1997  Read More

Air Date : 17th-May-1997  Read More

This is part one of a three-part Horizon special about the scientists and others who became explorers in the earth's final frontier, Antarctica. Air Date : 30th-Oct-1997  Read More