Great Adventurers

Robert Falcon Scott's doomed attempt to be first to the South Pole became a race against his Norwegian rival Roald Amundsen. When Scott and his men arrived, Amundsen's flag was in place, and before Scott and his team lay only starvation and death.

Christopher Columbus survived battles with Tunisian galleys, shipwrecks, imprisonment and illness during his remarkable expeditions. Columbus eventually set foot for the first times in the West Indies and on the South American mainland.

Raleigh's meteoric rise was followed by a slow and tragic fall from grace, which would eventually end with the farce of the Orinoco disaster and death on the executioner's block. His story is linked to dark intrigues and political manoeuvring.

The story of the sea-faring privateer and adventurer whose name has become synonymous with one of English history's most celebrated episodes - the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Drake was the first Englishman to see the Pacific Ocean.

This is the incredible story of explorer Ernest Shackleton's heroic attempt to lead the first expedition across the last unknown continent of Antarctica in 1914-16.