On 1 July 2007, 65 volunteers are setting off on an extraordinary voyage. After ten years of meticulous preparation, a crew of intrepid volunteers will sail a reconstructed Viking warship, the 'Sea Stallion' from Glendalough (the Irish location where she originated), from Denmark to Dublin - a journey of over 1,000 miles through some of the most challenging waters in the world.

The project is not just a thrilling adventure on the high seas, it is one of the largest experimental archaeology projects ever conducted. The team behind the boat's construction hope to gain a unique understanding of Viking technology, and the men who made these ships one of the most feared sights of the Dark Ages. This is experimental archaeology pushed to its limit - the crew will be crossing the same waters in the same type of vessel as the Vikings. They will gain an insight into the hardships, risks and realities that those intrepid warriors would have faced a millennium ago.

Each member of crew has less than one square metre where they must live, sleep and eat. Privacy is impossible. The ship has no shelter from the weather, no cleaning facilities and no lavatories. They will be living virtually on top of each other for six weeks and this will test their camaraderie to the limit. It will also be a challenging test for the boat itself. No one knows whether the structure they've built will be able to withstand the rigours of the open sea. If a mistake has been made in the reconstruction, the ship could be destroyed by the forces of the waves and wind. Every crew member knows there's a risk of shipwreck in the North Sea.

Researchers and historians are still arguing about why Omaha Beach was the hardest beach to capture in the D-day landings. Presenter Richard Hammond analyses the latest theories with Dr Simon Trew of the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.

In January, the MSC Napoli ran aground, spilling its cargo on Branscombe beach in Devon. The public were delighted, but the authorities were determined to police opportunists. Looters of the Napoli were reviving a centuries' old tradition: 'wrecking'. Author Bella Bathurst discovers the social history of a national crime.

Dr Saul David investigates the violent world of the medieval melee tournament. Unlike the better known joust, this was a brutal brawl with sharpened weapons, few rules, and one undisputed champion- William Marshal. Saul investigates Marshal's life, discovering his epic rise from a tournament champion to the Regent of England who saved a kingdom on the battlefield. Saul also experiments with Marshal's weapons.

More than 3000 years ago, the rebel Pharaoh Akhenaten marched his people from his capital Thebes to build a new city in the desert. It took 20 years to build. The people of this city worshipped in the world's first monotheistic religion, overseen by Akhenaten and his beautiful Queen Nefertiti. The city was designed as a religious utopia. But, after 25 years of digging, experts are suggesting that Akhenaten was nothing but a despot.

The stories of the one million post-war Britons who paid ten pounds to emigrate to Australia under the Assisted Passage Scheme. It was one of the biggest planned migrations of the twentieth century. The catch was that they had to stay for a minimum of two years. Many loved their new country, but one quarter fled home disillusioned, fleeing 'pommy bashing' or believing that they had been sold a lie.

An investigation into a radical theory that Stonehenge, far from being a place of burial as is commonly assumed, was in fact a place of healing - a Bronze Age Lourdes. The investigation takes in forensic testing of bones excavated over the past decades and hard-won permission for the first dig in 50 years at the Henge, watched live online by millions of viewers around the world. Does the theory of the healing stones bear up to modern-day forensic science?

Tsunamis are among the most destructive forces known to Man, but most of us in Britain think they are one thing we don't need to worry about. Professors Simon Haslett and Ted Bryant have already challenged this view with their belief that the Bristol Channel flood of 1607, one of Britain's greatest natural disasters, was in fact a tsunami. But the story doesn't stop there. In Britain's Forgotten Floods, Simon and Ted investigate evidence for what they believe are at least four more British tsunamis.

Timewatch exclusively reveals the dramatic true story behind the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, when Imperial troops and Chinese rebels laid siege to the diplomatic quarter in Beijing. Told through Chinese sources and the diaries and memoirs of the outnumbered European defenders, the siege helped to bring down the imperial monarchy, precipitating a century of destruction, revolution and ultimate renewal.

The story of how an unassuming little girl rose to be the most powerful woman in the world. At her birth few believed Princess Victoria would ascend the throne, but a number of untimely deaths and the failure of her uncles to father any children meant that Victoria became heiress to the British throne. The battle between her and her mother the Duchess of Kent, however, was to become a fierce maternal struggle, as the duchess schemed to share in the power and riches that would one day be Victoria's.

Broadcaster Michael Palin tells the story of how the First World War ended on 11th November 1918 and reveals the shocking truth that soldiers continued to be killed in battle for many hours after the Armistice had been signed. Recounting the events of the days and hours leading up to that last morning, Palin tells the personal stories of the last soldiers to die as the minutes and seconds ticked away to the 11 o'clock ceasefire.