Ancient Warriors

The Assyrians conquered an empire from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. They plundered the great city of Babylon, and enslaved the tribes of Israel. even Egyptian pharaohs paid them tribute. Their army was the largest, strongest, and cruelest yet seen.

The Celts seemed half man, half beast. They were as wild as the hills they emerged from. In battle, none were more reckless or more fearless. They appeared so terrible that their foes might turn and run before a blow was struck. They fought for nothing less than victory and mocked death itself.

On an autumn day almost 1000 years ago, one of the greatest battles in history began. Invaders have struck England, their prized weapon, and armored knight, a powerful horse, an unstoppable charge, Yet the charge is stopped by a wall of English shields. Before the sun set, these English knights of France will win England...or an English grave.

At the end of the second century AD, a roman soldier crossed the river Danube and left the civilized world behind him. Trained to obey he never questioned to order to march into the unknown. In the war to come victory would depend on such unflinching discipline. It was the greatest weapon of the greatest army that the world had ever seen.

Their revolutionary tactics would change the way war was fought forever. They would march further than any soldiers had before them and crush all opposition. In one afternoon they would defeat the proudest civilization of their day. Led by the greatest general in history, they would forge an empire that stretched from Greece to the Indies River.

In the 7th century BC the ancient kingdom of Egypt was conquered. Cities were burned, temples were destroyed, and the people cruelly cast aside. Humiliated by his defeat, the Pharaoh vowed to reclaim his country. Out of the ashes rode an army, burning with vengeance.

They were soldiers unlike any before or since. They knew no trade but war. In 480 BC at a place called Thermopylae they met an army 50 times their size and stood their ground. For them the trumpets never sounded retreat. Their name has become a simile for hardship willingly endured and death stoically faced. The Spartans.

For 5 centuries the city that guarded the gateway between Europe and Asia minor has been known as Istanbul. Before that it was Constantinople. A Christian island in a Muslim sea. It withstood every assault by the warriors of Allah but in 1453 the Ottoman emperor besieged the city with a new army of men. An army of slaves. The swords of Allah. And the scourge of Christianity.

Without warning they appeared one day in the east. An unknown tribe from an unknown land. Masters of the horse and the bow they struck as swiftly as an arrow, robbing, burning, killing, passing over the land like locusts. In the 5th century AD they swept across the plains of Europe to the gates of Rome itself. The horsemen of the apocalypse. The Huns.

1000 years after the crucifixion of Christ the holy city of Jerusalem was sieged by the Seljuk Turks. Pope Urban II beseeched all Christians to unite in a great crusade. His call was heeded buy noblemen and commoners alike, among them a new order of knights who pledged their lives to retake the holy land. Warrior monks fighting for god, and ultimately betrayed by their own church.

A scribe records that in the year 1793 marauders from the north crossed the sea to England and shattered the peace. Pagans in search of treasure they surprised the defenseless monastery of Lindisfarne. For Christian Europe the blackest hour of the dark ages was about to strike at the hands of the Vikings.

In the Scottish highlands where hatreds are as old as the hills, men die easier than feuds. Where clan fights clan, only one hatred can unite them. Their hatred of the English. Against the odds a band of warriors will help Scotland win its greatest victory and deal England one of its worst defeats.

1000 years after the death of Christ, Ireland fights for it's life against pagans from the north. Outnumbered, the Irish put their faith in one man. A fanatical warrior destined to become a king and then a legend. Before the last battle is over, Ireland will know unity and treachery in the same moment.

In ancient India one creature was both a god and a weapon. For one king, these beasts were the shock troops as organized as any army before or since. Riding a juggernaut, Maurya soldiers carved out one of the largest empires in history.

27 years after Columbus had discovered America, Spanish adventurers stumbled onto a strange new world where boys were born to fight and warriors ate the flesh of their vanquished foes. The Aztecs.

In the year 1160 Japan's two greatest clans fought a war of annihilation. The leader of the Taira clan gathered his soldiers to hunt down his bitter rivals, the Minamoto. Few of the Minamoto survived. Minamoto's young sons, Yoritomo and Yoshitsune escaped. They swore to take up the sword and avenge their father. they would follow the path of honor, or death. The way of the samurai.

In the year 621 china was ruled by chaos. Warlord fought warlord. No one was safe, not even the emperor. His estates were seized, his subjects murdered, and his son taken hostage. A peasant found the emperors imperial seal, and took it to a monastery nearby. The monks resolved to rescue the emperors son. For despite their peaceful manner they were the Shaolin masters of the deadly art of Kung Fu.

Behind its peaceful facade, this Hawaii was a battleground. Rival armies spanned across the land and no chief ruled supreme. One would try. Daring to link, by force, a chain of islands that had never been conquered.

Far from the din of battle in feudal japan the most powerful warlord live in luxury, protected by mighty samurai. for the samurai, war is regimented and honorable. But another type of warrior stalks Japan. The Ninja. Cunning, courageous, and cutthroat.

When the American west was still wild, the Sioux tribe was its master. On the backs of their horses they swept across the plains. At the battle of little big horn, Crazy Horse humbled a nation, and won the greatest victory in the war for the west.

A young tribe is under attack, and a young chief faces his greatest test. His genius and cruelty turns a band of farmhands into a weapon of conquest. In time they will become the fiercest warriors in Africa, and take on the mightiest army in the world.