Seven Wonders of the Industrial World Episode Guide

Episode Guide

• Season 1 Episode 7: The Hoover Dam

  The construction of the Hoover Dam, originally the brainchild of Arthur Powell Davis who dreamed of taming the Colorado River. After 20 years of legal wrangling, ruthless engineer Frank Crowe won the contract to build the dam, which took 13 years to finish - with the loss of more than 100 lives

• Season 1 Episode 6: The Line

  Robert Lindsay tells the story of the construction of America's 19th-century transcontinental railway, funded by competing corporate giants, the Union Pacific Company and the Central Pacific Company. The conflicting workforces fought through both natural and human disasters to link the east and west coasts, and the result was the catalyst for the vast expansion that ensured the USA's industrial pre-eminence

• Season 1 Episode 5: The Panama Canal

  French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps' attempt to build a canal across Panama in 1880. After environmental hazards and disease claimed 20,000 lives, the plan collapsed in scandal and shame. However, the need for such a route became clear during America's war with Spain, and the completion of the canal in 1914 helped salvage the reputation of de Lesseps and his son

• Season 1 Episode 4: The Sewer King

  The beginnings of London's sewerage system. Edwin Chadwick's plans to drain the cesspools into the Thames only added to the spread of disease. However Joseph Bazalgette's ambitious proposal to build an elaborate network of watertight tunnels positively transformed London

• Season 1 Episode 3: The Bell Rock Lighthouse

  The story of the construction of Robert Stevenson's Bell Rock Lighthouse, a feat of engineering that proved as hazardous as many predicted. Intending to build the structure on the treacherous Bell Rock reef off the coast of Scotland, Stevenson and his crew set out to battle against the elements

• Season 1 Episode 2: Brooklyn Bridge

  Robert Lindsay narrates the story of John Roebling's Brooklyn Bridge, an ambitious scheme devised to unite Manhattan with Brooklyn in the fast-expanding New York of the mid-19th century. It resulted in scandal and tragedy, and led to a series of court cases which exposed gross political corruption and greed

• Season 1 Episode 1: The Great Ship

  Drama-documentary examining the building of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's ship the SS Great Eastern which was the largest ship of its time and was intended to make a non-stop voyage from Britain to Australia possible. Sadly, Brunel died before his vision took to the seas and it was scrapped in 1889