In the second episode, Andrew Carnegie builds an empire around steel, but finds himself struggling to save face after the ruthless tactics of his business partner, Henry Frick, result in both the Johnstown Flood as well as the bloody 1892 strike at the Homestead Steel Works.

Vlad Dracula presses an increasingly desperate guerrilla campaign from the shadows, hoping to demoralize the Ottomans and slow their march north. After chasing Vlad for two weeks, sultan Mehmed II and his invading army find themselves caught in a nightmare come to life deep within the Wallachian forest. Many legends have arisen out of the invasion of Wallachia in 1462. One speaks of Vlad Dracula launching a biological attack against the Ottomans to slow their march to his capital city, Târgovişte. Vlad opened his prisons and released hardened criminals to go amongst the Ottomans with tuberculosis and bubonic plague so that they could infect the enemies.
Vlad Dracula also had carried out a scorched-earth policy against Mehmed II. Along with his hit-and-run campaign from the shadows has left the sultan's troops on edge. As Mehmed's army closes on Târgovişte, tensions flare in the Ottoman camp, where food and water are in increasingly short supply. But Vlad had nowhere to rely on food for himself either and there was nowhere to go anymore. He became a prisoner of his own scorched-earth policy. Radu Dracula closes in to take Princess Anastasia hostage. Anastasia commits suicide when he reach her at Poenari castle.

Two thousand years ago one of history's most notorious individuals was born. Professor Mary Beard embarks on an investigative journey to explore the life and times of Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus - better known to us as Caligula. Caligula has now become known as Rome's most capricious tyrant, and the stories told about him are some of the most extraordinary told about any Roman emperor. He was said to have made his horse a consul, proclaimed himself a living God, and indulged in scandalous orgies - even with his own three sisters - and that's before you mention building vast bridges across land and sea, prostituting senators' wives and killing half the Roman elite seemingly on a whim. All that in just four short years in power before a violent and speedy assassination in a back alley of his own palace at just 28-years-old." But how much of his story is true? Travelling across the Roman world - from Germany and Capri in the bay of Naples to the astonishing luxury of his life in imperial Rome - Mary attempts to peel away the myths. Some stories are difficult to get to the bottom of as they were written by hacks long after his death, but there is plenty of surviving evidence where the 'real' Caligula can be glimpsed. Such as in the extraordinary luxury of his private yachts outside Rome; in the designs he chose for his coins when he became Emperor; in an eye-witness account of Caligula's withering humour written in 41AD; the trial documents covering the mysterious death of his father when he was just seven-years-old; and even in a record of his imperial slaves - from the palace spy to his personal trainer. Piecing together the evidence, Mary puts Caligula back into the context of his times to reveal an astonishing story of murder, intrigue and dynastic family power. Above all, she explains why Caligula has ended up with such a seemingly unredeemable reputation. In the process, she reveals a more intriguing portrait of not just the monster, but the man.

After more than a century of civil war, Toyotomi Hideyoshi has united Japan. His rivals have either sworn their allegiance, or they have been destroyed. Despite this fledgling peace, Hideyoshi now dreams of a bold and outlandish plan to make himself the most powerful man in Asia. He plans to expand his reign to China. Logistical challenges and fierce operation in Korea prove to be costly.

The planets of our solar system have experienced epic catastrophes throughout their long history, both raining down from outside and bubbling up from within. We'll voyage back in time to investigate the violent events that profoundly shaped the planets, including earth itself. We'll witness stunning revelations about what transformed Mars into a barren, hostile desert... The disaster that changed Venus from temperate to hellish... The impact that blew away Mercury's mantle, turning it into a planetary core... A colossal disturbance that rearranged the orbits of the gas giants... Titanic impacts on Jupiter... And how a lost moon may finally explain Saturn's rings.

Magic mushrooms, long considered sacred by the Indigenous Mazatec in Mexico, become the subject of scientific studies measuring the intense effects of its Psilocybin and its potential therapeutic use.
In the second episode, we are introduced to Ben, who’s battled with crippling Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) his entire life. When he had his firstborn, Ben’s life became full of panic attacks regarding his son’s safety, and he knew something had to change. Ben signed up for a psilocybin-assisted therapy clinical trial which was testing whether the psychedelic could help people with severe OCD. In the session under the influence of psilocybin, Ben felt decomposed and eventually grew into a tree. While living as a tree, he saw his human self, playing with his child. Though this sounds scary, from Ben’s perspective, it was beautiful. He was one with the universe, seeing himself in the ultimate third-person perspective. Finally, he saw how it could be different if he didn’t let his OCD control him. And several months out, all the symptoms disappeared.
Ben’s story is one of many told in this series, which gives hope that help is right around the corner for the millions who suffer —often in silence— with debilitating mental disorders. But Michael Pollan’s work is showcasing the success stories. Often, even in the most successful trials, psychedelic-assisted therapy only helps up to a third of people enter remission. More frequently, patients are helped —sometimes substantially— but they still suffer with their illnesses and some people aren’t helped at all.