The Best TV Shows on History

Every History Show Ranked From Best To Worst

History’s extensive portfolio includes more than 20 shows, spanning the years from 1993 to 2025. For top-tier entertainment, History delivered Modern Marvels and Spy Web in 1993 and 1999. Discover the best of History with our list of over 20 series, meticulously updated for August 2026.

  • Modern Marvels
    Modern Marvels (1993)8.1

    HISTORY’s longest-running series moves to H2. Modern Marvels celebrates the ingenuity, invention and imagination found in the world around us. From commonplace items like ink and coffee to architectural masterpieces and engineering disasters, the hit series goes beyond the basics to provide insight and history into things we wonder about and that impact our lives. This series tells fascinating stories of the doers, the dreamers and sometime-schemers that create everyday items, technological breakthroughs and manmade wonders. The hit series goes deep to explore the leading edge of human inspiration and ambition.

  • Project Blue Book
    Project Blue Book (2019)8.1

    A chronicle of the true top secret U.S. Air Force-sponsored investigations into UFO-related phenomena in the 1950s and ’60s, known as “Project Blue Book”.

  • Swamp People
    Swamp People (2010)8.0

    In the farthest corner of Louisiana lies the nation's largest swamp - a hidden world where nature rules... and man fights back. The Cajuns that live in this forbidding environment follow a tradition dating back three hundred years - the thirty day alligator hunting season.

  • The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch
    The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch (2020)7.9

    There is a ranch in northern Utah. It is considered the epicenter of the strangest, and most disturbing occurrences on Earth: For two decades, the federal government investigated the property. Their findings have never been made public. Now a new team of independent scientists and researchers are taking over. They are uncovering evidence that the countless stories, of unidentified aerial phenomena, Bizarre energies, and portals that lead to other dimensions Might actually be true. They will stop at nothing to reveal The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.

  • Forged in Fire
    Forged in Fire (2015)7.8

    Competitors re-create weapons from historical periods ranging from Japanese katanas to medieval broadswords to ancient throwing blades. Each entry is judged on its artistry as well as its functionality and accuracy.

  • History's Greatest Mysteries
    History's Greatest Mysteries (2020)7.8

    Investigates a wide range of historically compelling topics and the mysteries surrounding each including the Titanic, D.B. Cooper, Roswell, John Wilkes Booth, and more. Fresh, new evidence and perspectives will be showcased, such as never-before-released documents, personal diaries and DNA evidence.

  • SIX
    SIX (2017)7.3

    Action drama series inspired by the real missions of Navy SEAL Team Six.

  • The Proof Is Out There
    The Proof Is Out There (2021)7.3

    Each episode analyzes and passes verdicts on several seemingly impossible things “caught on film,” including giant beasts, UFOS, apocalyptic sounds, hairy humans, alleged mutants from the deep, conspiracies, and many other cases. Host and veteran journalist Tony Harris takes nothing for granted in a quest for answers, tracking down eyewitnesses, putting each photo or film through a battery of tests, calling out the hoaxes, and highlighting the most credible evidence in an attempt to better understand our world.

  • Mail Call
    Mail Call (2002)7.2

    Mail Call was a television program that appeared on the History Channel and hosted by R. Lee Ermey, a retired United States Marine Corps Staff Sergeant,. The show debuted on August 4, 2002 as part of the 'Fighting Fridays' lineup. Most episodes were 30 minutes, but from 2007 through the show's end in 2009 some episodes were 60 minutes. During each episode, Ermey read and answered questions submitted by viewers regarding weapons and equipment used by all branches of the U.S. military now or in the past, as well as by other armed forces in history. Ermey often took his viewers on location to military training areas to film demonstrations. When not on location, Ermey broadcast from a set resembling a military outpost, including a tent, a Jeep, and various other pieces of military gear which changed throughout the series. At times, he would also have a bulldog - usually symbolic of Marines, especially drill instructors - on his show as well. Comic relief was provided as Ermey inflicted DI-style verbal abuse on his viewers or tests the effects of various weapons on watermelons and paint cans, as well as occasional appearances of "Mini-Lee", an action figure styled in Ermey's likeness, often seen berating a luckless G.I. Joe figurine. His demeanor as host was similar to the character "Gunnery Sergeant Hartman" portrayed by Ermey in the Stanley Kubrick film Full Metal Jacket, though this attitude was shown only towards his viewers and not the military special guests. Older viewers might compare him to Sergeant Vincent Carter, a character in the Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. television program.

  • The Curse of Oak Island
    The Curse of Oak Island (2014)7.2

    Follow brothers Marty and Rick Lagina through their effort to find the speculated - and as of yet undiscovered - buried treasure believed to have been concealed through extraordinary means on Oak Island.

  • Alone
    Alone (2015)7.2

    Hardcore survivalists are put by themselves in the Vancouver Island wilderness, without camera crews, teams, or producers – on a single mission to stay alive for as long as possible.

  • Pawn Stars
    Pawn Stars (2009)7.1

    Go inside the colorful world of the pawn business. At the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop on the outskirts of Las Vegas, generations of the Harrison family run the family business, and there’s clashing and camaraderie every step of the way.

  • Ancient Aliens
    Ancient Aliens (2010)7.1

    Did intelligent beings from outer space visit Earth thousands of years ago? From the age of the dinosaurs to ancient Egypt, from early cave drawings to continued mass sightings in the US, each episode gives historic depth to the questions, speculations, provocative controversies, first-hand accounts and grounded theories surrounding this age old debate.

  • American Pickers
    American Pickers (2010)6.9

    Pickers like Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz are on a mission to recycle America, even if it means diving into countless piles of grimy junk or getting chased off a gun-wielding homeowner’s land. Hitting back roads from coast to coast, the two men earn a living by restoring forgotten relics to their former glory, transforming one person’s trash into another’s treasure.

  • UFO Files
    UFO Files (2005)6.6

    UFO Files is an American television series that was produced from 2004 to 2007 for The History Channel. The program covers the phenomena of unidentified flying and submerged objects, close encounters with alleged extraterrestrial life, and alleged military and government cover-up conspiracies. In 2008, a following series called UFO Hunters premiered on the same channel.

  • The UnXplained
    The UnXplained (2019)6.6

    Explore the world’s most fascinating, strange and inexplicable mysteries. Each episode features compelling contributions from scientists, historians, witnesses and experiencers—each seeking to shed light on how the seemingly impossible actually can happen.

  • Secrets Declassified with David Duchovny
    Secrets Declassified with David Duchovny (2025)6.6

    From black ops and bizarre experiments to deadly cover-ups and nefarious gadgets, David Duchovny pulls the curtain back on all the government secrets in modern history we always suspected, but were never given the answers to.

  • Mountain Men
    Mountain Men (2012)6.5

    Profiles of some of the men who choose to live off the grid in the unspoiled wilderness, where dangers like mudslides, falling trees and bears are all part of everyday life.

  • Counting Cars
    Counting Cars (2012)6.5

    Danny “The Count” Koker and his team restore, customize and sell cars in a hurry, scrambling to keep their Las Vegas shop in the black. From classics to exotics, from hotrods to choppers, Danny and the crew of Count’s Kustoms will stop at nothing to find and flip the greatest rides of all time.

  • Spy Web
    Spy Web (1999)N/A

    Spy Web: International Espionage uncovers some of the most fascinating spying and espionage stories of the 20th century.