The Best TV Shows on History

Every History Show Ranked From Best To Worst

Modern Marvels and Ice Road Truckers represent the pinnacle of History’s programming, launching in 1993 and 2007. From 1993 through to 2025, History has accumulated a diverse collection of over 20 television shows. Explore our list of the top rated shows up to date from May 2026 that includes over 20 unique series.

  • 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)8.0

    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.

  • Hatfields & McCoys
    Hatfields & McCoys (2012)7.5

    It’s the true American story of a legendary family feud—one that spanned decades and nearly launched a war between Kentucky and West Virginia. The Hatfield-McCoy saga begins with Devil Anse Hatfield and Randall McCoy.. Close friends and comrades until near the end of the Civil War, they return to their neighboring homes—Hatfield in West Virginia, McCoy just across the Tug River border in Kentucky—to increasing tensions, misunderstandings and resentments that soon explode into all-out warfare between their families. As hostilities grow, friends, neighbors and outside forces join the fight, bringing the two states to the brink of another civil war.

  • The Bible
    The Bible (2013)7.4

    The story of God's creation of the Earth and the landmark events leading up to the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

  • The Curse of Oak Island
    The Curse of Oak Island (2014)7.3

    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.

  • SIX
    SIX (2017)7.3

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

  • Kevin Costner's The West
    Kevin Costner's The West (2025)7.3

    This fresh look at the epic history of the American West delves into the desperate struggle for the land itself – and how it still shapes the America we know today.

  • 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)7.0

    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.

  • Knightfall
    Knightfall (2017)7.0

    Go deep into the clandestine world of the legendary brotherhood of warrior monks known as The Knights Templar.

  • 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.

  • Roots
    Roots (2016)6.9

    An adaptation of Alex Haley's "Roots", chronicling the history of an African slave, Kunta Kinte sold to America and his descendants.

  • Ice Road Truckers
    Ice Road Truckers (2007)6.7

    Take a trip to Yellowknife, Canada to experience one of the most dangerous careers around. In unfathomably cold conditions, truck drivers haul equipment and supplies to miners in the Canadian tundra in the dead of winter on a 350-mile highway of ice.

  • 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.

  • Texas Rising
    Texas Rising (2015)6.1

    A chronicle of the Texas Revolution, the uprising against the tyranny of Mexican dictator Santa Anna, from the battle of the Alamo to the battle of San Jacinto, and the rise of the Texas Rangers.