Ulisse will dedicate his third appointment to the underground world, making a journey beneath the earth's crust. In fact, a small invisible and often fantastic universe exists beneath our feet. In these "twenty thousand leagues underground" Ulisse will explore the world of caves, observing speleologists in their explorations and visiting surprising sites such as the Wieliczka rock salt mine in Poland. Alberto Angela visited the depths of this mine which has been exploited for millennia and which today presents incredible settings: enormous caves, statues carved in salt, a church and even a concert hall with immense chandeliers all made with salt.

The protagonist of this episode is the air. You cannot see it, it has no smell or taste, but it is the most abundant element on the earth's surface and is crucial for our survival. In fact, air, by penetrating our lungs, provides our body with oxygen that allows us to move, speak and even think and profoundly influences plant and animal life. Alberto Angela will take us on a long journey inside the air, making us discover the most surprising aspects of this substance. On board a vintage sailing ship, Alberto Angela will explain to us how the use of wind has changed the history of humanity, from the great geographical discoveries to the latest technological evolutions of racing catamarans. We will discover the extreme limits of life without air: the possibility of remaining without breathing underwater for up to half an hour, as Umberto Pellizzari, the freediving record holder, will explain to us.

The Cairo museum is one of the most extraordinary places in the history of humanity: it houses the treasures of the Pharaohs. Thousands of objects recovered from the tombs: jewels, statues, works of art, sarcophagi. A priceless heritage that tells the story of almost three thousand years of Egyptian civilization. It is at the Cairo museum that Alberto Angela will be found to guide us on this journey into ancient Egypt: not only discovering the most precious objects of the Pharaohs (and their own mummies), but taking us to the most impressive places discovered by archaeologists. Thanks to special permits, Ulysses' crew was able to enter the tomb of Queen Nefertari, forbidden to cameras, to film the almost intact frescoes of this queen, Ramesses II's beloved wife. At night, the crew also entered the Pyramid of Cheops, showing the charm of these places.

Ulisse tells the story of life on Earth. An exciting story, which scientists are slowly reconstructing. Alberto Angela will be in the famous Natural History Museum in New York, where millions of exhibits on evolution are collected: from meteorites to the first living forms, to mammals, passing naturally to dinosaurs. He will show the immense dinosaur skeletons displayed in the museum and the work of researchers both in the laboratories and in the field, particularly in Mongolia. The "Ulisse" team will also visit the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, where extremely rare finds and accurate reconstructions are preserved. Many films will allow you to retrace over 4 billion years of evolution: from the formation of the Earth to the appearance of Homo Sapiens sapiens.

Ulisse dedicates this event to the highest peak in the world: Everest. A RAI crew went to the Himalayas, in the Everest region, to show the extraordinary landscapes of this "roof of the world", flying with a helicopter to the base camp, at almost 6 thousand metres, and going to the Sherpa villages , who are still the great protagonists of climbing today, helping mountaineers in their very risky undertakings. One fact is enough to understand the difficulties of climbing Everest: for every 6 climbers who try, one dies. The difficulty is caused above all by the disturbances caused by the high altitude: above 8 thousand meters you enter the so-called "death zone". Oxygen is reduced to a third, the mind becomes clouded, the body is subjected to superhuman efforts, strokes and pulmonary edema are constantly lurking. Not to mention bad weather, wind, frostbite and the inherent risks of climbing. The program will tell all this, through documentaries, films and testimonies.

Fire has been a protagonist of human history; from the first prehistoric fireplaces, born about 400 thousand years ago, to the flames of space rockets, it has always accompanied man in his daily life and in his undertakings. The episode also illustrates, above all, the risks that fire entails: fires, burns, explosions. And he will explain what are the best ways to fight it. In the house, in the car, wherever the flames develop. Alberto Angela travels to various places where fire is the protagonist, also following the special fire departments in their interventions and demonstrations. We will see spectacular images of fires and men intent on putting them out. We will talk about the chemistry of fire, the mistakes to avoid, and how to behave in an emergency. Many people, for example, have died trapped in the car due to failure to provide assistance: the fear that the tank will explode keeps many people from providing help when the car catches fire.

Ulisse offers his spectators a very particular journey: a journey through time, to closely observe the life of a group of Neanderthal men. Thanks to careful studies, a group of scientists and filmmakers have reconstructed the appearance and way of life of these prehistoric men who inhabited Europe for a very long period, between approximately 100 thousand and 30 thousand years ago. We will therefore have the opportunity to follow the group life, the hunting, the affections, the daily problems of a small tribe of Neanderthals, played by actors whose faces have been reconstructed following the most recent research. A day 35 thousand years ago, recalled in all its details, from food, to homes, to births, to diseases, up to the dramatic encounter with Homo Sapiens sapiens, who migrated to Europe from Africa in that period.

This episode of Ulisse is dedicated to the most extraordinary jewels in history, and everything behind them: technique, art, nature. The episode takes its cue from the largest diamond exhibition ever held: in fact, some of the most famous jewels from museums and private collections have been brought together at the Natural History Museum in Paris. Necklaces, brooches, solitaires, tiaras, worn by queens and kings of the past, when even men adorned themselves with jewels. The particular venue of the exhibition, a Natural History Museum, will allow us to talk about the origin of diamonds, which are formed beyond the 120 kilometers of the Earth's depth, at pressures of over 10 thousand atmospheres. We will see how diamonds are also formed in space: a meteorite studded with microscopic diamonds is on display at the exhibition. Ulysses will then show how diamonds are cut, going to one of the most prestigious laboratories, and how they are extracted from the earth today.

The earth floats on a sea of fire: the thin layer of the earth's crust, in fact, rests on an incandescent magma which every now and then finds chimneys to shoot out its fiery splashes: volcanoes. The entire planet is crossed by large fractures, along which volcanoes nestle. Ulisse, through a series of films and documents, will show the most extraordinary images of eruptions all over the world: from South America to Japan, from Africa to Canada, and of course Europe. Alberto Angela went, among other things, to Iceland, a large island that emerged from the sea, millions of years ago, following a gigantic eruption, and which is still today one of the most active volcanic areas: a third of all the lava material erupted in the last 500 years in the world is found in Iceland. A land where hot water springs now power the heating of homes and even greenhouses, where bananas are grown (and we are at the Polar Circle).

Would you like to live in Roman times? Ulisse gives you the opportunity, following hour by hour the typical day of the inhabitants of a Roman city: family life, work, business, love, entertainment, even elections. In fact, Ulysses reconstructs, with a "countdown", the last 30 hours of Pompeii and Herculaneum: while Vesuvius was charging for its catastrophic explosion, the people, unaware even of the fact that Vesuvius was a volcano, paid attention to the little things of every day. The program reconstructs this story with the help of accurate graphic processing and thanks to sequences played by actors, up to the explosion of Vesuvius and the violent death of the two cities, under millions of tons of lava material. Alberto Angela, who hosts the evening from Pompeii, recounts these 30 hours, also showing the "petrified" bodies of the inhabitants imprisoned in the lava while they were fleeing.

Ulisse recounts the "Splendor of Rome", when the empire reached its maximum power and territorial extension in the second century. The land borders ran for over 10 thousand km from Scotland to the borders of Iran, from the Sahara to the North Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. The driving force of everything was Rome, located exactly at the center of the Empire, with almost 1.5 million inhabitants. It was the most populous city in all of Antiquity. It had 423 neighborhoods, 1400 fountains, 11 colossal baths, 40 triumphal arches, 100 temples, more than 4000 large statues, 28 libraries.

Ulisse's journey to the Roman Empire continues to discover its military strength, that is, the violent and implacable arm of its legions. Thanks to the best reconstructions of the experts, we will follow the armies on the march, we will understand how they fought, we will discover who his soldiers were and how far they went. We will see how Rome imposed itself through the skill of its generals and engineers, but also through its ability to export a model of civilization. In this regard, we will try to understand why the Romans managed to extend over such a large surface area and above all why their culture, so advanced and so successful, was adopted by all the populations of Europe and the Mediterranean.

Alberto Angela went to the Kremlin and the palaces of St. Petersburg to tell us the story of the tsars who governed Russia between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. It is an opportunity to visit the splendid Hermitage Palace, where works of art, jewels, thrones, crowns, weapons and sumptuous carriages are kept. We will admire one of the summer residences of Tzarskoje Selo, an immense palace located in a vast park with large trees, ponds, imposing statues, little bridges, where Tsarina Elizabeth loved to spend much of her time. This palace also hid another wonder, now lost: a room whose walls were entirely decorated with panels made of various types of amber and which suddenly disappeared during the last war. Through the documents, the places, the objects collected in the collections, Ulisse makes us discover the life of the last tsars from Peter the Great to Nicholas II: the loves, the pomp, the conquests, but also the plots, the killings and the brutal repression.

Work on this episode resumed after the attack and kidnapping suffered by Alberto Angela and the Ulisse crew by a group of armed men in the Niger desert. Only part of the footage was saved and the episode will begin from these images, that is, from the Sahara, the largest desert in the world. We will also see some shots of the last camp before the kidnapping. The program will take us to the most extraordinary deserts in the world: from Libya to Peru, from Namibia to the Egyptian desert. These lunar landscapes, devoid of life, actually hide many precious things: diamonds, finds from ancient civilizations, mummies, cave paintings, prehistoric tools. And also life forms that manage to survive in extreme conditions: in some cases even lions and elephants. Alberto Angela will visit the highest dunes and incredible rock formations of the Sahara, inhabited millennia ago by ancient populations, when instead of the desert there were rivers and lakes.

The protagonists of this episode of Ulisse are men who have changed the boundaries of nations, continents, and the known world, who have been able to broaden the mental and cultural horizons of their era. They are merchants, scientists, adventurers, conquerors and heroes. Alberto Angela from the headquarters of the most prestigious geographical institutes in the world - the Royal Geographical Society of London and the Geographical Society of Villa Celimontana in Rome - will tell us about the exploits of those who dared to challenge the seas and oceans to discover new worlds: from the Vikings to Christopher Columbus, from Amerigo Vespucci, to Captain Cook killed by natives during his 3rd round the world trip. We will also see how an entire people, the Polynesians, managed to colonize the largest ocean, the Pacific, without compasses or maps.

Ulisse offers his listeners a journey through time to tell the story of prehistoric man who populated Europe in a period ranging from approximately thirty-five thousand to twenty-five thousand years ago, from the Neanderthals to the glaciations. In the first episode, the program retraced the group life, hunting, affections, daily problems of a small tribe of Neanderthals up to the dramatic encounter with Homo Sapiens Sapiens, who migrated to Europe from Africa in that period. A fatal encounter for the Neanderthal, who became extinct within a short time, leaving his territories to this new living species: the species from which we all descend, and which was then to give rise to the great cultures of our history. The story tells a small group of men who lived in a period following the Neanderthals, about ten thousand years later, in the ice age.

Ulisse proposes a journey to the Middle Ages. Alberto Angela traveled to medieval villages, abbeys and castles to discover the daily life of a thousand years ago: work, battles, faith, sieges, masterpieces of art, torture, the terrible scourge of diseases... ."The Black Death". Through filmed reconstructions, created with the collaboration of a cultural association from Bevagna, we will discover life in the villages and artisan workshops, we will see the homes of the poor, the work of the farmers, the taverns, the love potions, the entertainment of the rich , magic and also the many medieval inventions: from textile machines to glasses, from the compass to underpants. Alberto Angela also shows how the weapons of the time worked, what remains of the Crusader castles today and how people lived inside a princely residence. And again, we will talk about Maritime Republics and a fabulous and distant empire.

With Alberto Angela we will retrace the long history of our species, which starting from very primitive beings led to modern man. It will be a story created not only with finds and exploration of the sites, but also with accurate reconstructions of the hominids who followed one another over the course of five million years: Austrolopithecines, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Neanderthals, Cro-magnons, etc. For the first time the entire gallery of our most distant ancestors will be visualized thanks to fiction and computer processing. The scenes with actors were filmed in the African savannahs, in the same places where human evolution took place: under the guidance of experts, in particular Prof. Yves Coppens of Paris, one of the most authoritative researchers in human paleontology, they the appearance of these primitive hominids and also scenes of their life have been reconstructed, just as it is possible today to reconstruct them based on all the studies done.

With Alberto Angela we will retrace the long history of our species, which starting from very primitive beings led to modern man. It will be a story created not only with finds and exploration of the sites, but also with accurate reconstructions of the hominids who followed one another over the course of five million years: Austrolopithecines, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Neanderthals, Cro-magnons, etc. For the first time the entire gallery of our most distant ancestors will be visualized thanks to fiction and computer processing. The scenes with actors were filmed in the African savannahs, in the same places where human evolution took place: under the guidance of experts, in particular Prof. Yves Coppens of Paris, one of the most authoritative researchers in human paleontology, they the appearance of these primitive hominids and also scenes of their life have been reconstructed, just as it is possible today to reconstruct them based on all the studies done.

Ulisse recounts the "Splendor of Rome", when the empire reached its maximum power and territorial extension in the second century. The land borders ran for over 10 thousand km from Scotland to the borders of Iran, from the Sahara to the North Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. The driving force of everything was Rome, located exactly at the center of the Empire, with almost 1.5 million inhabitants. It was the most populous city in all of Antiquity. It had 423 neighborhoods, 1400 fountains, 11 colossal baths, 40 triumphal arches, 100 temples, more than 4000 large statues, 28 libraries.

The protagonist of this episode is water: through a story that will take us from the origins of life on Earth to biology, from engineering to molecules and art. With the help of graphics we will be able to simulate a journey inside a drop of water to discover its composition and microorganisms. We will then follow the long paths taken by water, through extraordinary images of glaciers, caves, oceans, atolls, icebergs, discovering how rivers are born, how raindrops are formed. We will also discover the effects that water produces in our body and how much we need for our survival. Alberto Angela will go to Villa d'Este in Tivoli to show us the works of artists and architects who over the past centuries have created an immense complex of water features and fountains on an entire hill; and again at Niagara Falls, where we will be able to admire one of the most magnificent spectacles that exist in nature.

In this episode, Ulisse will make an exciting journey among the very first civilizations that appeared in Central America, long before the arrival of Columbus, the Olmecs, the Maya, the Aztecs. The famous heads carved in rock have come down to us from the Olmec people and what amazes and still remains an unsolved mystery is how the Olmecs managed to create these amazing sculptures and, above all, to transport the colossal blocks of rock that they used; we will follow the experiment of an English team that attempted to transport a boulder weighing between 10 and 20 tons and create, using only archaic techniques, a copy of a gigantic head.

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In this episode we will explore one of the most important but also one of the most enigmatic chapters of history: the fall of the Roman Empire. Why did Roman civilization in Europe become extinct after a thousand years of splendor, giving way to the Middle Ages? Was it just because of the barbarians or were there other reasons? It all happened within a very few generations and yet it influenced centuries of European history, up to the present day.