The First Crusade was one of the most extraordinary, bloody and significant episodes in medieval history.

It began with an appeal for aid from the Christian Byzantine Empire, threatened by the rising power of the Muslim Seljuk Turks. But when Pope Urban II preached a sermon at Clermont in 1095, the result was unlike anything ever seen before. The Pope offered spiritual salvation to those willing to go east to aid their fellow Christians in a holy war, and help liberate Jerusalem from Muslim rule. Knights and peasants alike signed up in their thousands, leading to the disastrous People's, or Peasants', Crusade, then to a much more organised and powerful Princes' Crusade.

Their forces gathered at Constantinople, where they made an uneasy alliance with Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus. Entering Anatolia, they helped to win back the city of Nicaea, then won a decisive but hard-fought victory at Dorlyaeum, before marching on the great city of Antioch...

It's been a few months but Epic History TV is back with a new 16 minute video about Alexander the Great! It's the first of a four-part series, and the second part will be out in just two weeks. Hope you like it!

All 5 parts of Epic History TV's history of World War One in one place. From the Schlieffen Plan to the Versailles Treaty, this is 65 minutes of non-stop WW1 history.