To this are added elaborate digital effects, such as a recreation of the Palace of Knossos or the diversionary channels dug to control flooding of the Yellow River.

Segments: Christopher Columbus landing in the Caribbean 1492; Hernán Cortés conquering the Aztecs 1521; Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation 1517; European Wars of Religion 1524; the Spanish capture of Atahualpa 1532; Ivan the Terrible and the conquest of Siberia 1580; William Adams and Tokugawa Ieyasu in Japan 1600; Nathaniel Courthope vs. the Dutch on Run island 1617; tulip mania and the rise of capitalism in Holland 1637.

Segments: Adolf Hitler and the rise of Nazi Germany 1918–1933; Margaret Sanger and the first birth control clinic 1916; Margaret Sanger and the birth control movement 1921-1960; Mahatma Gandhi and Edward Wood in India 1930; the Holocaust 1941–1945; Robert Oppenheimer and the bombing of Hiroshima 1945; Post–World War II economic expansion 1945-1973; Apollo 11 1969; Deng Xiaoping and the end of Mao Zedong's China in 1967-1976; the collapse of the Berlin Wall 1989-1990; Deep Blue vs. Garry Kasparov 1997; the Ayoreo tribe and environmental issues in Brazil 1998.

Producer Robin Dashwood on the BBC website provides background to how the series was made, beginning with financial limitations on travel which set them seeking one location "which would furnish us the whole world": We found the answer in Cape Town, South Africa.

With some skillful set dressing, Cape Town’s Cathedral became Notre Dame and Wittenberg Cathedrals, while a car park in front of the Town Hall became revolutionary Paris; stunning beaches stood in for Australia and the Caribbean; sand dunes became the Middle East; and forests became, well, forests from every continent.