Tonight, drift slowly through the long story of Ancient Egypt — not only through pharaohs, pyramids and dynasties, but through the river that quietly made all of them possible.

Follow the Nile from the earliest farming communities along its banks, through the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, the growth of scribes, calendars, taxation and great tombs, and into the ordinary rhythms of village life: sowing grain in the dark silt, baking bread, brewing beer, tending cattle and watching the flood return year after year.

Kings will rise and disappear. Foreign rulers will come and go. Temples will grow quiet, ancient writing will eventually be forgotten, and empires will change the names written on the records.

But for thousands of years, the river keeps returning.

Settle in, lower the lights, and let this long, gentle histo ...