Each week in the new History series SURVIVING HISTORY, our team of thrill-seeking history buffs experiment with some of history's most amazing inventions. Master craftsmen from The Scarefactory in Columbus, Ohio survey the past to experience the most inventive devices and technologies ever created. Using a variety of skills (welding, design, carpentry), the multi-talented team rebuilds elements from the past in an effort to better understand history.

Through this process of re-creating and testing ancient inventions, history comes to life and is illuminated anew in an incredibly personal and powerful journey. Ever wonder what it would feel like to be under the blade of the Halifax Gibbet, or inside an Iron Maiden during the Spanish Inquisition? Can you imagine what heretics felt as their bodies were stretched and twisted on the Rack? What would it be like to eat live cockroaches like prisoners in the French penal colonies? In each episode, the team investigates a different period in history, picks out five of the most ingenious devices, practices or weapons of war from that time period, and studies the history of how and why they were developed.