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- The alchemist hopes to gain assistance in developing military technology to fight the Antichrist. He spends the day packing up his life's work to send to the Pope.
- Part one of a 3-part series revealing the crucial role the CIA has played in manipulating the political affairs of post-war Europe through the Gladio.
- Investigates the mystery surrounding Francis Drake's final voyage.
- The final blow came on April the 28th 1945 when Hitler received word via Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry that British news services were reporting SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler had sought negotiations with the Allies and had even offered to surrender German armies in the west to Eisenhower.
- Psychological analysis of the biggest madman of the 20th century.
- In 1545, Britain's Henry VIII watched in horror as his favourite warship sank during an engagement with the French. In October 1982, the wreck of the Mary Rose was raised from the floor of the Solent where she had lain for 437 years in soft preserving silts. This is the remarkable story of what the excited historians found.
- A tale of a Veteran German Tank driver from the Second world war. He tells his story in flashbacks from his home in Britain as an old man. A matter of fact account of his youth before the war and his trials during his time as a soldier primarily on the Russian front.
- Ian Potts investigates the skeletal remains of 30 decapitated bodies found in a garden in Roman York.
- UK historians Tony Wilmot and Dan Garner head up a summer-long dig to discover more about the great lost Roman Amphitheatre at Chester.
- To mark the 400th anniversary of the infamous Gunpowder Plot, Timewatch attempts to establish why the conspirators had became so radicalized under the reign of James I, and assesses just how close the plotters came to achieving their aims.
- The Warsaw Uprising of 1944 saw its citizens take on the might of the Nazis alone. 'Timewatch' tells how Britain abandoned these people to their fate in one of the most heroic military operations undertaken by any resistance movement in World War II.
- On December 13th 1939, the first great naval battle of World War II took place off the coast of Uruguay. Known as the 'Battle of the River Plate', it set as rivals two great naval officers in a deadly psychological duel. The pocket battleship Graf Spee, the pride of the German fleet, was commanded by Captain Hans Langsdorff, a decorated hero from World War I. Opposing him was Commodore Henry Harwood, an exceptional naval tactician in charge of three smaller, lesser British cruisers; the Ajax, the Exeter and the Achilles. The documentary tells the full story of this sea battle through interviews of the families and crews of the two commanders, bringing a new understanding of the men behind the first major British naval victory of World War II.
- Both loved and vilified, the world's only supersonic passenger plane survived ecological and economical pressure to become an international symbol for the ultimate in global travel. Engineers, pilots, staff, and well-known frequent fliers remember its legacy.
- In his "Commentarii de Bello Gallico" the Roman general Julius Caesar wrote about his Gallic Wars (58 - 50 BCE). This documentary investigates if his account is accurate or propaganda.
- Almost forty years later, the US is trying to locate and identify pilots missing in action during the Vietnam War. 'Timewatch' follows an American military unit in search of two pilots who were shot down in the war.
- Thirty years ago, Communist Cambodian leader Pol Pot set about establishing a nation of people living to serve the state. He insisted that anything private, right down to his subjects' thoughts and emotions, were immoral. When Pol Pot's plan to increase rice production failed, he declared it was due to enemies within the party. Thus began the purge of some of Pol Pot's most devoted followers and their families. Almost two million people were brutally tortured and executed in the killing fields of Cambodia, a quarter of the country's population in less than four years. Exceptional for a revealing interview with Nuon Chea ("Brother Number Two"), the former deputy to Pol Pot who admitted partial responsibility and expressed willingness to go before a United Nations tribunal to be questioned, this British Documentary Award nominee was noted for its interviews of both survivors and former leaders within the Khmer Rouge.
- In the early hours of Wednesday 18 April, 1906, America's greatest natural disaster struck San Francisco, followed by devastating fires. Told through the words and images of those who were there, 'Timewatch' marks the centenary by revealing the true extent of the catastrophe, including evidence that the official death toll of 487 was closer to six thousand.
- 'Timewatch' has exclusive access to the investigation conducted by the National Museum of Ireland. The bodies of 'Old Croghan Man' and 'Clonycavan Man' were preserved for 2300 years in an Irish peat bog and discovered within weeks of one another. Forensic evidence reveals much about their diet, social status, even hairstyle. It also gives brutal evidence that life -- and death -- in the Iron Age could be vicious.
- In 1179 a great Crusader castle was destroyed after a five day siege. Eight hundred of its garrison were killed and at least 700 enslaved. It was a catastrophe for the Crusader cause - but how did it happen? How did the great Muslim leader Saladin break into this 'state of the art' fortress and defeat its fearsome Knight Templar defenders in such a short time? 'Timewatch' reveals the true and savage story of 'Jacob's Ford'.
- In Georgian England, in 1789, an all-female transport ship The Lady Juliana set sail for a penal colony in Australia. Incarcerated for prostitution or thievery, the women were saved from death sentences by a government plot to bring civilization to the male penal colony at Sydney Cove. 'Timewatch' follows as three modern Australian women trace their ancestors. Their descendants discover the tale by unearthing diaries, court records and documents of the feisty convict women who redeemed themselves with their entrepreneurial spirit, becoming the unlikely founding mothers of Australia.
- In January of 1953, unusual weather conditions caused Britain's worst national peacetime disaster of the 20th century. A storm surge flooded the eastern coast of England, killing more than 300 people and leaving thousands homeless. Fifty years later, 'Timewatch' re-examines a calamity which is largely forgotten today.
- On 9 March, 1862, a naval battle of the American Civil War featured the world's first combat between ironclad warships, 'The Monitor' and 'The Merrimack'. Without portholes, no electricity, and depending on their vessel for the trapped air they breathed, the crew of 'The Monitor' felt it resembled an iron coffin. What was it really like to live inside this great metal monster?
- Striking suddenly, a killer wave of water struck the counties of the Bristol Channel on 30 January 1607. The flooding stretched as far as the Glastonbury Tor 14 miles inland, and inundated two hundred square miles of Somerset, Devon, Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire. 'Timewatch' follows the research of two scientists, Professor Simon Haslett from Bath Spa University and Australian geologist Ted Bryant from the University of Wollongong, who are increasingly convinced that the killer wave was not simply a freak storm but a rare British tsunami.
- The horror of the Black Death, the merciless killer of a third the world's population in the Middle Ages, still sends atavistic fear through us centuries after its first appearance in 1348. For a century, that fear has been eased by the knowledge that its apparent cause, the Bubonic Plague, is controllable. However, disturbing analysis throws new light on an old horror. Recent evidence suggests that the Black Death was NOT the Bubonic Plague, and that the true culprit may have an impact on our future as well as our past.
- The privileged daughter of an American woman and a descendant of Indian royalty, Noor Inayat Khan was an unlikely war hero. Trained as a musician, she was slightly clumsy, dreamy, and wrote children's fairy stories in Paris. The Nazi invasion of France changed the direction of her life. Fleeing to England with her family, gentle Noor concluded that the fascists represented a great evil. She volunteered her services to the Allies despite her Sunni Muslim faith, which advocated pacifism. Extraordinarily conscientious and brave, Noor was the first female radio operator to be sent into Nazi-occupied France by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) at a time when agents reputedly had a life expectancy of just six weeks. When the Nazis shut down her network, she did the work of six people as the Nazis closed in on her. Noor was eventually betrayed and captured. In ten months of torture and brutal interrogation, she didn't give the Gestapo a single item of information, including her real name. Eventually, this remarkable woman was taken to Dachau Concentration Camp and shot. 'Timewatch' tells the Princess Spy's tragic and inspirational story.
- The world's most famous warrior, Genghis Khan, rose from abject poverty to rule most of the known world. History records him as a brutal butcher, but for centuries his true story laid buried, forgotten in Chinese archives. Written nearly 800 years ago by Genghis Khan's adopted son, an extraordinary text reveals the secret history of Genghis Khan. Who was the real man behind the legend and how did he inspire his successors from beyond the grave to conquer the largest land empire the world has ever seen?
- 'Timewatch' follows a special American military unit requested to identify the remains of two soldiers from World War I.
- A surprisingly good documentary, made in a time when the BBC was still a label for quality. Looking for a solution to the riddle about the death of Ivan the terrible, this TV-movie gives also an almost nostalgic look at Moscow at the beginning of the 1990s, richly supplemented with nice image work about this legendary city. Unfortunately the DVD gives at end credits not on who was responsible for the acted film fragments added to the documentary. These are Russian spoken (not subtitled), so this is probably a Russian cinematographic production. The film fragments and documentary images are nicely balanced, and the music in the background is equally good. That makes the whole thing just pleasant to look at. But the most important is that you gradually get a better look on the history of Russia and the power struggle of the first Tsar against the Boyars and how Tsar Boris Godunov, as second, finally could take over the power. A pearl for who are interested in history. (M)
- Astonishing new evidence has now come to light linking the British Secret Service with the murder of Grigori Rasputin in Russia in 1916.
- Was Josef Stalin, one of the Worlds most powerful leaders killed? Or was the Communist party afraid of losing their power? Could the heart attack be a cover up? This documentary goes through secret KGB-files in search of truth.
- "Zulu: The True Story" is a look at how the humiliating defeat at the battle of Isandlwana was played down while the small victory at Rorke's Drift, on the same day, was promoted by Victoria and Disraeli as the major engagement.
- In 1974 Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, a 52 year old Japanese officer, made world headlines when he emerged from the Philippine jungle. Never having received his formal surrender orders, he had, for nearly thirty years, loyally continued fighting the Second World War. Until now Onoda has never talked to Western Press. The Last Surrender pieces together his complex and ultimately sinister story.
- Only once have two submarines dueled, with one submerged submarine sinking another. In February 1945, HMS Venturer hunted down and sank the U-Boat U864 off the coast of Norway. The WWII German submarine was loaded with 65 tons of mercury destined for use in Japanese weapons. 'Timewatch' examines the u-boat's final hour from both sides of the conflict and explores the dangers of the toxic wreck today.
- In the 1960s, the Beatles inadvertently revolutionized the music industry, instigated the birth of youth culture and then, at the height of their popularity, inexplicably retired from the stage. Using unseen home movies, the Fab Four are shown during their touring years and lets the viewer see the record-setting musicians at work from the vantage of their road crew.
- This is a dramatized historical account of the career of Cicero when he was a young trial lawyer in Rome during the incessant coups that pitted various families and political factions in their bloody power grabs.
- What shaped Adolf Hitler, the man who will bring endless suffering to countless people in WWII?
- After quarreling over a bank loan, two men took part in the last fatal duel staged on Scottish soil. BBC News's James Landale retraces the steps of his ancestor, who made that final challenge. On 23 August 1826, two men met at dawn in a field just outside Kirkcaldy in southern Fife. Only one walked away alive. One was David Landale, a linen merchant and pillar of the community. The other was George Morgan, a soldier-turned-banker with a fiery temper. The pair had quarreled over a bank loan, an argument that had led the banker to spread rumours about his client's creditworthiness. The merchant had in turn taken his accounts elsewhere and written a stiff letter of complaint to the Bank of Scotland headquarters in Edinburgh. And that is where it would have stayed had not Morgan's temper got the better of him one morning when he struck Landale about the head with an umbrella in Kirkcaldy High Street.
- In July 1942 the French authorities willingly collaborated with the Germans to round up Jews to be sent to concentration camps. It was a betrayal on a huge scale. Yet many ordinary French people risked their own lives to save thousands of Jewish children. Told in their own words, these are the hair-raising stories of four young Jewish children secretly hidden from the Nazis. Today, they look like anyone's grandparents. Their stories are of narrow escapes, incredible adventures, and great heroism. Also of painful loss, and guilt. As these survivors return to the places in the French countryside where they were hidden 60 years ago, powerful emotions are released; what happened cost them their parents and their childhoods, - and shaped the rest of their lives.
- Timewatch sheds new light on the final stages of the Allied strategic bombing campaign.
- In 1970 a flight with more than twenty children on board was hijacked by a Palestinian guerrilla group. It was the only time a British commercial aircraft has ever been hijacked. Timewatch probes the ethics of negotiating with hijackers and discusses the alternatives.
- In 1783, thousands in Britain died as a result of an environmental disaster, choking on poisonous gases from a huge volcanic eruption in Iceland. The ensuing winter was one of the harshest ever recorded and claimed even more lives. This forgotten disaster has remained a mystery for the past 200 years. 'Timewatch' reveals the evidence and reviews the likelihood of a repetition.
- Twenty-five years after the Royal Navy landing ship Sir Galahad was sunk in a fiery blaze in the Falkland Islands by the Argentine air force while unloading British troops, survivors, friends and family affected by the calamity told how this act continued to impact their lives.
- A team of archaeologists and scientists comb Crete for conclusive evidence that Europe's first great civilization, the Minoans, was destroyed by a devastating natural disaster. Is it possible that the sudden fate of the Minoans was the origin of Plato's tale of Atlantis, the fabulous city that was swallowed by the sea?
- Long before World War II, in WWI in fact, Germany began the world's first strategic bombing campaign. In an attempt to demoralize the people of Britain, in early 1915 a German zeppelin airship dropped bombs on the Norfolk town of Great Yarmouth. It was the start of a campaign lasting two-and-a-half years which killed 1,500 people. Timewatch reexamines the forgotten Blitz.
- In June 1953 Britain was still suffering from the privations imposed by World War II. Despite the hardships, the country was excited by a once-in-a-lifetime event. A young queen was beginning her reign. Thanks to television, the common Briton was able to see his monarch crowned for the first time in Britain's 1000 year history. Observers and participants shared their memories of the historic occasion.
- More than 60 years on, researchers are still arguing about exactly why Omaha Beach was the hardest fought of all the landing points of D-Day. Presenter Richard Hammond and Dr Simon Trew of Royal Military Academy Sandhurst set out to look through the latest findings. Can new statistical research and fresh archaeological finds reveal the truth?
- In July of 2007, an international crew of 61 sailors set off from Denmark for Ireland in a recreated 11th century Viking longboat. Braving rough seas and storms while confined to a one meter square space apiece for working, eating and sleeping in an open boat, the crew sailed 1000 miles in an attempt to reenact the Vikings' landfall at Dublin. 'Timewatch' cameras filmed the entire journey, recording their trials and triumphs.
- How far did British coastal inhabitants go to gain the cargo of ships in distress? Did communities really lure ships onto the rocks, or is it a ghoulish popular myth? Were crews left to die while their ships were pillaged? Bella Bathurst, author of 'The Wreckers: A Story of Killing Seas and Plundered Shipwrecks', explores the answers.
- Thanks to the revolutionary work of forensic anthropologists Dr Fabian Kanz and Professor Karl Grossschmidt, 'Timewatch' has been able to establish a detailed picture of how gladiators may have lived, fought and died 2000 years ago in Ephesus. A tombstone identified one 50 year-old body as gladiator trainer Euxenius. His remains, and the skeletons of 68 other gladiators nearby, reveal much about the diet, lifestyle, medical care and fighting conditions of the legendary warriors.
- Before the medieval joust came the melee, a brutal free-for-all involving not two but hundreds of combatants. Dr Saul David explores this vicious sport and investigates the story of the hero of the melee - Sir William the Marshall.
- In 1350 BC, Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten commanded his people to move 250 miles into the desert and build a brand new metropolis to house his revolutionary monotheistic religion. Professor Barry Kemp has studied the history of Akhenaten for the last quarter of a century. 'Timewatch' examines his findings and reveals a remarkable archaeological legacy hidden in the desert.
- An investigation into a new theory that Stonehenge was a place of healing. The film includes forensic testing of bones excavated at the site, a rare dig at the Henge, and analysis of ancient burials including one who had come from 1000km away in the Alps.
- During World War 2, Britain's MI6 recruited a French spy and infiltrated him into a rival secret service; the Special Operations Executive (SOE). That spy went on to betray much of SOE's activities to the Nazis? This program explore why.
- A political drama that explores the decision to use the Atomic Bomb on Japan at the end of World War 2. Using evidence from the US Archives, the drama reveals how the US leadership came to make this fateful decision. Far from the 'Lesser of two evils', it's revealed that the US had many other options that did not include the invasion of Japan. A new, uninformed and inexperienced President is guided by a 'conniving' adviser, the wily Washington operator Jimmie Byrnes, who is convinced the only way to force the Soviet Union to accept American preeminence and agree to its demands over Eastern Europe - was to 'demonstrate American military might.' Japan's pleas to end the war through negotiations were ignored.
- 'BBC: Timewatch' joins the crew and passengers on board Britain's favourite ship as the 'QE2' leaves Southampton for the last time and glides gracefully into retirement. The world's longest-serving and best-loved cruise ship has come a long way since her humble beginnings as piles of steel and timber on the River Clyde. Overcoming technical problems, rogue waves and even bomb threats, she has enjoyed an eventful and colourful career that has won the hearts of millions. A proud reminder of the dazzling golden era of ocean liners, she is a time capsule offering a tantalising peek into a distant age of discovery and decadence. Built at the end of the swinging sixties, she defied cultural trends and became a reassuring bastion of Britishness and tradition in an ever-changing world. In this warm, celebratory film, we bid a fond farewell to the 'QE2' and - with exclusive access to the final voyage - look back over four glittering decades on the high seas.
- The story of an architect's obsession with the grand pyramid if Gizeh, built for Pharoah Chefu, helped by high-tech 3D model-programs and various experts. A new, more plausible theory of how the pyramids were built is discussed, using not just an external ramp but also an ingenious system based on a winding, sloping internal ramp and counterweight trolleys, to pull up granite beams. Testing it on site lead to more discoveries.
- The story of how an unassuming little girl rose to be the most powerful woman in the world.
- Two Britain's greatest flying aces of World War I are profiled.
- A shipwreck off Devon uncovered much more than a haul of Islamic coins and jewelry - it also revealed a forgotten and fearful time when coastal Europe lived in terror of the 'Barbary pirates'.
- In the 19th century, the sister of renowned philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, Elisabeth and her husband Bernhard, attempted to establish a racially-based mini-nation in remote Paraguay.
- 1982–TV Episode
- 1982– 1h 39m7.1 (10)TV EpisodeA detailed look at the early life of Oswald and his movements on the day of the Kennedy assassination.
- Historian Bettany Hughes is amongst a growing number of leading experts who believe that Plato's story of Atlantis was inspired by a real historical event - the eruption in the Bronze Age of a massive volcano on the Aegean island of Thera, today better known as Santorini. Bettany presents evidence to support this theory, including the latest scientific findings, which show that the Thera eruption was much bigger than previously thought. And just like Atlantis, Thera was home to an amazing civilisation. Archaeologists have uncovered on the island a lost world - a Bronze Age city entombed by the eruption. This city belonged to the Minoan culture, Europe's first great civilisation preceding classical Greece by a thousand years.
- A look at Hadrian's Wall, one of the unsung wonders of the Ancient World.