10 episodes · 1st January 1986
Three films which reflect the way official records are preserved for future generations. Film 1: Christopher Andrew examines the extraordinary story of how the MS Automedon, entrusted with top secret documents, fell into enemy hands a year before the fall of Singapore and delivered to the Japanese priceless information which changed the course of the Second World War. Film 2: Peter Ibbotson reveals how the authorities decide which documents are thrown away and which are to be kept for future generations. Film 3: In a case which has parallels with modern phone-tapping scandals, Jeremy Black uses documents from Chancery Lane to show how the Foreign Office and the Post Office intercepted political mail in the early 18th century as Britain edged towards stable parliamentary democracy.
Two stories shed new light on the life and times of Henry Tudor, who took the throne of England from Richard III 500 years ago. Film 1: The problems facing Margaret Rule and her assistant Andrew Fielding as they put back into the hull of the Mary Rose the thousands of timbers and artefacts which have helped to give a picture of the men who manned the guns of the British Navy in the early 16th century. HENRY VII: Reassessing the life of Henry VII - the king who may well have commissioned the Mary Rose. David Starkey argues none of the glories of the Tudor dynasty would have been possible without the peace and prosperity which came from his astute control of finance and politics.
Three films presented from the British Museum reveal how visionaries and others dealt with the 'outsider' as they set out to perfect a society, a state and a national image at the turn of the 19th century. Film 1: English reformers constructed a new prison system - only to find that within 20 years it was a total failure. Film 2: The Brothers Grimm falsified their country's original folk tales to define behaviour 'acceptable to the architects ' of the new Germany. Film 3: Satirical cartoonists vilified the national characteristics of the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish to build up the concept of pure Englishness.
Three stories presented from the Virago bookshop in Covent Garden about the lives of women in worlds dominated by men. THE NINE DAY QUEEN: Lady Jane Grey was used by men of power when she was alive, and by male propagandists when she was dead. A new film about her life is to be released next month. What interpretation do its makers offer of the 16-year-old girl who was beheaded for treason more than 400 years ago? MOST DANGEROUS WOMEN shows how close the leaders of a women's international peace movement came to getting the most powerful men in the world to stop the Great War in the middle of 1915. THE WORLD OF MARY ELLEN BEST illustrates how one woman artist left a vivid record of the domestic surroundings of her time simply because she was denied the opportunities freely available to her male contemporaries.
In January 1943 lone British agent Henri Dericourt was dropped over occupied France. His mission was to organise the reception and departure of RAF flights crucial to the secret work of SOE - the Special Operations Executive. Dericourt quickly earned a stellar reputation, but within six months of his arrival, the SOE's largest network in France was wiped out and more than 400 French resistance workers arrested. Post-war investigations established that Dericourt had fed secrets to the Germans ever since he had begun his work in France. But Dericourt was no simple traitor. What then was his role in the disaster and for whom was he really working?
In 1936 'The Road to War' used newsreel to try to alert the American people to the mounting horror of war in China, Ethiopia, Italy, Germany, Austria and Spain. But America did not want to know and the film disappeared without trace until last year. Its rediscovery and the memories of the men who made it - Irving Allen and Herbert Bregstein - exposes American attitudes to Fascism as the world headed for war.
Peter France introduces three films exploring the backgrounds of historic items recently auctioned and the motivations of the bidders: - A Victoria Cross won at the battle of Rorke's Drift more than 100 years ago - Four pages from a medieval illuminated manuscript about the life of Saint Thomas Beckett, changing hands for the first time in nearly 500 years
The Domesday Book was completed 900 years ago, but it says little about the daily worries and concerns of the people whose land and animals are recorded in so much detail. Three films help evoke something of the real lives of those people. Film 1: Christopher Andrew learns from England rugby star Mark Bailey about the social and economic impact of the rabbit; Film 2: Patricia Morison explains some of the ways open to men and women of those times to cure their illness and complaints; Film 3: Norman Stone investigates why there has never been another Domesday Book - a register of just who owns this green and pleasant land. He has uncovered a story of centuries of privacy, secrecy and vested interests which has left England as the only country in Europe without a public and accessible register of land ownership.
Film 1: How a Bulgarian peasant farmer stumbled across the largest Thracian treasure ever discovered - more than 160 silver bowls and jugs, found while digging an irrigation ditch. THE MAN WHO MADE HISTORY: How an Italian who 'imitated the past' has become known as one of the greatest forgers of all time.
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