Timewatch

The experiences of six German soldiers who survived the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 are vividly captured through the viewfinders of the amateur film cameras they carried throughout the campaign. Lying forgotten and unseen by anyone else, the films they made cover the entire course of the invasion, from military training up to retreat, from the everyday to the horrific. Described by the soldiers themselves, these 8mm images offer a different view from the newsreels.

When the German army surrounded Leningrad in 1941, it was the beginning of a terrible 900 days of isolation for its citizens. On a meager bread ration and with temperatures of minus 40 degrees Celsius, frozen corpses littered the streets. There was no light or water. It is now estimated that at least 1,200,000 people died. This remarkable German film uses previously untransmitted footage of the siege which shows the Russian suffering inflicted by the Nazis.

First of a four-part Timewatch reassessment of the life and work of Lyndon Baines Johnson, who took over as US President following the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963. Part 1 examines his ambition and the political instinct which took him from small town rural affairs in Texas via Dallas to the highest office in the United States of America. Part 1 of 4.

WINDSORS' WAR: The continuing controversy surrounding the war-time role of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Victims of a bad press, they remained tactfully silent, but now answer back through Maitre Blum, their lawyer, who gives her first television interview. OPERATION HURRICANE: Britain's first atomic test took place 30 years ago. Film of that secret explosion has been specially declassified by the Ministry of Defence for Timewatch. CHATHAM DOCKYARD: Now under threat of Government closure, the story of its contribution to naval history from the Armada to HMS Victory, to the Falklands.

THE CHINA OF THE MANCHU EMPERORS and the signing of the treaties which gave Britain Hong Kong. Why do the Chinese regard these treaties as unequal? SCOTLAND AND THE GREAT WITCH HUNT OF THE 17TH CENTURY: A thousand women were strangled or burnt. Was this persecution a political act by James VI which got out of hand? Why was it directed at women? The recently discovered diary of a Lancashire weaver JOHN O'NEIL who, a century ago, recorded his experiences as an early trades union leader in the recession of the 1860s. New research on the founding father of the Irish Republic, EAMON DE VALERA. Was he as committed to a united Ireland as was always believed, or was he prepared to compromise?

'IF THE SPANISH ARMADA HAD LANDED ...' What would have happened if on Monday 7 August 1558 a Spanish Army had marched on London from the invasion beaches of Margate? Timewatch re-examines the fate of the 16th-century Spanish task force and asks how close did it come to success? WHAT MAKES BEGIN TICK? Vladimir Jabotinsky was the philosopher behind the fighting Jew and is the man whom Menachem Begin considers his mentor. Timewatch examines the vision of Jabotinsky and its influence on Begin both in his early life and in his years as Britain's most wanted terrorist. LLYWELYN AP GRUFFYDD - THE FIRST AND LAST INDEPENDENT PRINCE OF WALES: Simon Winchester tells his story and assesses his important place in Welsh nationalism today.

HOW DO YOU DEMOCRATISE A NAZI? On the 50th anniversary of Hitler's elevation to the chancellorship of the Third Reich Simon Winchester reports from Washington and Nuremberg on how America in 1945 tried to remake a nation in its own image through a process of forced re-education. THE VENERABLE BEDE - BRITAIN'S FIRST HISTORIAN: Who was he? Where and how did he live? Why is he so important? The story of a remarkable man who, over a thousand years ago, could have travelled from Northumbria to Rome. THE LEVELLERS: three months ago in Putney church Michael Foot and other members of the Labour Party associated themselves with the men of the 'New Model Army' who spoke there 300 years before. Who were these men who, in their radicalism, saw Cromwell as the modern equivalent of establishment and right wing? How does the philosophy of these Levellers find echoes in the Labour Party today?

In a new edition of THE DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS, editor Robert Latham has uncovered previously unknown details of Pepys's life. THE WEEDERS: Are civil servants destroying vital historical evidence when they decide Government records should not be kept? THE HISTORICAL CLEOPATRA: As the BBC drama series ["The Cleopatras"] approaches its climax, Timewatch asks, "Was Cleopatra's reputation as a lustful tyrant really deserved?"

THE PEACE MOVEMENT IN THE 1930s AND TODAY: Fifty years ago, British politics was dominated by campaigns for peace. What are the parallels with the 1980s? THE LAST MUGGLETONIAN: In 1652, the Muggletonians were a radical sect in Revolutionary England. Simon Winchester traces their secret survival until the death of the last Muggletonian in 1979. THE VICTORIAN POLICE: What sort of force was the Police intended to be? With a new Police Bill before Parliament, Bernard Clark returns to their original beat.

In May 1945, British soldiers near the Austrian border town of Klagenfurt handed over 26,000 Yugoslav anti-Communist refugees to Tito's Communist partisans, who disarmed then machine-gunned them. Who was responsible? Timewatch has investigated the records and, for the first time, British officers and Yugoslav survivors describe what happened. In 1348, the Black Death killed one in three of the population. Until now we have always assumed it was an outbreak of bubonic plague. Now a zoologist suggests a far more fearsome disease was the cause. Christopher Andrew investigates.

PREVENTING THE THIRD WORLD WAR: 1984 opens amid the greatest fears of international tension and nuclear holocaust since the Cold War. Lord Bullock, biographer of British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, talks about the foundation of NATO and how the West learnt to deal with the Soviet Union after the War. THE KITCHENER ENIGMA: In 1916 Lord Kitchener was drowned on his way to Russia. Now underwater pictures reveal clues as to how his ship, HMS Hampshire, was sunk. Will they lay to rest the rumour that still remains about the secrets surrounding the Imperial War Lord? THE LAST BATTLE IN ENGLAND: In 1745 the Stuarts had their last chance of being restored to the English throne. Bonnie Prince Charlie reached Derby but then retreated. If he had marched on towards London, could he have seized the crown?

THE LAST FÜHRER: Among the Nazi war leaders tried at Nuremberg, Hitler's successor Admiral Doenitz received the lightest sentence of all. Now new research suggests Doenitz was far more deeply implicated in the atrocities of the Third Reich than previously imagined. 'THEY BE EVIL PEOPLE': Such was how British newspapers described the Russians in the late 17th century. A cautionary tale of how Englishmen in the 1720s feared Tsar Peter the Great planned to conquer the world. THE CULT OF THE DEAD: How different were medieval attitudes towards death from our own today? The wills and funeral expenses of the 16th century help provide an answer.

REAGAN'S COWBOYS: Why have successive presidents celebrated the cowboy as all-American hero? THE AGE OF CHIVALRY IS DEAD: But did it ever flourish? How true is the picture painted of the knights in shining armour, enchanted castles and fabulous tournaments in medieval romance. THE HIDDEN HIPPOPOTAMUS: A hundred years ago the scramble for Africa by the European imperial powers began. Timewatch reconstructs a single incident between Christian missionary and African chieftain that suggests the dominance of European over African was not always as straightforward as might be thought.

TAFF VALE: In 1900 the railway workers of Taff Vale embarked on a strike which has political implications to this day. Timewatch examines the first great clash between the Trades Unions and the law. THE ISLAND AND ITS PAST: How the people of the Isle of Dogs in the Thames Estuary are rediscovering their past. SPECIAL BRANCH: At the height of her powers, Victorian Britain boasted that she didn't need a political police. After explosions in the Underground, the Tower of London and the Houses of Parliament, she changed her mind. Timewatch investigates the birth of the Special Branch.

'Let not poor Nellie starve.' With those words Charles II, the 'Merry Monarch', died 300 years ago. Of all British sovereigns, this womanising, yachting, horse-racing king has a fond place in popular myth. During his 25-year reign England returned from the horrors of civil war to peace and plenty. David Drew looks at some of the lasting achievements of the age of Charles II and at the man who, somewhat waywardly, presided over them.

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.

Peter France presents three films which reflect the extent to which codes of 'honour', allegiance' and 'behaviour' have had their effect on British history. 1: Christopher Andrew examines the demise of duelling 100 years ago. 2: Ian Dear tells the story of the duplicity behind the victories which kept the America's Cup in New York for 130 years. 3: Phillip Knightley shows the process by which British Intelligence secrets have been leaked steadily since the end of the Second World War.

Views of Oliver Cromwell vary as much today as when Parliament asked him to become King in 1657: a tyrant, a repressed religious bigot who murdered a king; a patriot, civilised with a tremendous sense of humour, and conscience in matters of state and religion. How do modern historians view the parliamentarian who some have called the greatest Englishman?

Two stories showing how previous generations have dealt with the problems of pollution and disease: DEVONSHIRE COLIC: In Georgian times, a crippling illness struck thousands of cider drinkers in the west of England, who found mysterious relief only by taking the waters at Bath Spa. In Victorian England, prostitutes, seen as carriers of venereal disease, were forcibly detained and treated in hospitals until they were considered unlikely to infect the male population - particularly the lower ranks of the Army and Royal Navy.

Three films examine the ways our historical record is under attack. In fireproof vaults, millions of feet of film shot on nitrate stock in the first half of this century are decomposing - their images in danger of being lost for ever. In publishing houses, the paper deliberately chosen to print the written word since the end of the last century is destroying itself at a steady rate. In dealers' galleries, maps and the historical record which accompanied them have been systematically separated to satisfy enthusiasts, collectors, and the demands of the marketplace. Where will the destruction lead?

The control of national television is seen by regimes the world over as a necessary adjunct to their survival today. Peter France presents two films about the control and effect of mass communications in other times. The first tells the story of the financial control of the political press by the establishment in early 19th-century Britain, and the second the psychological power of a dramatic radio broadcast in the USA 100 years later, when the young Orson Welles petrified a nation.

Henry Lincoln investigates the story of the 'Man in the Iron Mask' and - using evidence which only came to light last year - separates fact from romantic myth.

During the Nazi occupation of eastern Poland, a small group of Jews in the city of Lvov tried to save themselves from the death camps by hiding in the sewers beneath the city for more than 14 months. Timewatch reunited four remaining survivors in 1988 to record their accounts. The oldest, Mundek Margulies, journeyed back to Lvov (now part of the Soviet Union) and with co-operation from local authorities, went down into the sewers and through the maze of tunnels to help describe this extraordinary episode of human courage and endurance from the Jewish Holocaust.

What effect did Charlie Chaplin have on the sale of tea? What first caused the sudden and surprising popularity of tennis and golf? And to what extent was the middle class of England responsible for changing an era of optimism and peace into the nightmare of the First World War? Eric Hobsbawm, one of Britain's leading historians, offers some insight into the 19th century and describes a world that was about to disappear for ever.

For nearly 50 years the world has been led to believe President Roosevelt's statement that the attack was a total surprise and completely unsuspected by the neutral Americans. But witnesses from all over the world are now coming forward to tell a different story - that Washington was repeatedly warned about the coming attack. Two men who certainly weren't told that they were the likely target for a Japanese air strike were the commanders responsible for the safety of the fleet at Pearl Harbor, 2,000 miles out into the Pacific. Here the whole story is told for the first time - beginning with the breaking of the vital Japanese Naval Code by the British more than two years before.

Was the last prisoner of Spandau Prison in Berlin really Rudolf Hess, one time deputy to Adolf Hitler, or a doppelganger put in his place by the Nazis before his incredible flight to Britain in 1941? Claims have been made in recent years that the body of the man who died in Spandau Prison in 1987 at the age of 93 bore none of the chest wounds suffered by the real Hess in the First World War. Christopher Andrew talks to wartime witnesses and forensic experts in a personal investigation to establish whether the strange case of Rudolf Hess is a genuine example of the conspiracy theory of history.

Timewatch explores the myth of the man who had a vision of a united Europe 175 years ago.

The Communist party of Hungary has been forced to surrender its monopoly on truth, but it still controls access to the official archives. Any truths about the past 40 years must, therefore, come from the people themselves: witnesses, participants and victims, whose accounts are being gathered by historians, sociologists and film-makers. The history they recall has already had its effect on the pace of reform.

Historians and archaeologists have started to reassess some of the ingrained myths of American history. American Indians lived in sophisticated societies, and many more died as a result of the European settlement of North America than has so far been imagined. Andrew Sachs narrates the story of how Puritan prejudices helped to generate false views of Indians.

Every year the Sioux nation of South Dakota pays homage to more than 300 unarmed Indians killed by US troops on 29 December 1890. For the survivors and their descendants, it was the beginning of a deliberate and systematic process to destroy their way of life. One hundred years after those events, witnesses recall the terrible emotional scars caused by the US government's disastrous attempts to Europeanise the American Indian.

The assassination a year ago of Dr Gerald Bull prevented Saddam Hussein from acquiring a 'supergun'. Bull designed the world's best howitzers, many bought by Iraq, but the supergun remained his lifelong ambition. David Taylor chronicles how the Canadian scientist who plundered the lost secrets of Nazi terror weapons became the victim of his own obsession.

In October 1834 the Houses of Parliament burned down. Which architectural style would best express Victorian values? Architects, politicians, and the general public took sides in a fierce debate between the Classic and the Gothic, echoed in today's battle between Classicists and Modernists.

Tells the full story of the "Death Railway", made famous by the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai. In just 15 months, 26,000 allied PoWs who were forced to labour on the project died from ill treatment, malnutrition and disease. A quarter of a million Asian labourers were conscripted by the Japanese to work alongside the PoWs. As many as 100,000 of them may have died.

In late 1943 Winston Churchill made what he would later describe as one of the biggest mistakes of the war. On the advice of his special envoy to Yugoslavia, he transferred British weapons and support from the anti-communist resistance under General Draja Mihailovich to the communist partisans led by Marshal Josip Broz Tito. That decision effectively condemned Yugoslavia to 40 years of communist rule and destroyed the reputation of General Mihailovich, who ever since has been portrayed as a Nazi collaborator. Part 1 of 2.

The extraordinary story of one of the war's most secret alliances - between the US Naval Intelligence and the Mafia. Denied for 50 years, the pact was in fact begun on the New York waterfront and sealed in the mountains of Sicily. Now the key players speak for the first time about the deal uniting US Intelligence with "Lucky" Luciano and Don Calò Vizzini - the most feared Godfathers of their day. In Palermo, Leoluca Orlando, head of Italy's newest political party and the Mafia's number one target, talks about the tragic legacy of this most unholy alliance. NEW SEASON.

Examines the origins of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and reveals startling new evidence of the Irish government's crucial role in the emergence of the Provisional IRA. With the help of interviews with Irish ex-cabinet ministers and former leading members of the Republican movement, it details Dublin's funding of the IRA, why it favoured its more radical elements, and how the Irish government secretly plotted to invade Northern Ireland in 1970. Peter Taylor reports.

During the Second World War the Nazis snatched 200,000 Aryan-looking Polish children from their mothers to replenish the "master race" back in Germany. This film tells the extraordinary story of two cousins who were stolen on the same day, 4-year-old Alojzy and 10-year-old Leon. Alojzy was adopted by a "good" Nazi family and soon forgot his Polish past, becoming a model German. When Alojzy was told at age 12 of his Polish parentage, he was horrified, believing the Poles to be Untermensch ("less than human"). It was years before he could accept his real mother and years before the Polish people forgave him his German identity.

One In four British merchant seamen died during the Second World War. Life on board ship was dangerous, poorly paid and carried a far higher casualty rate than any of the armed services. Yet their bravery and sacrifices have barely been recognised. In this programme the merchant seamen who faced the North Atlantic storms and the deadly U-boat menace to keep Britain supplied during the war years tell their own brave and moving story.

When Grigorii Efimovich Rasputin was murdered in 1916, rumour and political expediency set to work to paint him as a villain, responsible for the downfall of the Romanov empire, an insane alcoholic capable of any sexual extravagance. This film biography reappraises the myth of the "Mad Monk", using new information as well as first-hand accounts to rescue Rasputin from unjust historians.

Since 1949, dozens of planes and up to 200 US, British and allied air-crew have been lost in an undeclared aerial espionage war between the western powers and the Soviet Union. Many of them were believed to have been captured, tortured and imprisoned by the Soviets. TIMEWATCH reveals the true extent of British and US casualties, and the extraordinary personal stories of those who took part in the secret air war.

Three children of victims of the Holocaust tell the almost unbelievable stories of their parents' survival. From ghetto, through concentration camp, on to displaced persons camp, and out to a new life beyond, these stories are harrowing and inspiring in turn.

Using unique archive material from Vietnam and interviews with US agents, this programme tells the story of the friendly relations in 1945 between the United States government and Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh.

The reports of young journalists like Martin Bell, David Jessel, Brian Barron, and Julian Pettifer brought the front line of the war into the front room. This review of the BBC's coverage includes dispatches that were often moving, like those on the fate of Vietnamese children orphaned by the war, or broadcast under conditions of great personal risk, as when Julian Pettifer came under fire in Saigon in 1968.

The temple at Karnak in Egypt, founded around 1500 BC, was the greatest religious shrine of the ancient world, taking 2,000 years and the work of 80,000 people to complete. Yet much of what went on behind its walls was kept hidden. With the aid of computer reconstructions and film shot at religious sites in Egypt, Timewatch reveals its fascinating hidden history.

Some historians have always suspected that Stalin was behind the Korean War, but the Soviets have denied involvement. By obtaining documents from recently opened archives and finding new eyewitnesses, Timewatch has uncovered evidence that Stalin was involved in the war and that over 70,000 members of the Soviet military took part.

Four hundred years ago today, Sir Francis Drake was buried at sea off the coast of Panama after unsuccessfully trying to recapture past glories. History records that his reputation lay in tatters just eight years after defeating the Spanish Armada. This film retraces his strange final odyssey and finds that, contrary to prevailing belief, it was a shrewdly planned venture thwarted by ill fortune. The truth lies with the Guayou Indians of Colombia, in the letters of the men who sailed with him, and with those who tried to stop him.

A Second World War love affair between German housewife Lilly Wust and young Jewish lesbian Felice Schragenheim.

Christopher Columbus is popularly believed to have been, in 1492, the first European to discover America. However, some historians are convinced the New World was known before he set sail. Examines their claims and looks into the belief that the Mandan Indians of North Dakota are partly descended from a 12th-century Welsh prince.

A wireless operator who survived torture and a Nazi concentration camp, a 20-year-old sabotage expert, and an MI6 agent who filmed his own undercover operations are just three of the British secret agents whose stories of bravery behind enemy lines in the Second World War are told in this historical documentary.

Examines why Hitler abandoned plans to invade Britain in 1940 and prepared, instead, to attack the Soviet Union. NEW SEASON 1/6.

Nine grammar school boys recall their schooldays and reflect on how that system affected their lives. With former Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke, film director David Puttnam, author Barry Hines, and biologist Steve Jones. 2/6.

In 1976 the chance discovery of a mummified body inside a ghost ride in Long Beach, California, unearthed a chain of events leading all the way back to 1911 Oklahoma territory and a bungled train robbery by small-time burglar Elmer McCurdy. 3/6.

In the thirties Grey Owl tricked the establishment into believing he was the world's first eco-warrior. Archie Belaney was in fact a Briton who had emigrated to Canada at 17 and set out on a mission to fool everyone that he was an American Indian.

In 1944, American submarines attacked two Japanese boats in the South China Sea, unaware that the vessels were crammed with more than 2,000 Allied PoWs. Among more than 1,000 who survived the attack were British gunner Wilf Barnett and Australian engineer Ray Wheeler. In tonight's programme, the pair recall their harrowing ordeal and their friends who died.

A pistol shot at noon in 1889 signaled the start of the first race between thousands of desperate men and women to stake their claim on government land in north-western Oklahoma. Tonight's programme sifts through archival footage and meets descendants of those battling pioneers who still own the land today.

In 1946 almost half-a-million German prisoners of war were still being held in Britain, with the ban on fraternisation lifted only in December. Interviews, archive footage, and private photographs shed light on the experiences of the people of Oswaldtwistle, a Lancashire town that extended the hand of friendship to its former bitter enemy at Christmas.