HistoryRSS

Learn the origins of Halloween and its effects its had on society and pop culture through out the years. This explores the history of the Jack O' Latern, Harvest Festival, and origins of trick r treating.

A look at the development of British indie music, born in the 1970s when the music industry was controlled by the major record labels and releasing a record independently seemed an impossible dream. The story of British indie over three musically diverse episodes. Much more than a genre of music, it is a spirit, an attitude and an ethos.

Dukedoms are created by the monarch for reasons ranging from a grateful nation rewarding a major war leader to a king acknowledging his illegitimate son. The last dukedom to be created was by Queen Victoria. As they gradually become extinct, what will become of those that remain? Do they still have power and wealth? What is it to be a duke in the 21st century? Answers come from a surprising variety of extraordinary characters - the Duke of Marlborough and his aunt, born Lady Rosemary Spencer-Churchill, who remembers being brought up in Blenheim Palace with 36 indoor servants, and the Duke of Atholl, who until 2012 was a rural South African sign-maker called Bruce Murray - on succeeding to the dukedom he now heads the only private army in Europe - the Atholl Highlanders. The Duke of Montrose is a Scottish hill farmer and a politician, one of the few dukes who still sit in the House of Lords. The Duchess of Rutland made dozens of people redundant when she took over Belvoir Castle, but is determined to make it an efficient business. The Duke and Duchess of St Albans don't have a stately pile, but do have their coronets and coronation robes.

Documentary covering how the Gangsters of the 30s were portrayed in film.

For over 400 years, the disappearance of 117 colonists from Roanoke Island has been America’s oldest mystery. Now, a mysterious stone inscription may lead to uncovering the truth. Expert stonemasons Jim and Bill Vieira team up with maverick archaeologist Fred Willard to investigate the mystery and find out what happened to the lost colony.

The extraordinary story of the unique relationship between Michael Dillon - the world's first woman to transition to a man - and Roberta Cowell, Britain's first man to become a woman.

Built to put U.S. pilots back in charge of the skies, the F-15 Eagle proved its superiority in Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom. In a dogfight, it can maneuver against the toughest fighters and climb to Mt. Everest's height in 60 seconds. One of the toughest planes in the world, one fortunate F-15 pilot flew back to base after losing a wing! Featuring interviews with Operation Iraqi Freedom pilots and footage that puts the viewer right in the cockpit of the world's greatest fighter aircraft that has served for more than 30 years.

Documentary exploring the rise and fall of the most visionary period in British music history: five kaleidoscopic years between 1965 and 1970 when a handful of dreamers reimagined pop music. When a generation of British R&B bands discovered LSD, conventions were questioned. From out of the bohemian underground and into the pop mainstream, the psychedelic era produced some of the most ground-breaking music ever made, pioneered by young improvising bands like Soft Machine and Pink Floyd, then quickly taken to the charts by the likes of the Beatles, Procol Harum, the Small Faces and the Moody Blues, even while being reimagined in the country by bucolic, folk-based artists like the Incredible String Band and Vashti Bunyan. The film is narrated by Nigel Planer with contributions and freshly-shot performances from artists who lived and breathed the psych revolution - Paul McCartney, Ginger Baker, Robert Wyatt, Roy Wood, the Zombies, Mike Heron, Vashti Bunyan, Joe Boyd, Gary Brooker, Arthur Brown, Kenney Jones, Barry Miles, the Pretty Things and the Moody Blues.

With spectacular footage and insider interviews, Frontline reconstructs the events leading up to the war, the war itself, and its aftermath. You'll hear first-hand accounts from key decision-makers like Generals Schwarzkopf and Powell and world leaders like Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev. Desert Storm was a triumph of technology with real-time views of spectacular light shows as antiaircraft fire lit up Baghdad's nighttime sky. After six grueling weeks, the US declared victory, just short of forcing Hussein to step down. Today Hussein remains in power, albeit under close surveillance by American troops remaining in the region. Was it a victory or was it a war with an inconclusive end.

Hidden Kingdoms is an innovative new series from the BBC's Natural History unit. For the first time it takes the viewer into a unique and unexplored miniature world, immersing you into the action-packed lives of the planet's smaller animals. The films are based in six of the planet’s most iconic landscapes; the open plains of Africa’s savannah, Arizona’s desert, the forests of Borneo, the woodlands of North America and the urban jungles of Rio & Tokyo. From chipmunks to beetles from marmosets to elephant shrews, these are animals who live life at an intensity it’s hard to imagine. They hunt food, but are themselves hunted; they face the forces of the world that, to them, can be catastrophic. When you are just a few inches tall, raindrops can feel like meteorites, dust stings like gravel, a sudden gust of wind feels like a tornado.

Four hundred years ago, hundreds of innocent people were killed as an obsession to stamp out Satanism swept the British Isles. Dr Suzannah Lipscomb investigates the events of this dark period in our history.

Documentary telling the little-known story of how Darwin came to write his great masterpiece On the Origin of Species, a book which explains the wonderful variety of the natural world as emerging out of death and the struggle of life. In the twenty years he took to develop a brilliant idea into a revolutionary book, Darwin went through a personal struggle every bit as turbulent as that of the natural world he observed. Fortunately, he left us an extraordinary record of his brilliant insights, observations of nature, and touching expressions of love and affection for those around him. He also wrote frank accounts of family tragedies, physical illnesses and moments of self-doubt, as he laboured towards publication of the book that would change the way we see the world. The story is told with the benefit of Darwin's secret notes and correspondence, enhanced by natural history filming, powerful imagery from the time and contributions from leading contemporary biographers and scientists.

During Sierra Leone's ten-year civil war 7000 children were forced to join the fighting, abducted from their families, drugged and made to kill. As the war came to an end, thousands of brutalised boys and young men were disarmed and tried to return to their communities - but they were not always welcomed back. Jewoh Nathaniel Sesay, also known as MashP, was one of them. Like many former child soldiers, MashP suffers from mental health problems. He's now approaching thirty and still trying to come to terms with his past. Our World meets MashP as he tries to rebuild his life, his relationships and make sense of his past.