1. Home
2. History

News of the horrific famine in Ireland has finally reached the Queen. She is adamant that her government should be doing more to help, but meets with surprising opposition from her prime minister.

Our pupils and teachers arrive in the 1980s. The focus of teaching is all about competition, entrepreneurialism and technology. Their first lesson embraces the technological revolution as the teacher unveils a cutting edge gadget, a 2XL robot. With the latest BBC microcomputers making their way into schools in 1982, this very 21st-century tech-addicted class try out a new math program. In 1983, with the arrival of affordable synthesisers, the class get the chance to embrace the booming synthpop industry in the UK in their music lesson. And there's a very special guest, Nik Kershaw, who listens to them playing some smash hits, before performing his own song especially for them. Inspired by their new love for synth, the kids, parents and teachers rock out to some of the most iconic tunes of the decade at their very '80s school disco. In 1985, the teachers go on strike, so the kids head to a local park where they get stuck in to a class '80s past-time, breakdancing to Run DMC.

Julia Zemiro travels with Gardening Australia host Costa Georgiadis back to his childhood home town.

Michael Buerk looks at the creation of the sewer system, delving into the archives to reveal how appalling sanitary conditions forced the city of Liverpool to take action. He descends underground to see the first groundbreaking sewer for himself, and hears about how the pioneering concept was built.

Local Murdi man Darryl McCarthy talks about a time in Cunnamulla when Bill Johnston bought the town together through the sport of boxing.

At his death in 1953, Stalin was, for many, a living god. After all, did he not defeat the worst of all men, Adolf Hitler? Looking at the three days of agony of the communist leader, we explore an intimate portrayal of the 'man of steel'.

Our time-travelling pupils and teachers arrive in the 1970s. It's out with the old and in with the new as they leave behind their 1960s Secondary Modern and embrace the experimental '70s and a comprehensive. In their first lesson, the boys and girls are finally mixed, as they learn about commerce and air travel; complete with a life-size model plane structure in the classroom. Role playing sees some of the class try their hand at being a pilot, air hostess or air traffic control, while others are confined to being the passengers and commenting on the service. In 1973, thanks to the bold demands of the Schools Action Union, this comprehensive becomes a free school and abandoning the rules has the teachers more than a little worried. Changing attitudes in the '70s mean that our class are taught progressive new ideas. Embracing diversity, dissecting the words of Pink Floyd, complete with incense burning, and digging up worms on the school playing field, are all part of the experience.

This episode is about the development of London's pioneering transport system in the mid-19th century. With the help of contributor Judith Flanders, Michael Buerk paints a vivid picture of the phenomenal chaos and reek of London streets before Charles Pearson had the literally groundbreaking idea of an underground railway.

Egypt's boy-king Tutankhamun died aged 18. Hastily mummified and placed in an unfinished tomb, his existence remained unknown until the tomb's sensational re-discovery in 1922. Two American detectives investigate how and why he died and conclude the evidence points to murder, conspiracy and cover-up. It's an irresistible whodunit where real life detectives hunt down real life ancient killers.

We look beneath the seductive, aqua-coloured waters of the pool to reveal its hidden history at the centre of battles over race, gender, sexuality and religion.

This is the story of archaeologists Dr Geoffrey Tassie and Prof Emad Khalil's hunt to find Alexander the Great's final resting place.

After 200 years under lock and key, all the personal papers of one of our most important monarchs are for the first time seeing the light of day. In the first documentary to gain extensive access to the Royal Archives, Robert Hardman sheds fascinating new light on George III, Britain's longest reigning king. George III may be chiefly remembered for his madness, but these private documents reveal a monarch who was a political micromanager and a restless patron of science and the arts, an obsessive traveller who never left southern England yet toured the world in his mind and a man who was driven by his sense of duty to his family and his country.

Our time-travelling class arrives in 1960. With a brand new decade, comes a new school for our pupils - the Secondary Modern. Leaving behind the rigidity and formality of the post-war grammar, they are now training for a more vocational future. For the girls this means an introduction to typewriting, and for the boys, bricklaying. There was no escaping the basics, as our class find out in maths. One of the few lessons in which boys and girls were mixed, there's widespread confusion as they try to master the complex art of the slide rule; no calculators here! In 1963, there's a rebellion brewing as the girls are told they'll be cooking a meal in their very own purpose-built flat. The boys have been learning a skill deemed crucial for school leavers. Behind the wheel of mini, they've been learning to drive for the first time. As the decade draws to a close, friends, families, pupils and teachers get together in the school hall for the end of era dance.

In 1997 Balmoral was where the Royal family stayed with Prince William and Prince Harry as they came to terms with the death of their mother. They endured one of their worst years and with a growing republican feeling in the country.

This event struck a chord worldwide, reminding us that South Africa, historically, was not only the first country to be colonised, but also the last country to be decolonised.

Narrated by Tom Selleck. Sunday, December 7, 1941 was a beautiful morning on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. A few sailors and soldiers were already up and playing a game of football near Pearl Harbor. Others were sleeping in their barracks or aboard ships after a late night of partying in Honolulu. An unlucky few were wiping the sleep from their eyes and reporting for duty aboard their ship anchored off Ford Island in Pearl Harbor. Still others headed for adjacent Hickam Field or up north to Wheeler Field. Ship decks were being washed, planes wiped down and hangars swept. It was just another day in paradise. At 7.55am all that changed as the first Japanese planes dropped their torpedoes and bombs on a stunned American Pacific fleet. The US had been violently thrown into World War II. Every sailor, airman, soldier and civilian who was in or near Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 has their own individual story of courage, fear, heroics or tragedy. No two stories from that day of infamy are the same. From sailors on the USS Arizona and West Virginia on Battleship Row to pilots at Hickam and Wheeler Fields, to young children who were waved at by Japanese pilots flying over their homes, the memories remain vivid to this day. These are some of their stories from December 7, 1941. They will always Remember Pearl Harbor.

Survivors and first responders share their raw and vivid recollections of the day that forever changed the world.

Egypt's boy-king Tutankhamun died aged 18. Hastily mummified and placed in an unfinished tomb, his existence remained unknown until the tomb's sensational rediscovery in 1922. Two American detectives investigate how and why he died and conclude the evidence points to murder, conspiracy and cover-up. It's an irresistible whodunit where real life detectives hunt down real life ancient killers.