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Battlefield Britain is a 2004 BBC television documentary series about famous battles in the history of Great Britain. From Boudicca's destructive rebellion against the Romans to the incredible feats of The Few who saw off the Luftwaffe, these battles all had wide-reaching consequences and implications for the future of the British isles.
The series is presented by father and son team Peter and Dan Snow with Peter explaining the battleplans of the generals while Dan explores the sites to give the perspective of the common soldier, sailors and airmen. |
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The Real War Horse
This is the epic story of the life and death of the one million horses, mules and donkeys that were sent to the Western Front to assist the British army in World War One. Tragically 933,000 died, with only 67,000 returning home.
The story has recently captured the public imagination with the huge success of the West End play “War Horse” based on Michael Morpurgo’s children’s novel of the same name - now we bring the harsh realities of the horse’s war experience vividly to life with rare, high quality black and white archive. |
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King Alfred and the Danes |
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KING Alfred, dubbed Alfred the Great, was one of Britain's outstanding monarchs.
He was a brave warrior who drove the Viking invaders out of England as well as a kind and literate man who encouraged education among his people. |
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Life of Julius Caesar |
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JULIUS Caesar is probably the most famous Roman of all.
He was born in July 100BC into an aristocratic family fallen on hard times. From his earliest years he was determined to succeed in the murky world of Roman politics. |
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Decoding the Past: The Templar Code Part 1
A two part History Channel documentary about the mystic Knights Templar. Knights Templar are also well known from the best seller book Da Vinci Code. "For nearly two centuries, the Knights Templar were the most powerful order in the Medieval world, a fearsome and unstoppable Crusader militia. Then came accusations of unspeakable crimes. Who were the Templars, really? How did they become so powerful, so fast, and why did they fall just as quickly? Evidence hints that the Templars excavated under Jerusalem's Temple of Solomon. What did they find there? Was it, as The Da Vinci Code suggests, the true identity of the holy grail, the bloodline of Christ? Or an unimaginable treasure, documented in the Dead Sea Scrolls, buried a thousand years before the birth of Christ? |
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Fletcher Christian
Fletcher Christian (25 September 1764 – 20 September 1793) was a master's mate on board the Bounty during William Bligh's fateful voyage to Tahiti for breadfruit plants (see Mutiny on the Bounty). It was Christian who seized command of the Bounty from Bligh on 28 April 1789.
Christian was born on 25 September 1764, at his family home of Moorland Close, Eaglesfield near Cockermouth in Cumberland. Fletcher was the second youngest son of Charles Christian of Moreland Close in Eaglesfield, near Cockermouth, and of Ewanrigg Hall in Dearham, Cumberland, an attorney-at-law descended from Manx gentry, and his wife Ann Dixon. |
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Blood of the Vikings
Norse activity in the British Isles occurred during the Early Mediaeval period, when members of the Norse populations of Scandinavia travelled to the British Isles for trade, raiding and settlement. The Norse peoples that came to the British Isles have often been referred to in modern scholarship as Vikings, however there is a dispute among scholars as to whether the term Vikings should be used to apply to all Norse settlers or simply the Norse raiders.
n Scandinavia, the 8th century proved to be an age of rapid technological, economic and social development among the North Germanic peoples, leading to a period of widespread dominance that has come to be known as the Viking Age. |
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The Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religiously sanctioned military campaigns, called by the pope and waged by kings and nobles who volunteered to take up the cross with the main goal of restoring Christian control of the Holy Land. The crusaders came from all over western Europe, and fought a series of disconnected campaigns between 1095 and 1291; historians have given them numbers. Similar campaigns in the Iberian Peninsula and Eastern Europe continued into the 15th century. The Crusades were fought mainly by Roman Catholics against Muslims and Greek Orthodox Christians in Byzantium, with smaller campaigns waged against pagan Slavs, pagan Balts, Mongols, and Christian heretics. Orthodox Christians also took part in fighting against Islamic forces in some Crusades. Crusaders took vows and were granted a plenary indulgence by the pope. |
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HANNIBAL, The African Warrior
In 218 B.C., Hannibal began the most daring military move in history, that of invading Rome by way of the Alps. But why did this African military genius decide to war against Rome?"
Before Hannibal's birth, the Romans ruled Italy, and the Carthaginians ruled Carthage in North Africa. The Carthaginians also ruled the Mediterranean Islands of Corsica, Sardinia, and Syracuse (now know as Sicily). The Carthaginians were content as things were, but the Romans were military expansionists. So the Romans broke their treaty with the Carthaginians by expanding their empire into Sicily, and the First Punic War began (264 B.C.). |
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The Jamestown Colony
The Jamestown Colony was settled in 1607, thirteen years before the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth Rock and is the site of the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Three ships landed containing a total of 104 men and boys, all sponsored by the Virginia Company of London which hoped to expand English trade and, of course, make a profit. Each of these early settlers was required to meet a financial obligation by sending back trade goods to the Company that sponsored them. |
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How the Longbow changed Britian
Historian Mike Loades shows the history behind the weapons that helped to forge Britain, as well as demonstrating their use. This series of videos focuses on the Longbow a mighty weapon that saw its zneith at the battle of Agincourt.
In 1415 King Henry V of England took a small army to France to try to enforce the English claim to the French throne. By late autumn things were not going well for the English. The weather was poor, and Henry's army was short of provisions, exhausted, and badly stricken with dysentery. Henry decided to make for his stronghold at Calais for the winter, but the French saw an opportunity to annihilate the English forces |
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Boudica - Queen of the Iceni
Boudica was a queen of a Celtic tribe who led an uprising of the tribes against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire.
Boudica's husband, Prasutagus, ruler of the Iceni who had ruled as a nominally independent ally of Rome, left his kingdom jointly to his daughters and the Roman Emperor in his will. However, when he died his will was ignored. The kingdom was annexed as if conquered, Boudica was flogged and her daughters raped, and Roman financiers called in their loans.
In AD 60 or 61, while the Roman governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, was leading a campaign on the island of Anglesey in north Wales, Boudica led the Iceni people, along with the Trinovantes and others, in revolt. |
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Saint Joan of Arc or The Maid of Orléans
Saint Joan of Arc or The Maid of Orléans (French: Jeanne d'Arc, 1412 – 30 May 1431 is considered a national heroine of France and a Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed Divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the coronation of Charles VII. She was captured by the Burgundians, sold to the English, tried by an ecclesiastical court, and burned at the stake when she was 19 years old. Twenty-five years after the execution, Pope Callixtus III examined the trial, pronounced her innocent and declared her a martyr. She was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920. She is — along with St. Denis, St. Martin of Tours, St. Louis IX, and St. Theresa of Lisieux — one of the patron saints of France.
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The Windsors
King Edward VIII was the eldest child of Britain's King George V and Queen Mary. In 1930, while he was still Prince of Wales, Edward met an American woman named Wallis Warfield Simpson. Her first marriage had ended in divorce, and when she met the prince she was married to her second husband, Ernest Simpson. The prince, who was single and had a reputation as a playboy, fell deeply in love with Mrs. Simpson.
The Duke of Windsor married Wallis on June 3, 1937, but she was never accepted by the royal family. For the rest of their lives the couple lived abroad, mostly in France. In 1940, during the Second World War, the Duke became governor of the Bahamas. In 1945, he and his wife returned to France. The Duke wrote an autobiography, A King's Story, which was published in 1951. The Duchess of Windsor's autobiography, The Heart Has Reasons, was published in 1956.
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Horatio Nelson - Nelson's Trafalgar
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, KB (29 September 1758 – 21 October 1805) was an English flag officer famous for his service in the Royal Navy, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. Of his several victories, the most well known and notable was The Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, during which he was shot, dying towards the end of the battle.
Horatio Nelson, son of the Reverend Edmund Nelson, Rector of Burnham Thorpe, in the County of Norfolk, and Catherine his wife, daughter of Doctor Suckling, Prebendary of Westminster, whose grandmother was sister to Sir Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford.
He was born September 29th 1758, in the Parsonage-house at Burnham Thorpe, was sent to the high-school at Norwich, and afterwards removed to North Walsham. On the disturbance with Spain relative to the Falkland's Islands, I went to sea with my uncle Captain Maurice Suckling in the Raisonnable of 64 guns.
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The French Revolution |
The French Revolution is clearly one of the central events in Western civilization - a period of history whose characters and events have always fascinated me. The more moderate American Revolution, in comparison, was much less influential upon the world of its time - even if it was more successful and less bloody. I would argue it was more successful precisely because it was more moderate and less murderous than the French Revolution. |
| See photos and Read more - opens in new window |
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The Iron Duke (1769 - 1852)
In 1815 Arthur Wellesley was made the first Duke of Wellington and marched his troops into Belgium where Napoleon had gathered his army. At a place called Waterloo the French and British armies met for what was to be the final battle. Wellington inflicted an overwhelming defeat on Napoleon, but the victory cost a staggering number of lives. Wellington had become known as the 'Iron Duke' by his men, but even the Iron Duke wept when he learned of the numbers of men slaughtered that day. The British had suffered 15,000 casualties and the French 40,000. Before the battle Wellington is reputed to have said of his own troops "This army is composed of the scum of the earth, I don't know what effect these men will have on the enemy, but by God they terrify me!"
He died at Walmer Castle in Kent in 1852 and was given the honour of a State Funeral. It was a magnificent affair, a fitting tribute to a great military hero. The Iron Duke is buried in St. Paul's Cathedral next to another British hero, Admiral Lord Nelson. |
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