Showing results by publisher "BBC Audio" in History

Hello. I'm Stanley Tucci. I'll be playing a hard-boiled screenwriter - you know the type: he's met 'em all, he's gotten drunk with 'em all. My screenplays will tell the stories of 10 men and women who built modern California, warts and all. I'll show you where all the bodies are buried. I'll tell the story of the very first movie-maker, shot dead on his studio lot; and the men who lied and lied and lied again to bring water to LA. Without the water, there would be no LA.

Passion, power, sex and suspicious deaths – the Tudor story is one of drama and dysfunction, and it has kept us enthralled for over 400 years. In these six dramatised documentaries, we take a behind-the-scenes look at Tudor England and get to know the key characters we have grown to love and hate, such as Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. Compiled from contemporary sources by Alison Plowman and featuring first-hand accounts and letters, these thrilling, historically accurate retellings bring this tumultuous era to vivid life.

Journalist and broadcaster Michael Portillo has always been fascinated by the past. A former politician and history graduate, he has presented several TV documentaries, including Portillo's Empire Journey and Great British Railway Journeys. Now, in these fascinating radio programmes, he turns the spotlight on World War One and Two, examining the cultural, political and economic upheaval surrounding these devastating global conflicts.

The First World War was the great military and political event of its time. But it was also an imaginative event: one that profoundly altered the ways in which men and women thought about the world, and about culture and its expressions. In this compelling five-series programme, journalist and presenter Francine Stock scrutinises the diverse responses of artists and entertainers to the bitter realities of war, and reveals how their new perspectives entered the public consciousness.

Neil MacGregor, former director of the National Gallery and the British Museum, knows the importance of public museums. In The Museums That Make Us, he takes us around the country to visit twenty local museums and to talk to their curators, staff and local figures about the most prized objects in their collections. Often a child's first experience of valuable objects and historical belongings, these regional spaces can be a wonderful way to recognise local pride and shine a light on buried history.

As the longest-lived and longest-reigning monarch of the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth II has presided over an era of tremendous social, political and cultural change. In 2012, to mark her Diamond Jubilee, Radio 4 looked back on the long span of her reign, and asked the public to choose high-profile public figures who have helped to define this New Elizabethan Age. Almost a thousand nominations poured in, and the final selection was decided by a panel of leading writers and historians, including Dominic Sandbrook, Bamber Gascoigne and Max Hastings.

About 450 years ago, from 16th to the early 18th centuries, witch hunts took place in Scotland. The country was convulsed by waves of savage panics and purges, leading to the judicial murder of thousands of their own citizens, mainly women. Women who were convicted and executed for crimes they not only didn't commit, but which were impossible for anyone to commit.

In this captivating 10-part series, Melvyn Bragg brings all his enthusiasm, experience and expertise to a subject that has enthralled him his entire life: the importance of the North in shaping the United Kingdom. Joined by special guests, he charts the ebb and flow of Northern power and influence, examining how one smallish geographical region came to have such an enormous effect on our culture worldwide: from science and philosophy to music and sport.

Award-winning journalist Audrey Gillan was embedded with British troops during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. She was on the ground with the Household Cavalry's D Squadron when American pilots, firing at what they believed to be the enemy, injured four of its soldiers and killed one: 25-year-old Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull.

The BBC Radio 4 show where Steve Punt turns private investigator, examining little mysteries that perplex, amuse and beguile. His methods may be unconventional, but he gets the job done in this collection of all 17 episodes from series 1-5 of Punt PI. 

A unique collection of historic recordings in which the last brutal encounters of the war and the mixed emotions of the armistice are remembered by troops from both sides. By the end of March 1918, Germany's Spring Offensive had thrown British forces back over the old Somme battlefields. But this last push failed, and with the stalemate of trench warfare broken, the Allies swept from near defeat to victory. However, their joy was tempered by sorrow. Too many would not come home.

The events of 1950-1999 are described by the people who saw them happen, from the Festival of Britain in 1951 through to the dawn of a new millennium at the end of 1999. In between are the eras of the Angry Young Men, the Teddy Boys and the Punk Rockers; the arrival of rock and roll and the permissive society; the advent of industrial strife in England and sectarian unrest in Northern Ireland; the rise to power of Margaret Thatcher; the miners' strike, three-day week and Winter of Discontent; the Queen's Silver Jubilee....

A unique collection of historic BBC archive recordings documenting the last months of the Second World War, the euphoria of the victory celebrations, and the dawning of a very different world. In this original compilation of eyewitness accounts, BBC correspondents and official observers describe the contentious fire-bombing of Dresden in February, the liberation of Belsen in April, and the dropping of the atomic bomb in August.

At midnight on 4 August, Britain had declared war on Germany. The pacifist Bertrand Russell was shocked by the pro-war euphoria on the streets, yet young men enlisted willingly because "it would all be over by Christmas". It was not. Instead the opposing armies had become entrenched. It was the beginning of a long and bitter stalemate.

The story of the Second World War told by former BBC newsreader Richard Baker, with original recordings from the BBC. From Neville Chamberlain's historic declaration of war on Germany in 1939 to the sounds of rejoicing crowds on VJ Day in August 1945, the BBC - regarded at home and abroad as the very voice of Britain and the world's most trusted broadcaster - brought the full picture to an attentive nation.

In the complete series 1 and 2 of this fascinating and absorbing Radio 4 series, the BBC's Nick Robinson explores how prime ministers have used their power and responded to the great challenges of their time. In the first series he explores the premiership of Sir Robert Walpole, the first and longest-serving prime minister; Lord North, remembered as the prime minister who lost America; Sir Robert Peel, who put national interest before party; and Lord Palmerston, who cultivated a cavalier image and dominated mid-Victorian politics.

In this fascinating 10-part series, Lenny Henry traces the long and painful road that black Britons have travelled on stage and screen, from the overt racial discrimination of the 19th century, via the thinly veiled slurs that persisted through the first 70 years of the 20th, to today's more equal society. Interviewing playwrights, actors, directors and filmmakers - including Mustapha Matura, Roy Williams, Lolita Chakrabarti, Michael Buffong, Horace Ové and Steve McQueen - he tells the story of black drama and the influential artists who have shaped it over the past hundred years.

The BBC Radio 4 show where Steve Punt turns private investigator, examining little mysteries that perplex, amuse and beguile. His methods may be unconventional, but he gets the job done in this collection of all 18 epsiodes from series 6-10 of Punt PI. 

Medical historian Sally Sheard reveals the heroic characters and incredible innovations that have shaped our NHS. On 5th July 1948, for the first time anywhere in the world, healthcare in Britain became free for all. Sally Sheard looks at the highs and lows that followed the launch of the National Health Service - and describes what life was like before it. Drawing on unique archive recordings of staff, patients and politicians, including visionary NHS founders William Beveridge and Aneurin Bevan, she tells the stories behind 20 key moments in the history of the NHS.

Moving from St Paul’s coining of the word in the first century of the Christian Era right up to the present day, charisma continues to be a powerful influence, not always for the good, in the fields of politics, banking, terrorism, theatre and film. Along the way, Francine takes in early medieval mystics such as Margery Kempe and Joan of Arc; the Elizabethan belief in the so-called 'Royal Touch' and its different manifestations today; the powerful healing claims of Franz Mesmer; and radical charismatic leaders from Garibaldi to Osama bin Laden.