Days that Shook the World: Season 1

Take a fresh look at history's most seismic events-from the Wright Brothers' first flight and man's first steps on the Moon, to the bombing of Hiroshima and the assassination of JFK. Relive the days that changed the world and shaped the landscape of today's society. Explore the impact of Marconi's first transatlantic radio transmission, the Lockerbie disaster, the murder of the Romanovs, Nixon's resignation and many other pivotal events. As seen on The History Channel.

The Wright Brother's first flight and the Moon Landing - 17th December 1903 and 20th July 1969

Humans have always been obsessed with flight, and two landmark days - separated by 66 years - define this dream.Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first powered flights in 1903. Sixty-six years later, was the first human to set foot on the moon.

On 17th December 1903, at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina, Wilbur and Orville Wright, two bicycle mechanic brothers from Ohio, changed the world forever - with a single flight that lasted only 12 seconds. Their powered aircraft known as The Flyer was the first great invention of the 20th Century, and influenced the course of aviation.

Nearly 70 years later, aviation had advanced to the extent that the human race was able to fly to the moon. This is the story of the Apollo 11 lunar landing on July 20th 1969, culminating in Neil Armstrong's historic speech, 'One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.'

The drama of each day is seen through the intercut viewpoints of a core cast of characters. This heightens the tension and gives us different perspectives of the same event.

The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and the Death of Princess Diana - 2nd June 1953 and 1st September 1997

This film focuses on two of the most famous women in the world, their lives joined by marriage and intertwined by media obsession. Queen Elizabeth II, whose coronation heralded a new age of media scrutiny, and Princess Diana, whose untimely death leading to a re-evaluation of press intrusion, harassment and respect for privacy.

On a cold, wet June morning in 1953, the streets of London are heavy with people all gathered for one purpose - to catch a glimpse of the young princess whose life was turned upside-down by the abdication of her uncle. Today, for the first time in history, the public will be allowed to share in a hitherto private world, a world of ceremony and ritual - the crowning of a new Queen. Months of patient negotiations between the BBC and the Palace have left BBC Director Peter Dimmock charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the people who get the best view are those that stay at home and watch television - the public's perception of this momentous day rests squarely upon his shoulders. Risking the displeasure of the palace, he makes the bold decision to go for a close-up shot of the new Queen as she leaves Westminster Abbey - it's at this moment that the rules of television are re-written forever, from now on intimacy will be everything.

It's August and Paris is deserted. The summer months are notoriously slow for news, but the first shot of Dodi and Diana kissing has just made an unprecedented 3 million pounds and the paparazzi, under pressure to be first to get the next story, are in a frenzy - a lethal combination. The world's most photographed woman arrives in Paris with her current beau, Dodi Fayed. Against security advice, Dodi and Diana leave the Ritz Hotel with no back-up vehicle and the media pack follow hot on their tail. As drunken driver, Henri Paul, accelerates to well over 100km/hour to avoid the unrelenting paparazzi, the most famous woman in the world becomes the tragic victim of the most famous car crash in the world.

The Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and the Death of Hitler - 28th June 28 1914 and 30th April 1945

The First and Second World Wars were book-ended by the deaths of two leaders. A single bullet, fired by a young Serb nationalist, killed Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria, triggering World War I. Thirty-one years later, another bullet, this time self-administered, brought about the end of Adolf Hitler and World War II.

It is 28 June, 1914. As Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophy, tour Sarajevo in an open-topped car, we lie in wait with seven young assassins, members of a secret Serbian society known as the Black Hand, who have a sworn a grave oath to oust the Austro-Hungarian Empire from the region by whatever means necessary. Armed with bombs, pistols and cyanide, the suicidal terrorists take their positions along the route. As the day unfolds, two assassination attempts, some ineffective poison and a wrong turn by a chauffeur are the events which will take the world to war.

As the sun rises on the 30 April, 1945, more than a million men of the Red Army are closing in on the centre of Berlin. In a secret concrete bunker 55 feet underground, Adolf Hitler's inner circle is disintegrating in betrayal and despair. Based on accounts of five witnesses from the Fuhrerbunker, this is a vivid and disturbing picture of the final Apocalyptic days of the Nazi regime. Soon, Hitler will learn of the betrayal of his most trusted lieutenants. He will marry Eva Bran, then join her, Goebbels, his wife and their six children in the throes of death - while above them Martin Boorman, the party secretary, indulges in a final drunken orgy. Only when the Russians are less than 200 metres away, will Hitler be forced to fire the bullet which will finally bring his 12-year reign of terror to an end.

The Assassination of Martin Luther King and the Release of Nelson Mandela - 4th April 1968 and 11th February 1990

Throughout history, great leaders have inspired people to fight for their freedom. In the latter half of the 20th Century, two men came to symbolise the fight for racial equality. Two intellectuals and determined opposers of racial oppression who were prepared to risk their lives for their cause. In America, Martin Luther King, advocate of non-violence, mercilessly shot down outside a motel in Memphis for his outspoken views. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela, whose promotion of the armed struggle against the Apartheid system led to 27 years in prison, then release to a hero's welcome and eventually the Presidency of his country. Though their struggles took place on different continents, in life and in death, they have had an enormous impact on the Civil Rights movement around the globe.

Two days reflect the contrasting fortunes of these great civil rights leaders - the assassination of Martin Luther King and the release of Nelson Mandela. This dramatised version of events investigates the lives of two incredible men with very different agendas.

The date is 4 April. 1968. Reverend Martin Luther King has spent his life protesting against racial segregation, poverty and war. He spends his last 24 hours preparing for a march in support of striking sanitation workers, fighting the growing calls for a violent struggle against the state. Unknown to him, this will be his last campaign. With a sense of chilling foreboding. we watch James Earl Ray planning how he will assassinate one of the most famous people in America. No one, even today, has proven whether Ray was working alone, or as part of a bigger conspiracy to exterminate the learned man who had come to represent Black America's struggle against oppression.

11 February, 1990 was the day that Civil Rights and anti-Apartheid activists had fought for but believed would never come. The day the South African government finally released Nelson Mandela. The world's press gather outside Victor Verster Prison for the first view of the man who, for many, has come to symbolise the struggle of oppressed peoples around the world. Inside the prison, Mandela prepares to leave. He says goodbye to the people who have become his family and waits patiently for his wife. The pandemonium that ensues as he leaves is matched only by the jubilant response to the first speech he has been able to give in three decades - a speech in which he wholeheartedly stands by the opinions he has held throughout his life - that armed struggle should continue until the people of South Africa were free.

Hiroshima - 6th August 1945

The atomic bomb dropped onto the city of Hiroshima was the first ever to be used in a conflict situation. As a result of the attack, and the bombing of Nagasaki three days later, the Japanese surrendered and World War II ended. This programme tells the story of the day of the bombing, from the point of view of the pilot and crew of the Enola Gay, those who made the decisions and the inhabitants of Hiroshima.

At exactly 05.32 on August 6th, 1945 a B29 Bomber took off from a small island in the South Pacific on a clandestine operation. Its mission was to drop a bomb unlike any other, a bomb that would change the world forever.

With detailed dramatic reconstruction of the events leading up to the world's first ever atomic bombing, this film provides unique insight into the tragic story of Hiroshima from those directly involved. For the first time, those Japanese unfortunate enough to have been living in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing tell their heart-rending stories alongside personal testimony from Colonel Paul Tibbets, the man who led the mission so secret not even his crew knew the enormity of what they were doing.

The basis for the American decision to drop the bomb was fear, fear that the Japanese would never give up. Decisions of this magnitude are taken at the very highest political level. Based on extracts from President Truman's personal diaries, this film explores how difficult and finally, how necessary the decision to drop the bomb really was.

One millionth of a second after detonation, Hiroshima ceased to exist as a city. The physical impact of the blast killed 100,000 people and flattened 47,000 buildings immediately but the long term impact both in physical and emotional terms is still felt today. No one knows exactly how many civilians died in Hiroshima that morning, but one thing we do know is that its impact will be felt forever.

Kristallnacht and the Birth of Israel - 9th November 1938 and 14th May 1948

Two dramatic days defined the fortunes of the Jewish People in the 20th Century. November 9, 1938 was a turning point in Hitler's persecution of the Jews. Gangs of Nazi youths roamed through Jewish neighbourhoods, openly attacking Jews and their property, breaking windows, and burning and looting synagogues. Kristallnacht marked the beginning of the slide into the abyss of the Holocaust. Six million Jewish deaths and one World War later, amid more bloodshed, the 2,000-year-old dream of a Jewish homeland became reality - the State of Israel was born.

Kristallnacht - the symbolism is not just in the shattered windows of Jewish shopkeepers, but smashed illusions. After Kristallnacht, no one could be in any doubt about the true nature of the Third Reich. Through the archive records of the Nuremberg Trials, and the personal eye-witness accounts of survivors, we present three examples that are both diverse and typical of the events that night. A miraculous escape from the SS in Krefeld, a Mafia-like execution in Innsbruck, and a scene of ritual humiliation in the sleepy spa town of Baden Baden, each re-created as they happened - brutal, sad, sometimes even comical, each a lesson in ethnic cleansing, Nazi-style. In the eye of the storm is its creator, Joseph Goebbels. On Kristallnacht, his poisoned anti-Semitic vision is turned into a savagely real nightmare. 7,500 homes, businesses and synagogues are destroyed, 91 Jews are killed, while 26,000 Jewish men are fed to the concentration camps. The fires of the Holocaust are lit.

Over the next seven years, another six million men, women and children will follow, most never to return.

When redemption came, it was not peaceful and it was not straightforward. The birth of Israel is a political thriller. At stake is not just the fate of the Jews, but the Palestinian Arabs and the whole of the Middle East. The roots of the conflict are deep and by 1948, very, very tangled. May 14, the incumbent British are eager to leave behind the constant terrorism and growing civil war between Arab and Jew. Midnight is the cut-off point. As the Brits pack up this Sabbath Friday, both sides rush to fill the void. For Prime minister in waiting, David Ben Gurion, it is a race against time to get his fledgling nation declared and above all internationally recognised by the time the British are gone.

The armies of four Arab nations wait at the border poised to invade the moment the Union Jack is down. Ben Gurion's one hope is that the United States will recognise his new state. Two days earlier there was a UN ceasefire on the table, and the Jewish cabinet's determination to ignore it and press ahead with declaration is a monumental gamble. Without recognition they cannot buy weapons and they will not survive, but with the backing of America, Ben Gurion knows they have a chance. Not for the last time, the fate of the Middle East will be decided in Washington.

All through the 14th, the clock ticks and the civil war rages. Jewish Kibbutzim fall and Palestinian towns are overrun. In Tel Aviv, the declaration of Independence is read in an atmosphere of muted triumph. But as Ben Gurion officially brings to an end 2000 years of Jewish exile, 5 miles down the road in Jaffa, Palestinian brothers Saeed and Hassan Al-Lughod are being forced from their home. Over the course of the next few days 750,000 fellow Palestinians will join them in exile. As the clock hits midnight, the Arab invasion begins, but Ben Gurion's gamble pays off. Truman signs his recognition, confounding his party, his country and the UN. In the early hours of May 15, as Ben Gurion broadcasts his thanks to the people of America, Arab bombs can be heard to fall on Tel Aviv. In these first few minutes of Israel's existence, the pattern is set for the next 55 years. And Counting.

Tutankhamun's Tomb and the Rosetta Stone - 26th November 1922 and 17th September, 1822

The mysteries of Ancient Egypt have long held enormous fascination. In the early 1800s, the first Europeans were exploring Egypt's enigmatic ruins and the race was on in Britain and France to crack the hieroglyphic language which had been lost for 13 centuries. The study of Egyptology was born. One hundred years later, archaeologists declared prematurely that the Valley of the Kings held no more secrets; its greatest treasure had yet to be discovered. Using dramatic reconstruction, this film tells the stories of two great days in Egyptology: when Jean-Francois Champollion cracked the hieroglyphic code, and when Howard Carter read the name, Tutankahmun, on a lost tomb.

Carl Heindmarch's documentary brings these two events together and explores each day through dramatic reconstruction and archive footage.

On the morning of the 26th November, 1922, Howard Carter leaves his house on the West bank, unsure of what the day will bring. Twenty-two days earlier, his workmen discovered, on this, his final excavation in the Valley of the Kings, the top of the steps of a sunken staircase. They are now halfway through a tunnel and no one knows what they will find. His patron, Lord Carnarvon, has arrived from London to join him. By the end of the day, they will have made the most infamous archaeological discovery of all time, a discovery which will change their lives forever - the tomb of boy-king Tutankahmun. And the tomb apparently comes with a curse.

14th September, 1822. A young French academic, Jean Francois Champollion, is hard at work in his study in Paris pursuing the goal he has made his lifetimes work - the successful translation of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. A discovery 22 years previously, of the great Rosetta Stone, carved in both hieroglyphs and Greek, has led to an academic race to be the first to crack the code. He has received drawings of a temple and as he studies them he is gripped by a startling realisation - despite having never set eyes on it before, he recognises a pharaoh's name. He can read the hieroglyphs.
Black September and the Locerkbie Bombing - 12th September 1970 and 21th December 1988

From being the ultimate luxury to becoming the ultimate threat, aeroplanes have always had an uneasy relationship with terrorism. Two extraordinary stories chart the evolution of the commercial aeroplane from people carrier to flying bomb.

Exactly 31 years before 9/11, an audacious series of skyjackings, involving five aeroplanes and over 700 passengers, shocked the world. After a week of international negotiations and brinkmanship, at 15.00 hours on 12th September 1970, three aeroplanes were dramatically blown up on a desert airstrip while the world looked on. At the helm was a previously unknown group called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Its aim was simple - to make the world recognise the rights of the Palestinian people. Their campaign was effective; for the first time Western governments capitulated to the demands of terrorists. Now for the very first time, this film reconstructs the events minute by minute over the final 24 hours in the build up to the planes being destroyed. Using the personal stories of the hijackers, interviews with hostages, journalists and Governmental ministers alongside private diaries and previously top-secret British Cabinet papers, this is the full story of the biggest hijack in history.

Four days before Christmas in 1988, Pan Am flight 103 bound for New York exploded in midair, killing all 259 people on board. The raining firestorm on the small Scottish town of Lockerbie took another 11 victims. When crash investigators discovered traces of Semtex, the investigation into Britain's worst air disaster and biggest mass murder began. This film relives the night of the tragedy and tells the personal stories of a few lucky survivors. The main part of the plane&'s fuselage landed on Ella Ramsden';s house in Lockerbie. She miraculously escaped, but 70 bodies were recovered from her home and garden. Though Libya agreed to pay compensation to relatives, Gadaffi has not accepted responsibility and the evidence against Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, who is serving a life sentence for the crime, was not conclusive. This film pieces together images and evidence, and looks at the human cost.

The First Nuclear Reaction and the Chernobyl Disaster - 2nd December 1942 and 26th April 1986

In the 1940s and 50s, atomic power was to be the energy of the future. It was supposed to be clean, cheap and efficient. No one even considered the possibility of an accidental nuclear disaster, equivalent to an atomic bomb explosion and its aftermath. Two days, more than any other, reflect the positive benefits and terrifying hazards of harnessing the colossal power of the atom. The first controlled nuclear chain reaction heralded the atomic age, but Chernobyl's runaway chain reaction was the final warning.

At 11.30 on 2nd December 1942 the world's first nuclear chain reaction was successfully triggered in a squash court at the University of Chicago. Intelligence from Nazi Germany meant the race was on for the Nobel Prize winner, Enrico Fermi and his young team of gung-ho physicists, to kickstart production of the world's first weapon of mass destruction. Shrouded in secrecy until years later, this film gives a rare insight into the minds of the people who launched the atomic age.

On the eve of 26th April 1986, a routine test had been planned for the Chernobyl nuclear power station, but a series of human errors and multiple miscommunication led to the worst nuclear disaster the world has ever seen. A simple mistake, by a 26-year-old operator, lifted the 1000 ton concrete roof of the reactor into the air like a tossed coin, scattering burning fragments of uranium up to 3 kilometers from the plant. The horrendous chain of events is shown through reconstruction and interviews with the families of those that died at the plant. The impact will be felt by generations to come.

The Assassination of JFK and the Resignation of Richard Nixon - 22nd November 1963 and 8th August 1974

There was no warning. There could be no preparation. Politics is a world of rough-and-tumble. And the President of the United States - the most powerful single human being in the world - is at the epicentre. But no one could have dreamed or anticipated the biggest seismic shocks America suffered in the 20th century: the assassination of its youngest-ever leader, John F Kennedy, and the disgrace and expulsion of its most successful election winner, Richard Milhous Nixon. The stories of the two men destined for disaster were entwined as they fought a bitter battle for the presidency in 1960. But their fates separate their place in history as one man still earns the grief of an America that hasn't forgotten. And the reputation of the other still buckles under the hatred of a country unwilling to forgive. These are the final days of JFK and Nixon - the victim and the villified.

This presentation of JFK's final day features the minute-by-minute, 24-hour histories of a family who were the closest witnesses to the shooting in Dallas, Texas in 1963; a surgeon who worked on JFK ten minutes after the attack; and the President's Assistant Press Secretary - part of JFK's final motorcade - and the man entrusted to ultimately inform the nation that their beloved leader had been slain on that November day. Using one-to-one interviews with the real Newman family, with a surgeon who worked on JFK's wounds as he died in Parkland Hospital and utilising the original transcripts of personal testimony from all characters depicted, we have re-created the tragedy through archive and drama. Scenes include the motorcade passing through Dealey Plaza in Dallas - the first recreation on the actual site since Oliver Stone's movie JFK; the reading of the last rites to JFK by Father Oscar Huber; and hitherto unpublished details of the procedure to save the president on the operating table, and Jackie Kennedy's actions afterwards. A dramatic and moving moment in history.

Richard Nixon's last moments in the White House in August 1974 followed a degeneration of his popular support and the credibility of his cabinet. Watergate had destroyed him halfway through his second term. But he had two close, anonymous supporters whose perspective was like no other. Oliver Atkins, the 37th president's Chief Photographer, has provided history with the most exciting and detailed montage of one man's final downfall. And the hitherto unknown story of Nixon's ferociously loyal valet, Manolo provides a counterpoint to the almost Shakespearean tragedy of his master. Both characters are witness to the stumbling humiliating steps taken in the last 24 hours through public resignation, through personal moments of anguish and through The President's acknowledgement of failure. Shadowed by the politics and scandal of the Watergate affair that brought down a President and intercut with Nixon's most difficult public moments from archive footage, this is an intimate portrait of three lives where the domestic and heartfelt meet the grand and powerful. With Tricky Dicky, the shadowy figure at the centre of it all, once the darling of America, suddenly its biggest embarrassment.

Marconi's First Transatlantic Radio Transmission and Concorde's First Transatlantic Flight - 12th December 12 1901 and 19th October 1977

Two remarkable days which bridged the Atlantic Ocean. In 1901 the first transatlantic radio message is received by groundbreaking inventor Guglielmo Marconi. He lived in a world before powered flight, but by 1977 Concorde was making its first supersonic journey into New York, in the teeth of protest.

12th December 1901, Newfoundland. At 12.30 pm, three sharp little clicks, corresponding to three dots sound repeatedly in Marconi's ear. 'Can you hear anything, Mr Kemp?' asks Marconi, passing the receiver to his assistant. Kemp hears exactly the same as Marconi. The electric waves, which are being sent out from Poldhu in Cornwall, have crossed the Atlantic. Like Christopher Columbus who sailed beyond the horizon, Marconi has proven that wireless waves are able to bend around the world's surface.

Using dramatic reconstruction and first-hand accounts this film shows the pivotal sequence of events, the extraordinary faith, courage and determination which prompted one of the most remarkable and far-reaching inventions of the 20th century.

On 19th October 1977, a sleek Concorde taxis on the runway at Toulouse Airport. The crew are preparing for a historic day - the first supersonic flight ever into New York. Two days previously, after a long battle, the Supreme Court finally ruled in favour of Concorde flying into JFK on a test run. For years the authorities and people of New York have battled against Concorde flights into New York, a battle based on arguments that Supersonic transport was dangerous, noisy and would even cause cancer and tornadoes.

We follow the crew of Aircraft 201 FWTSB as they arrive at JFK to field the protestors, press corps and noise monitors. For the crew on board, for the airlines, the manufacturers and the French and British governments it is a moment which represents the end of a long, exhausting struggle. Until Concorde actually arrived at New York, there was always a strong possibility that she would never be allowed to go there; on this day she wins her right to the route for which she had been designed.

Chuck Yeager and Bluebird - 14th October 1947 and 4th January 1967

With the dawn of the jet age in the mid-1940s, speeds once only dreamed of looked set to become a reality. In the uneasy peace that followed World War II, the quest to become the fastest on land, sea or in the air rapidly became both a military necessity - and a matter of great national pride.

Chuck Yeager was a top air force pilot from the backwoods of West Virginia. Strapped to a highly explosive flying rocket, known as the X1, he finally succeeded in breaking the sound barrier on his ninth attempt.

Twenty years later, after 64 days of trials and frustrations dogged by foul weather and mechanical failure, Donald Campbell woke to find the surface of Lake Coniston mirror-glass calm and his jet-powered Bluebird ready for the attempt to break the water-speed record of 300 miles per hour. Using previously unseen footage, we watch Campbell as he takes his fateful run across the lake. Having recorded the fastest time ever on water and now within seconds of breaking the magic 300 mile/hour speed limit, we are there to witness the terrifying moment as Campbell's luck ran out.

Directed by Nic Young, Matthew Wortman, Angus Cameron, Stephen Bennett, David Barlett, Tanya Cheadle, Dan Clifton
Produced by David Upshal, Bill Locke
Executive Produced by Chris Kelly, Adam Kemp, Neil MacDonald, Lucy Hetherington

Elizabeth II/Diana

"Did the then-unprecedented media access to Elizabeth II's coronation lead to the tabloid scrutiny blamed for Diana's death? This film takes a look."  - Sunday Times

"Pick of the Day: This film analyses the events of the day itself and examines the inquest that opened earlier this month."  - Independent

Archduke Ferninand/Hitler

"The repercussions of both are still with us today, of course: not least in the Balkans, where ethnic feuds and undisguised racism are evident whenever western media turn their attention to the region."  - Sunday Times

"Days That Shook The World again proved, in its quiet and understated way, that documentary makers don't need to resort to melodrama to tell a momentous story."  - Liverpool Daily Echo

"... well-researched... the programme did convincingly portray the mixture of elation and despair that gripped the Nazis in their subterranean death throes, with champagne parties and drunken copulation in the dentist's chair, while up at street level, starving Berliners were attempting to eat their own shoes."  - London Evening Standard

"... a detailed hour-by-hour account of Hitler's last day based upon interviews with five eyewitnesses, one of whom stood outside the door when the Fuhrer committed suicide and later saw petrol and match applied to his body." - Daily Telegraph

Martin Luther King/Mandela

"Critics' choice. A cleverly dramatised account of the contrasting fortunes of two great civil-rights leaders. King was an advocate of non-violence, Mandela sanctioned violence and spent a lifetime in prison."  - Sunday Times

Hiroshima

"... gripping."  - Independent

"It's told straight, but details such as the bomb's name, Little Boy, and an observer's description of it as it was loaded on to the plane 'an elongated trash can with fins' still have the power to surprise. As do the words of the plane's tailgunner, writing to his wife on returning from the mission: 'Hi Sweetie. I received this medal today. Seems our crew and airplane made history or something."  - Guardian

"A thorough documentary which looks at the events which led to the tragic dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and the subsequent Japanese surrender at the end of the Second World War. What were President Truman's reasons for the operation? The programme features moving testimonies from survivors, which reveal the awful mix of horror and tragedy that came in the aftermath."  - Observer

"Critics' choice. A chilling reconstruction."  - Sunday Times

Romanovs/Berlin Wall

"The narration was all in the present tense to try to inject immediacy."  - Sunday Telegraph

Kristallnacht/Birth of Israel

"Pick of the day."  - Guardian

"It ended 2,000 years of exile for the Jewish people, but it would have been an empty statement without the support of US President Harry Truman. When this finally came, Ben-Gurion was able to obtain the weapons that secured the existence of the state; sadly, this also defined it in terms of almost perpetual conflict. This engaging documentary is shot in the style of 24... but one might stop short of comparing Ben-Gurion with Kiefer Sutherland."  - Independent

Rosetta stone/Tutankhamun

"Two days that brought ancient Egyptian culture dramatically back to life. Best history programme of the week."  - Sunday Times

"However many times this story has been told, it still manages to thrill."  - The Times

Black September/Lockerbie

"Another clear, concise and chilling history lesson, this time on the subject of Middle Eastern terrorism." - The Times

"Another exemplary documentary from the DTSTW stable."  - Observer

First Nuclear Reaction/Chernobyl

"As Days That Shook the World reminded you, the first atomic bomb was known to those who developed it as a 'gadget' - a darkly undercutting epithet for a device that was to prove appallingly effective."  - Independent

JFK/Nixon

"Another quality documentary analysis of John F Kennedy's final day... recommended."  - Observer

"As an investigation, plotting every minute of that November day, it was excellent, reminding you that in the instant after Lee Harvey Oswald - or whoever - fired those three shots, JFK's secret service agents believed a coup d'tat was taking place. It also gave due weight to the singular fact that, even as Kennedy was attempting 'ineffective spasmodic respiratory efforts' - trying vainly to keep breathing - his Lincoln limousine was being cleaned of 'all forensic material', probably by the FBI."  - Herald

"A factual account which produces some evocative insights; such as the description of the rushed swearing in of Lyndon B Johnson on Airforce One, with a stunned Jackie Kennedy acting as witness and a press officer crouched at Johnson's feet with a Dictaphone to record the moment."  - Guardian

Blue Bird/Chuck Yeager

"Pick of the Day: The film features rare amateur footage of Campbell preparing himself and his craft Bluebird for the event."  - Guardian