Days that Shook the World: Season 2

History unfolds hour by hour in this incisive, fascinating series. Relive the discovery of the first dinosaur fossil, the Hindenburg and Challenger disasters, Galileo's trial, the Christmas Day truce of 1914, the attack on Pearl Harbor and many other earth-shaking events. From the tragedies of humanity to the triumphs of scientific development, these are truly days when the lives of millions were changed forever.

1. Disaster In The Sky:The Hindenburg and The Challenger
Two traumatic air disasters highlighting the human cost of aviation
THE HINDENBURG AIRSHIP CRASH
New Jersey, USA. It is May 6, 1937.The luxurious airship Hindenburg, pride of the German nation and a Titanic of the skies, is completing its transatlantic crossing from Friedrichshafen in Germany to America. On board are 61 crew and
36 passengers, each paying the equivalent of £12,000 for their passage. The airship is approaching the American coast. A morning landing at Lakehurst air base, New Jersey, is anticipated.
The unfolding catastrophe, which is now believed to have been caused by static electricity, is recalled through eyewitness accounts.
Among the passengers, Vaudevillian performer Joseph Spah is filming with his cine camera and periodically performing for the passengers to while away the hours. He is looking forward to a long-awaited reunion with his family. Also on board is Fritz Erdmann, a Luftwaffe colonel there to investigate rumours of sabotage. In his pocket he carries a letter from an American psychic, warning of disaster. Meanwhile, at the Lakehurst air base, Commander Charles Rosendahl is in communication with the mighty vessel, trying to find a window in the turbulent weather conditions to allow the airship to land. Having survived two airship disasters himself, Rosendahl knows all about the perils of this mode of travel and is determined that the Hindenburg will land safely today.
Another waiting impatiently at Lakehurst for the weather to clear is Chicago radio reporter, Herb Morrison. Along with his engineer, Charlie Nehlsen, he hopes to make broadcasting history today and prove to his superiors that there is a future for the pre-recorded news broadcast as a viable alternative to the traditional live reporting. Little does Morrison know that he is about to witness one of the worst aviation disasters of the 20th Century. The news report he records later today will be heard around the world. It will transform the medium of radio reporting and, more significantly, will mark the end of the lighter-than-air airship industry - the ‘Space Race' of its age.
THE CHALLENGER EXPLOSION
Florida, USA. It is January 27, 1986. Later today, NASA mission STS 51-L - the launch of the Challenger space-shuttle - will commence countdown and waning public interest in the American space programme will be rekindled. On board is Christa McAuliffe, awaiting her opportunity to become the first-ever civilian in space. The 37-year old teacher from New Hampshire beat off 11,000 applicants for her seat on the shuttle and is now just hours away from a place in history. Her mission objective is to teach two lessons from the orbiting Challenger shuttle and the ‘Teacher
In Space' initiative has suddenly made the space programme headline news again.
But today's launch has repeatedly been delayed, and NASA is struggling to keep to a tight launch schedule under the full glare of the world's media. Unseasonably cold weather has meant added complications, but Mission Control are optimistic about launching today. Meanwhile, in Utah, Roger Boisjoly and his fellow of engineers at Morton Thiokol, one of NASA's biggest equipment suppliers, are gathered for a meeting. Concerned that disaster might befall the shuttle if it launches in the prevailing conditions, they contact NASA in a bid to prevent the launch. Their reservations go unheeded, but their story will later reveal shortcomings in the space programme that led to the loss of the Challenger shuttle and all seven astronauts onboard.

2. The Christmas Truce (1914)
The greatest demonstration of Christmas spirit - one incredible day when the guns were silent and the fighting stopped. World War I battle trenches, France. It is December 25, 1914.World War I (aka The Great War) began a new world order of violence that spawned the hallmarks of 20th-century conflict - machine guns, tanks, air raids; gas... and it turned the common soldier into a unit of sacrifice, to be processed on an industrial scale. The war machine was born, a machine that ran on men. In the course of four years, it would get through 20 million soldiers of all nationalities.
But there was one day when the war machine faltered. A day when men who were meant to operate as killing machines stopped. A day when they put down their guns, shook hands, exchanged gifts and discovered they had more in common with each other than with their leaders, kings or governments. Enemies became friends, and for a brief time the world was at peace. It was Christmas Day, 1914.
The Germans began it. On Christmas Eve, an order was issued from the headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force warning troops to be on high alert for surprise attacks. Rifleman Henry Williams, later to become famous as the author of Tarka the Otter, was out mending fence posts in the dark, every moment in fear for his life. But it wasn't bullets that came from the other side, but songs. The sublime "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht" drifted across the few dozen yards of No Man's Land. And instead of firing back, the British responded in kind.The enduring popularity of the carol Silent Night stems from this incredible incident. Christmas Day broke with expectation in the still cold air. For the first time in months, it wasn't raining. The sun shone. A sense of newness and hope was in the air. This year it would indeed be magical. Private Frank Richards held up a home-made sign that read Merry Christmas. When it failed to draw hostile fire, he looked over the parapet to find a German soldier at the wire, unarmed. He shook hands with his enemy, and greeted the men responsible for ending the lives of friends, just as he may have ended the lives of theirs. But at this moment, the urge for rest and peace overrides all bitterness. And it spreads, not sideways from unit to unit, but upwards.
When the corporals and sergeants failed to order back the privates, it was the responsibility of the officers to restore army discipline. Some tried, most simply joined in. Inevitably, word filtered through to the highest level, where it was ill-received. Bitter office politics prevailed amongst the commanders of the British Expeditionary Force. There was friction between Sir John French, overall commander, and General Smith-Dorrien, the only successful British field commander in the war to date. The news that Smith-Dorrien's men were fraternising was an embarrassment to him. Dire recriminations were threatened, but when it became clear that 65 out of 132 British Army units on the frontline (half the entire British Army) were involved in the unofficial truce with their enemies, he had no choice but to hold his hand. And wait. The German command too refrained from re-imposing discipline, even when a near-mutiny erupted when a Saxon regiment were ordered to fire on their new-found friends.
But less than a week later, the soldiers simply drifted back to work. These were early days in a war that both sides still expected to win. Even had they been able to see into the future, they would still have done their duty. The machine was soon up and running again. The new year would bring greater slaughter, the first gas attacks and atrocities on both sides, and the goodwill that flourished briefly in the mud would be extinguished in fire and blood.

3. Affairs of the Crown
The story of two English kings whose private affairs became national events
THE EXECUTION OF ANNE BOLEYN
London, England. It is May 19, 1536. Queen Anne is under arrest in the Tower of London. The woman responsible for scandalising England and causing the country's split with the Roman Catholic Church has been condemned for adultery and treason. Many of her subjects also consider her to be a witch. After just three years of marriage to King Henry VIII, 36-year-old Anne Boleyn is about to become the first English Queen in history to be executed... When Anne Boleyn was crowned Queen of England in May 1533, it was the moment of triumph for a woman who had gambled everything on the love of Henry VIII. Henry had been married for years to Catherine of Aragon, but had only a daughter and a barren wife to show for it when he met Anne. It was more than her beauty that attracted him; she was young and fertile. Anne was also clever, and was not prepared to become just the King's mistress. When the Pope refused to annul his marriage to Catherine, she encouraged Henry to split from the Church and declare himself head of a new Protestant Church of England. It was a move which was to split the country and cause centuries of problems and hundreds of deaths.
Yet Henry's infatuation with his clever and outspoken second wife was not to last. From the moment she gave birth to her daughter Elizabeth and not the son and heir he craved, Anne became vulnerable to the endless political machinations of a ruthless court system, in which political success or failure was the difference between life and death.
After a second miscarriage of a defective child, Henry's trust in Anne diminished and his hopes turned to her successor, Jane Seymour, who was also pregnant by him. Anne fell victim to a swift and devastating coup masterminded by the King's first minister, Thomas Cromwell. Within a fortnight of her arrest, Anne, her brother and several of her closest allies at Court were convicted of treason and sent to their deaths. Whether they were guilty or not didn't matter, the country hated Anne and England needed a male heir.
This film reconstructs Anne's final hours - the spies that surrounded her whilst she was in the Tower and how their information contributed towards her downfall; Henry's ‘merciful' decision not to have her burnt at the stake, but instead beheaded with a sword by an executioner from Calais; Anne's declaration of innocence as she took her last sacrament (strong evidence of her innocence in a time of such piety); and, at 8 am, her final walk to the scaffold.
THE ABDICATION OF EDWARD VIII
London, England. It is December 10, 1936,.The British monarchy is in crisis.Today, King Edward VIII will put his love for an American divorcee, Wallis Simpson, before his duty as King and become the first British monarch to voluntarily abdicate.
This film reveals in fascinating detail the dramatic events leading up to the signing of the Instrument of Abdication. The last-minute dash to Cannes by Wallis Simpson's lawyer to try and persuade her to withdraw her divorce. The scandalous press story that a gynaecologist and an anaesthetist were on their way to see Wallis Simpson. And the ‘citizen's intervention' made by a 72 year old solicitors clerk which could have resulted in Edward and Wallis being unable to marry.
When Edward came to the throne in January 1936, it was on a wave of unprecedented popularity. Charming, goodlooking and blessed with a special capacity to communicate with his people, he was set to breathe life into a monarchy still governed by the attitudes of the previous century. But just 11 months later this reign came to a dramatic end. Behind his decision lies one of the perennially fascinating love affairs of the century. It's a story in which a man chose his passion for a woman over his duty to his country, but also of an Establishment threatened by a monarch with a genuine concern for the social problems of the age.

4.Attack on Pearl Harbor
The devastating pre-emptive strike that propelled America into World War II Hawaii, USA. It is December 7, 1941.Travelling under strict radio silence, aeroplanes and midget submarines of the
Imperial Japanese Navy, commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, carry out a surprise assault on the United States Navy base at Pearl Harbor, and against the Army Air Corps and Marine airfields nearby on Oahu. The attack caught America completely by surprise. Striking when it was least expected (07.55 hours on a Sunday morning), the Japanese aircraft were able to pick off their targets from the mighty battleships of the US Pacific Fleet before people even realised what was happening. Just two hours later, five battleships had been sunk, another 16 damaged, 188 aircraft destroyed, more than 2,400 Americans were dead and another 1,178 injured.
Based on eye-witness accounts, this episode tells the gripping story of how Washington code-breakers intercepted a message from Tokyo hinting at a possible attack, but didn't get it to Pearl Harbor until far too late. It recounts how the Japanese Navy brilliantly reinvented traditional naval doctrine by using aircraft carriers for the first time and to devastating effect.
Personal recollections by sailors and naval officers, nurses and pilots bring to life the extraordinary drama of 24 hours that would change the course of world history.
Although America was caught sleeping by the Japanese, within a day she entered World War II, an act that would herald her transformation into the world's greatest superpower.

5. Grand Heist
Two audacious robberies which brought notoriety and mixed fortunes to the thieves
COLONEL BLOOD'S THEFT OF THE BRITISH CROWN JEWELS
London, England. It is May 9, 1671. At 7 am, Parson Blood arrives at the Tower of London to visit his close friend, Talbot Edwards, the Keeper of the Crown Jewels. With him are his ‘nephew' and two other men. Edwards is hoping for a match between his daughter and Blood's wealthy nephew. But Edwards is about to discover that the Parson isn't a parson at all and that their friendship has been a ruse to gain access to the most valuable stash of jewels in the country...
In 1660, England's republican experiment failed with the death of Richard Cromwell, and the Commonwealth dream died. Many republicans were against the restoration of the monarchy, and found it difficult to accept Charles II and his foppish, Catholic retinue. Dissenters and terrorists were in abundance as Charles II implemented laws to curb the power of religious non-conformists and puritans. One such religious dissenter was an Irishman, self-styled ‘Colonel'
Thomas Blood.
Born in Ireland in 1618, Thomas Blood fought for both sides during the English Civil War, and worked as a spy. He had received land as payment for his services to the Parliamentarian army during the Civil War, but then lost them all after the monarchy was restored. In revenge, he made two botched attempts to abduct the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, several attempts to rescue his co-conspirators, and ended up with a price on his head. Then in 1671, he decided to steal the British Crown Jewels.
Reconstructed at massive expense by Charles II after Cromwell had destroyed the originals, the Crown Jewels were kept at the Tower of London in a basement and protected by a large metal grille. The Keeper lived with his family on the floor above the basement.
Blood's plan was simple but effective. Disguised as a parson, he made friends with the unsuspecting Edwards and became well acquainted with the security arrangements. On May 9, Blood persuaded Edwards to show the Crown Jewels to his friends. The gang stabbed, bound and gagged the old man and made off with the loot. But Edwards managed to raise the alarm and the thieves were captured.
Imprisoned in the Tower, Blood refused to speak to anyone but the King. Amazingly, Charles consented to see him at Whitehall and further astonished the kingdom by releasing Blood only a few months into his captivity. He also had his Irish Estates restored to him and granted him a pension of £500 per annum. This dramatised reconstruction of that extraordinary day at the Tower of London focuses on the three individuals at the heart of the tale: Talbot Edwards, King Charles II, and finally the enigmatic Colonel Blood himself.
THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY
Buckinghamshire, England. It is Thursday August 8, 1963. In the early hours of the morning, a gang of daring London criminals tamper with the signals and cut the telephone lines at Sears Crossing, where a farm track crosses the railway line between Leighton Buzzard and Cheddington. At 3.15 am, their actions bring the Glasgow to Euston mail train to a halt. Fifteen men, wearing ski masks and helmets, board the train. Uncouple the engine and front two carriages, and force the driver to take them half a mile up the line to Bridego Bridge. The carriages ambushed contain mail-bags full of untraceable, used £1, £5 and £10 banknotes, most of them en route to be destroyed. At Bridego Bridge, the thieves break into the second carriage, restrain the four postal workers inside, and load 120 mail and money bags into a lorry waiting on the road beneath. In just half an hour, the robbers have looted £2,500,000 (the modern equivalent of £40,000,000). Most of the 75 mail sorters working on the train are unaware that anything has happened.
The Great Train Robbery was the most famous heist of its era and made celebrities of some of the criminals*, but this reconstruction also tells for the first time the stories of three individuals who played a vital role in that day: mastermind Bruce Reynolds, the ‘gentleman thief ' who planned and led the gang Roy James, getaway driver to the gang, but celebrated Formula Two Champion to the rest of the world Jack Mills, the train driver who was brutally coshed when he resisted the robbers on the footplate of his locomotive. Based on exclusive interviews with Reynolds and Jack Mills' son, this is an unprecedented insight into the biggest robbery in the world at that time - the nerve, the trauma, and the dire consequences. The film explains for the first time how Reynolds took his inspiration from the rail robberies of the American West, how the robbery was carefully planned over a long period, how he used inside information on the movement of valuables, and how he assembled the gang. It also contains shocking images of what happened to Jack Mills when the gang ignored their leader's non-violent approach and forced him to co-operate.
* Ronnie Biggs escaped from prison and later turned up in Brazil. Efforts to extradite him failed when he fathered a Brazilian son. For years, he lived off his notoriety, but Biggs did eventually return to England in 2001 for medical treatment and was immediately imprisoned to serve the remainder of his 28-year sentence.
* Buster Edwards went on the run and ended up in Mexico. But he missed his wife and child, and after three years he chose family over freedom. He returned to England and gave himself up, rather than live as an exile. Pop star Phil Collins played him in the 1988 movie of his life.

6. Conspiracy To Kill
Assassination attempts by secretive organisations, with Hitler and General Charles de Gaulle the intended victims.
THE REAL DAY OF THE JACKAL
Paris, France. It is August 22, 1962.This evening, President General Charles de Gaulle is leaving the Elysee Palace for his country home on the outskirts of Paris.
The national hero who led the French Resistance against Nazi Germany has become a divisive figure, adored by one half of France, and considered a traitor by the other for his controversial policy of independence for Algeria, officially ratified on 3 July. The Algerian Secret Army (OAS), an organisation representing French settlers in Algeria, are prepared
to use violent methods to achieve their aims. They have made several assassination attempts already.
Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry is masterminding the latest attempt. They have a vast network of sympathisers - including De Gaulle's head of security and a priest who blesses their weapons - but very little luck.
Two weeks before the big day, their guns are stolen by a rival gang. So many people want De Gaulle dead, competition is their chief obstacle.
On August 22, the plotters have not one, but two chances: they can ambush De Gaulle on his way to or from work, somewhere between his office and Villa Coublay airfield. On the inbound journey, they lose him in traffic. For the return trip, they park their Volkswagen bus at an intersection in the suburb of Petit-Clamart to await the chauffeur driven Citroen DS19 containing De Gaulle, his wife and their supper: two live chickens in a basket, in the boot.
At the crucial moment, one of the conspirators is busy urinating. Then a family on a day out turn up, driving in the opposite direction and getting in the way. The gunmen fire more than 100 machine-gun rounds at De Gaulle's car, shattering the rear window as they pursue it through Clermont. But De Gaulle's driver shakes them off and makes it to the airfield on two flat tyres. The car is riddled with bullets, but miraculously, no one is hurt and De Gaulle has survived. In all, 187 bullets are later found at the ambush point in the Avenue de la Libération. De Gaulle philosophically dismisses the attempt, "Bah! C'eût été une belle morte. Il vaut mieux mourir comme cela qu'aux cabinets." (It would have been a better death than dying in a cabinet meeting.) But that does not mean that he is prepared to be lenient with his would-be assassins. Within a fortnight, Bastien-Thiry and most of his fellow conspirators are arrested. At his trial, Bastien-Thiry compares himself to Colonel von Stauffenberg, who had tried to kill Hitler in July 1944. He is sentenced to death and killed by firing squad on 11 March 1963. WOLF'S LAIR Nazi Germany. It is July 20, 1944 - a day which almost altered the course of World War II. Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg is flying to Hitler's field headquarters on the East Prussian border. With him is his aide and co-conspirator
Leutnant Werner von Haeften. They are on their way to Wolf's Lair to assassinate their Führer. As the day of the assassination attempt unfolds, we witness the inner workings and dashed ambitions of the coup and its leaders.
Von Stauffenberg was a Bavarian Catholic of Prussian ancestry. He served with distinction in Rommel's Afrika Korps before he lost a hand and an eye to battlefield wounds. Promoted to Hitler's inner circle, the disenchanted officer came to believe that the Fuhrer was the ‘anti-Christ' and was part of a now-famous conspiracy to kill him.
At 12.42 pm, the bomb (hidden in an attaché case) explodes beneath Hitler's desk. It is the last act of the desperate German officers' plot to overthrow the Nazi regime.
Von Stauffenberg escapes with von Haeften just before the explosion and flies back to Berlin. He arrives at Army High Command Headquarters at 4.30 pm, intending to launch a coup. But miraculously, Hitler has survived the blast and co-conspirator General Friedrich Olbricht fatally fails to set the coup in motion during first two hours after the attempt.
The attempted coup is soon crushed and its ringleaders are rounded up. On July 21, at 12.30 am, von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators - General Olbricht, Colonel von Mertz, and von Haeften - are executed by firing squad at the Bendler Block, where their memory is preserved. A reminder to post-war Germans that he and other members of the German Resistance did not give their lives in vain.

7. Reach For The Stars
Two days on which science challenged the conventional view of the world and our place in the universe
GALILEO'S TRIAL
Rome,Vatican City. It is April 12, 1633.The 70-year-old esteemed scientist Galileo Galilei is in trouble with the Roman Catholic Church. He stands accused on suspicion of heresy. His crime - to suggest that the Sun and not the Earth is the centre of the known universe, and that the Earth orbits the Sun, just like any other planet. Copernicus was the first person to challenge the Church's official view in 1514. In 1660, Dominican Friar Giordano Bruno was convicted of heresy by the Holy Office and burned at the stake. Since Copernicus' time in 1514, Rome had experienced a serious challenge from Protestant Reformation and could no longer afford dissent of that kind.
The Church's official view was based on centuries of received but untested wisdom. Bruno had no evidence either, but Galileo had spent a decade amassing enough to convince any sceptic - or so he thought. He also believed, that in 30 years, the Church had softened its line, that even the Pope himself had given him his blessing to write about the theory. On each count, Galileo was tragically mistaken. Galileo's 1632 publication, The Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems, attracted too many complaints to be ignored. The Pope stopped distribution and authorised a special commission to examine the book.
Based on the special commission's report, the Pope referred Galileo's case to the Roman Inquisition. The Dialogue was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books and Galileo summoned to appear before the Inquisition. A request to move his trial to Florence has been denied. For more than two weeks during his interrogation, he is imprisoned in an apartment in the Inquisition building.
Under threat of torture, Galileo confesses his heresy and agrees to plead guilty to a lesser charge in exchange for a more lenient sentence. He declares that the Copernican case was made too strongly in his book The Dialogue, and offers to refute it in another book. In June, he is sentenced to prison for life and signs a formal recantation. The book is banned for over 200 years.
But Galileo's sacrifice was not in vain. His trial is now widely regarded as the last act by the Church in the Age of Faith before history gave way to the Age of Reason.

YURI GAGARIN'S FLIGHT
Kazakhstan, Soviet Central Asia. It is April 12, 1961. Major Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin is about to take a step no human has ever taken before, perhaps the ultimate in human endeavour - from the Earth into Space. It marks the culmination, not just of decades of technological development, but over 300 years of groundbreaking scientific thought. It is exactly 328 years after Galileo's trial and his great personal sacrifice.
It was for purely political reasons that Russia beat the USA in the race to get the first man into space. The flight was a huge gamble - over half of all their rocket launches had so far ended in failure, but the Russians knew the Americans were close to their own manned mission and took a chance on their converted ballistic missile. At just after 07.00 British Standard Time, Gagarin was fired from the Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan in the spacecraft Vostok (East). He was the son of a farmer, with the same background as the Soviet leader, Nikkita Kruschev.
He was politically perfect for a new breed of Soviet hero, the cosmonaut. It nearly backfired.
For two thirds of the flight, all went perfectly. Gagarin orbited the Earth for 108 minutes travelling at more than 27,000 kilometres per hour. But on re-entry, the final separation between Vostok Capsule and its equipment module failed.
Unknown to ground control, Gagarin spent an agonising 10 minutes spinning uncontrollably as he entered the Earth's atmosphere. The violent motion nearly made him pass out and the heat from the friction cut out all radio communications, but ultimately saved his life - burning through the entangling cables, allowing him to eject.
But despite the ‘wing-and-a-prayer' ending, Gagarin's flight had laid down the greatest technological challenge in the history of mankind - the Space Race had begun, and the Russians were first out of the blocks.

8. Dinosaurs and Duplicity
How breakthrough archaeological discoveries profoundly altered our understanding of the natural world
DISCOVERY OF THE FIRST DINOSAUR
Sussex, England. It is September 1824, and amateur geologist, Dr Gideon Mantell, is about to become the first person to identify the bones of an ancient, plant-eating, giant reptile - which will later be called a 'Dinosaur'.
A few weeks ago, his wife, Mary, spotted a large fossilised tooth in some rubble left by workmen in the Sussex Weald and Dr Mantell has since collected several other giant teeth. He is convinced he has made a remarkable discovery, but the scientific establishment has so far dismissed the teeth as uninteresting.
Today, Gideon Mantell is travelling to the Hunterian Museum in London where he will confirm the revelation that will secure his place in history and alter our perception of the past forever.
PILTDOWN MAN
It is November 20, 1953, and news is breaking that one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the century is an elaborate hoax.
Forty years earlier, Charles Dawson, a solicitor and amateur antiquarian from Sussex, had announced the discovery of remains from the earliest known human being. Piltdown Man was heralded as the long-awaited 'missing link' between ape and man, proof of Darwin's theory of evolution. But the bones were in fact a cleverly constructed forgery.
The film features the two scientists, Dr Joe Weiner and Dr Kenneth Oakley, who revealed the hoax and follows them as they attempt to find out the identity of the mysterious hoaxer.

9. Terror - Made in America
Two terrorist acts that shook the American people and their nation's stability
The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Washington, DC, USA. It is April 14, 1865. At Ford's Theatre, the evening performance of Our American Cousin is about to begin. In the audience is the American President, Abraham Lincoln. At around 9.30 pm, a young actor named John Wilkes Booth arrives in the rear alley and asks Joseph Burroughs, a boy who works at the theatre, to hold his horse.
After a drink in the saloon next door, Booth enters the front of Ford's Theatre and slowly makes his way towards the Presidential Box...
It is now about 10.15 pm, and Booth enters the presidential box. He is armed with a single shot derringer and a hunting knife. The Lincolns are sitting with Clara Harris and Henry Rathbone. Lincoln's bodyguard, John Parker of the Metropolitan Police Force, has left his post. Booth shoots Lincoln in the back of the head at near point-blank range, but struggles with Rathbone while making his exit. Stabbing Rathbone in the arm, he jumps 11 feet to the stage below, snapping the fibula bone in his left leg. He makes his way across the stage to the back door, climbs onto his horse and escapes from the city via the Navy Yard Bridge. After a medical examination by Dr Charles Leale, a member of the audience, Lincoln's body is carried to a bedroom in the nearby Petersen's Boarding House, where he dies at 7.22 am. At his bedside, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton remarks, "Now he belongs to the ages." It is April 15, 1865. A day that shook the world. Lincoln's assassination came just after Robert E Lee's surrender to General Ulysses S Grant. It was part of a wider conspiracy by Southern sympathisers. Vice-President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward were to be attacked at the same time, but these attempts failed. Booth met up with his co-conspirator David Herold in Maryland.They stopped briefly at Mary Surratt's tavern for supplies, then again at the house of Dr Samuel Mudd so that Booth's leg could be splinted and bandaged, before setting out in the afternoon, heading south. Federal authorities caught up with them at Garrett's farm near Port Royal, Virginia, early in the morning of April 26. Hiding in a barn, Harold gave up. Booth refused, so the barn was set on fire. Booth still didn't come out and was shot to death by Sergeant Boston Corbett. Within days, Booth's co-conspirators were arrested by the government, tried by a military tribunal, and all found guilty.
Drawing on eye-witness accounts, court transcripts, letters and other historical documents, this dramatic reconstruction vividly brings to life the unfolding hour-by-hour story. Lincoln's assassination was the first presidential assassination in US history. Like all assassinations, the act of violence had the opposite effect than its conspirators hoped for. Booth carried out the attack thinking it would aid the South, but instead it speeded the United States' transition from civil war to reunification and peace.
The Oklahoma City Bombing
Oklahoma City, USA. It is April 19, 1995. Timothy McVeigh, a 33-year-old veteran of the first Gulf War, drives a van packed with home-made explosives and parks it outside the Alfred P Murrah federal office building in downtown
Oklahoma City. At 09.02 am, the van explodes. Half of the nine-storey building collapses, killing 168 people, including 19 children at a day-care centre, and injuring more than 500.The cost of the damage is later estimated at $80 million. Less than 90 minutes later, Timothy McVeigh is stopped by an Oklahoma traffic policeman for driving without licence plates and detained on firearms charges.
In the hours after the Oklahoma bombing, commentators first suspected it was the work of a fundamentalist Middle Eastern terrorist group. But an FBI agent named Clinton Van Zandt was closer to the truth. He had been the FBI's chief hostage negotiator at Waco and recognised the significance of the date. It was two years to the day since federal troops ended a 51-day siege at a Branch Davidian sect compound near Waco, Texas, in which 82 people died. Van Zandt is quoted as saying then that the bomber would turn out to be a white male, acting alone, or with one other person, and in his mid-20s. He would have military experience and be angry at the government for what happened at Waco. Van Zandt was right.
On 21 April, just as he is about to be released from custody, McVeigh is identified and charged with the bombing.
McVeigh's former army colleague, Terry Nichols, surrenders to police in his home town of Herington, Kansas. Later, on 10 August, a third man, McVeigh's army friend Michael Fortier, pleads guilty to a firearms charge as part of a plea bargain.
McVeigh emerged at his trial as intelligent and sane. He believed he was striking a blow against a federal government at war with its own people. He was determined to use the media, giving interviews to journalists and requesting to have his execution broadcast on national television. He showed no remorse right up to his death by lethal injection on June 11, 2001.
Key witnesses to the atrocity and its aftermath, court transcripts, letters and those who knew or interviewed McVeigh help to re-create the countdown in the day that saw the most deadly peacetime attack on US soil committed by a US citizen.

10. Cold War Crisis
Two major international incidents which put espionage in the headlines, one leading ultimately to the other GARY POWERS U-2 SPY PLANE Russia. It is May 1, 1960. The Cold War was a time of mistrust and suspicion, with espionage the favoured tactic to stay one step ahead of the enemy. But today it seems as if Cold War relations are at an all-time high. Just six months ago, Premier Nikita Khrushchev became the first Soviet Leader to visit America, and in barely two weeks' time a crucial disarmament summit is about to take place between Western nations and Soviet leaders in Paris.
Yet underneath the facade, the USA is playing a game of 'cat and mouse'. Paranoid that the Soviets are stockpiling missile arsenals, the Americans are desperate to find out the extent of their military capabilities. The U-2 Spy plane is their favoured weapon, as it can fly higher than any other plane and photograph a newspaper from 13 miles up. Bad weather has delayed the mission until today. Many in the CIA hope that the Soviet Air Defence Troops will be too busy celebrating May Day - the second most important holiday in the Russian calendar - to notice Gary Powers flying silently above taking surveillance photographs. It is a hope that is crushed immediately. Just 10 minutes into Soviet territory, Powers is spotted. An incensed Khrushchev orders the U-2 to be shot down, whatever the cost...
This story of the last U-2 overflight of the Soviet Union includes the inexperienced Russian Major who was about to leave the military, only to find himself in charge of bringing down the U-2; the peasant who found Powers in his field armed with 200 rounds of ammunition and a poison needle; and Gary Powers himself, through private diaries and memoirs. The reconstruction is given further accuracy by the grandson of the very radar operator who first spotted Powers on that fateful day; he plays one of the radar operators. The incident sparks one of the biggest international crises of the Cold War. The USA are demanding his safe return.
The USSR wants to know what he was doing up there in the first place. It also had major implications. Immediately the nuclear disarmament treaty was scrapped, as was the move towards détente, and the Cold War would continue for another 29 years.
Powers was held in a Soviet prison for two years when, on another dramatic day that shook the world, he was exchanged for Soviet master-spy, Colonel Rudolf Abel. It was the most dramatic East-West spy swap to occur in Cold war Berlin, the conclusion to a high-stakes political game of bluff, lies, deception and compromise.

COLONEL RUDOLF ABEL
Berlin, the border between East and West Germanies. It is February 10, 1962. In a scene later synonymous with Cold War espionage dramas, the most dramatic spy exchange of the Cold War is about to take place on a bridge in Berlin. It has taken nine days of heavy negotiations between an American lawyer and the Head of the KGB in Western Europe to get to this point. As they edge closer to each other on the bridge both sides look for traps. The stakes are too high for anything to go wrong.
Two years ago, Gary Powers, the American U-2 Pilot, was shot down over Sverdlovsk, some 650 miles south of Moscow. After a show trial in Moscow, he was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment in one of Siberia's worst prisons, Vladimir Prison. The American Government want him back, and they now have an important bargaining tool. Two years ago, a Brooklyn delivery boy made a seemingly innocuous discovery of a hollowed-out ‘nickel' coin containing a coded message. This led to a counter-espionage operation by US authorities which identified Colonel Rudolf Abel as the mastermind behind the Soviet's key spy-ring in late 1950s New York, responsible for infiltrating
America's nuclear programme and maintaining Soviet parity in the Cold War. He was recently caught in Brooklyn, after one of his accomplices defected.
The Americans approached 45-year-old New York lawyer, James Britt Donovan, to see whether he could effect a trade for Powers. He represents Abel. It is a swap that continually threatens to spiral out of control, as Donovan's adversary Secretary Schischkin, Head of the KGB in Western Europe, continually threatens to keep Powers.
This film reveals the inner machinations of the exchange: the tense negotiations between Donovan and Secretary Schischkin, and the point where Donovan nearly walks out in disgust; the letters written by Gary Powers' father first proposing the swap; the very different treatment that both Powers and Abel receive on their last night of captivity; and the swap itself, in the middle of the Glienicker Bridge in Berlin on a cold February morning.
As Powers steps onto the eastern end of the bridge spanning the Rivel Havel, at the other end stands the heavily muffled Abel. A pre-arranged signal is given and the two men stride onto the bridge, marching purposefully towards each other. Powers is heading Westwards, Abel East. In the middle of the bridge they pass each other silently, with barely a nod of their heads.
It was an event that paved the way for future exchanges between the superpowers, but remains the most sensational as it continually teetered on the brink of collapse right until the actual exchange.

Production Credits
1 DISASTER IN THE SKY
Narrator Peter Guinness
Written & Directed by Angus Cameron
Executive Producers Neil McDonald (BBC)
Chris Kelly (Lion)
A Lion TV production for BBC in association with The History Channel

2 THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE
Narrator Peter Guinness
Written & Directed by Nic Young
Executive Producers Neil McDonald (BBC)
David Upshal (Lion)
A Lion TV production for BBC

3 AFFAIRS OF THE CROWN
Narrator Peter Guinness
Written & Directed by Tanya Cheadle
Executive Producers Neil McDonald (BBC)
Chris Kelly (Lion)
A Lion TV production for BBC

4 ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR
Narrator Peter Guinness
Produced & Directed by Dan Clifton
Executive Producers Neil McDonald (BBC)
Lucy Hetherington (BBC)
David Upshal (Lion)
A Lion TV production for BBC in association with The History Channel

5 GRAND HEIST
Narrator Peter Guinness
Written & Directed by David Bartlett
Executive Producers Neil McDonald (BBC)
Chris Kelly (Lion)
A Lion TV production for BBC

6 CONSPIRACY TO KILL
Narrator Peter Guinness
Written & Directed by Matthew Wortman
Executive Producers Neil McDonald (BBC)
David Upshal (Lion)
A Lion TV production for BBC in association with The History Channel

7 REACH FOR THE STARS
Narrator Peter Guinness
Written & Directed by Nic Young
Executive Producers Neil McDonald (BBC)
David Upshal (Lion)
A Lion TV production for BBC

8 DINOSAURS AND DUPLICITY
Narrator Peter Guinness
Written & Directed by Tanya Cheadle
Executive Producers Neil McDonald (BBC)
Chris Kelly (Lion)
A Lion TV production for BBC

9 TERROR - MADE IN AMERICA
Narrator Peter Guinness
Written & Directed by Dan Clifton
Executive Producers Neil McDonald (BBC)
David Upshal (Lion)
A Lion TV production for BBC in association with The History Channel

10 COLD WAR CRISIS
Narrator Peter Guinness
Written & Directed by Stephen Bennett
Executive Producers Neil McDonald (BBC)
Chris Kelly (Lion)
A Lion TV production for BBC in association with The History Channel

"This meticulously researched series takes two related days in history and, with an admirable degree of understatement, re-creates them using dramatic reconstructions and, where possible, archive footage." The Times

"...the consistently illuminating history strand..." Independent

"A very well made, accessible history show ... excellent television ... compresses important events into intense 30-minute chunks of documentary footage and historical re-enactment all held together by an urgent voiceover. " Observer (Giles Richards)

"The Days That Shook the World strand began at BBC4 when Roly Keating was controller, and it's good to see (now
he's at BBC2) that he's giving these excellent drama-docs the primetime terrestrial slot they deserve." London Evening Standard (Victor Lewis-Smith)

"A detailed reconstruction of Nasa's 1986 Challenger space shuttle disaster, which followed the desperate efforts of ‘O-ring' engineer Roger Boisjoly to have the launch postponed when he identified a potential fault in the solid rocket boosters' assembly." Observer (Mike Bradley)(Episode 1)

"Watch this ... lesson in causality." Guardian (Joss Hutton)(Episode 1)

"...as a moving story of ordinary men finding they have more binding them together than driving them apart, this is hard to beat." London Evening Standard (Ceri Thomas)(Episode 2)

"...this moving, dramatised documentary reveals just what an extraordinary occasion it was." Daily Mirror (Jane Simon)(Episode 2)

"This well-rendered dramatisation..." Observer (Mike Bradley)(Episode 2)

"Abdication Crisis: Days That Shook the World brilliantly recreated the final hours of Edward's reign, as frantic last-ditch attempts were made to prevent him handing over the kingdom to his younger brother George ... I initially wondered why the scenes of Wallis in Cannes were shot in monochrome, while the rest of the action was in colour. But I realised why when some genuine B&W news footage of Edward and Mrs Simpson in the South of France was seamlessly woven into the re-enactments, a carefully crafted touch that (together with Tanya Cheadle's classy direction and intricate script) made this far more than just another dramatised retelling of a well-worn story.." London Evening Standard (Victor Lewis-Smith)(Episode 3)

"For non-experts, there are many surprises in this programme about the Abdication crisis." The Times (David Chater)(Episode 3)

"It's quite intriguing to examine the events leading up to the abdication crisis of 1936 so soon after the wedding of the Prince of Wales. Indeed, had King Edward VIII not felt compelled to abdicate in order to marry Wallis Simpson, the heir to the throne could have been someone different. Apart from that, however, is a sense of how much things have moved on since those tense days in December 1936 when the establishment endeavoured to prevent the marriage between a king and divorced woman." Guardian (Mary Novakovich)(Episode 3)

"Dramatised using 24 -style split screens, the programme follows these protagonists over a few critical hours, building up a fair degree of tension even though we know the outcome. With each twist of fate, we realise it could have been so very different. Indeed Charles might never have been a prince at all..." Observer (Stephanie Billen)(Episode 3)

"A Prince of Wales waiting to be king, a controversial divorcee. . . Looking back to the constitutional crisis of December 1936, it looks like Charles and Camilla had it easy." Guardian (Richard Vine)(Episode 3)

"The portrayal of the abdication crisis 400 years later involving Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII offers an altogether fresher perspective." Sunday Times (Episode 3)

"A valiant reconstruction of the Japanese attack on the US fleet on December 7, 1941, that also asks why Pearl Harbor's air-defence system was so impotent, even though the Americans were able to decode the enemy's signals." Sunday Times (Episode 4)

"... the story is a good one. ... although one would hardly say that Blood's theft shook the world, it does have a place in the annals of crime alongside the Great Train Robbery, the Brinks Mat snatch at Heathrow Airport and the recent £26million Northern Bank heist ... It just goes to show, with enough gall you can get away with anything." Daily Mail (Peter Paterson)(Episode 5)

"The Real Day of the Jackal, it transpires, had little of the clockwork calculation that characterised the book or the film. It was a complete shambles, prosecuted by the most hapless group of co-conspirators ever to band together on the pretext of screwing something up." Guardian (Episode 6)

"...excellent television ... the story of Claus von Stauffenberg's attempt to blow up Hitler told with an electric mixture of split screens, stills and clever cutting that owes much to an episode of 24 , but which will also make the programme appealing to those not necessarily interested in the subject matter ... a very well made, accessible history show." Observer (Giles Richards)(Episode 6)

"Both faced death for their cause and although Galileo capitulated under the threat of torture, Gagarin took the gamble and won." The Times (Episode 7)

"...an absorbing, welcome piece of viewing ... It is a great story ... no event more clearly, and starkly, defined the last century. Suddenly, it seemed as if there was no limit to human achievement. Later, when Gagarin came to the Soviet Trade Fair in London, I stood in the crowd outside and cheered him with fanatical schoolboy enthusiasm. He looked every inch a hero and it is good to report that the BBC have made a fine job of this tribute." Observer (Robin McKie)(Episode 7)

"An absorbing historical reconstruction that resembles a detective story." Sunday Times (Critics' Choice)(Episode 8)

"This excellent drama-documentary brings to life the events which led to Lincoln's demise and also reveals what became of Wilkes Booth and his fellow conspirators. Succinct history programming." Observer (Mike Bradley)(Episode 9)

"...another useful entry into television's encyclopaedia of historical events, filled with unfamiliar detail." The Times (David Chater)(Episode 9)

"A tale of Cold War brinkmanship from the Sixties ... This well-crafted documentary explains how the exchange was very nearly cancelled at the last minute. Recommended." Observer (Mike Bradley)(Episode 10)

For the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese reinvented naval doctrine by using aircraft carriers for the first time.

By assassinating President Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth hoped to rescue the South and become a hero. He achieved neither. Within a month the South had surrendered and Booth had been killed resisting arrest.

The attempt on President Charles de Gaulle's life saw more than 100 machinegun rounds fired at his car. Somehow he survived.