episodes
- 1. White Slaves, Pirate Gold A shipwreck off Devon uncovered much more than a haul of Islamic coins and jewellery - it also revealed a forgotten time when coastal Europe lived in terror of the "Barbary pirates". The story behind...
- 2. Lost Cities of the Maya For over 1,000 years, Maya kings ruled Central America's jungles. While Europe was just emerging from the Dark Ages, they were great architects, artists, and mathematicians. Then, at the height of the...
- 3. Rocket and Its Rivals Stephenson's Rocket is famous because of the contest it won in 1829. Few realise it triumphed by default when its two rivals had to withdraw because of faulty parts. Using replica engines, Timewatch g...
- 4. Ramesses III - Behind the Myth of a Pharaoh Ramesses III is remembered as Egypt's last great pharaoh, but the truth was very different. With the help of papyrus that was never intended to survive, the dark workings of a pharaoh in crisis are re...
- 5. 1914: The War Revolution The first action involving the British in the First World War was a cavalry skirmish - German lances against British swords. Within eight weeks, it was transformed into a bloody trench stalemate that...
- 6. Concorde: A Love Story Due to be taken out of service on Friday, the world's only supersonic passenger plane is finally brought to ground. But our love affair with Concorde looks set to endure for years to come. Celebrity f...
- 7. Zulu: The True Story The Battle of Rorke's Drift is routinely presented as a significant British victory of the Zulu wars. Yet on the same day, at the nearby Battle of Isandlwana, heavily equipped British troops were crus...
- 8. The Greatest Storm Freak weather conditions on 31 January 1953 led to a storm that cut a destructive swathe across the North Sea coastlines of Britain and the Netherlands. Over 2,000 people were killed and thousands lef...
- 9. The Last Tomb Raider Circus strongman-turned-adventurer Giovanni Belzoni filled the British Museum with some of ancient Egypt's greatest treasures, including the seven-ton head of Rameses II. But as a result of a bitter f...
- 10. Mystery of the Missing Ace Revealing the extraordinary detective story behind the disappearance in 1944 of highly decorated pilot Wing Commander Adrian Warburton, whose vanishing at the age of 26 sparked a 60-year mystery. In 2...
- 11. Britain's Greatest Hoax For 40 years the science world was hoodwinked by a forged "missing link" between ape and man. But who was responsible for the infamous "Piltdown Man" hoax? Timewatch lines up the suspects, including t...
- 12. Gallipoli: The First D-Day The Second World War Normandy landings helped seal Winston Churchill's reputation as a great wartime leader, but 29 years earlier his first D-Day - the disastrous assault on Gallipoli in 1915 - almost...
- 13. Through Hell for Hitler In a dramatised account, Timewatch follows a German soldier caught up in the most destructive conflict in history - Hitler's invasion of Russia. We travel the route that idealistic young Nazi Henry Me...