Timewatch - Season 8 / Year 1989

Timewatch - Season 8 / Year 1989

Season 8 / Year 1989

Network
Episodes11
DatesJan 11, 1989 - Nov 8, 1989
Previous SeasonNext Season

Episodes

Light in the Dark
Year 1989Episode 160 min

Light in the Dark

During the Nazi occupation of eastern Poland, a small group of Jews in the city of Lvov tried to save themselves from the death camps by hiding in the sewers beneath the city for more than 14 months. Timewatch reunited four remaining survivors in 1988 to record their accounts. The oldest, Mundek Margulies, journeyed back to Lvov (now part of the Soviet Union) and with co-operation from local authorities, went down into the sewers and through the maze of tunnels to help describe this extraordinary episode of human courage and endurance from the Jewish Holocaust.
Jan 11, 1989
An Age of Empire
Year 1989Episode 260 min

An Age of Empire

What effect did Charlie Chaplin have on the sale of tea? What first caused the sudden and surprising popularity of tennis and golf? And to what extent was the middle class of England responsible for changing an era of optimism and peace into the nightmare of the First World War? Eric Hobsbawm, one of Britain's leading historians, offers some insight into the 19th century and describes a world that was about to disappear for ever.
Feb 8, 1989
Sacrifice at Pearl Harbour
Year 1989Episode 360 min

Sacrifice at Pearl Harbour

For nearly 50 years the world has been led to believe President Roosevelt's statement that the attack was a total surprise and completely unsuspected by the neutral Americans. But witnesses from all over the world are now coming forward to tell a different story - that Washington was repeatedly warned about the coming attack. Two men who certainly weren't told that they were the likely target for a Japanese air strike were the commanders responsible for the safety of the fleet at Pearl Harbor, 2,000 miles out into the Pacific. Here the whole story is told for the first time - beginning with the breaking of the vital Japanese Naval Code by the British more than two years before.
Apr 5, 1989
Playing with History
Year 1989Episode 460 min

Playing with History

Two stories reflect the contribution made to history by non-professionals. BRITISH AND GUARANTEED: A look at those who re-create their childhood and the golden age of British engineering by collecting Frank Hornby's celebrated model trains. A BATCHELOR'S DELIGHT: Anne Batchelor has spent four years tracing her family line back to 1527. Among her ancestors is the Elizabethan lutenist, Daniel Bachiler.
May 3, 1989
Witnesses
Year 1989Episode 560 min

Witnesses

Two eyewitness accounts of the past - 500 years apart. The 15th-century letters of Margaret Paston push aside people's misconceptions about medieval women as passive objects. Harriet Walter brings to life a woman of immense strength, resourcefulness, and courage. The second film provides startling testimony to a horrifying episode of post-war murder of Polish Jews, filmed secretly by a crew from the Polish trade union Solidarity. Few films from eastern Europe have raised such disturbing questions.
May 31, 1989
The Night of the Long Knives
Year 1989Episode 660 min

The Night of the Long Knives

In July 1962, Harold Macmillan sacked a third of his Cabinet, including Chancellor of the Exchequer and some of his oldest political friends. Did the normally unflappable Macmillan panic? Was there, as Macmillan claimed, a plot to overthrow him and, if so, who was behind it? Rare archive film and interviews with Macmillan's closest confidants and victims of his purge offer new evidence for this unprecedented act of political butchery.
Jul 27, 1989
Summer of the Bomb
Year 1989Episode 760 min

Summer of the Bomb

Did the atomic bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki really shorten the war and save Allied lives? Based on American archive records, this dramatic account of the decision to use the atomic bomb reveals the reality of power politics - and pinpoints the origins of the Cold War.
Aug 9, 1989
The Land of Lost Content
Year 1989Episode 860 min

The Land of Lost Content

England's land was green but never pleasant. So why do villages and fields conjure up a happy, wholesome past? This film unravels the ironic tale of poverty in countryside and town which led to the invention of a rural fantasy in the years before the First World War. Glimpsing for the first time the new volume of Edith Holden's Country Diary, Timewatch asks why it was that these sweet Edwardian dreams finally came to hide the sour realities altogether.
Sep 6, 1989
Trotsky
Year 1989Episode 960 min

Trotsky

Leon Trotsky was one of the architects of the Russian Revolution and creator of the Red Army. Brilliant and eloquent, and expected to succeed Lenin, he was forced into exile, airbrushed out of Soviet history and murdered in 1940 on the direct orders of Joseph Stalin. Today, as Stalin's terrible heritage is being slowly dismantled, this film, using archive footage and personal memoirs, looks at the life and ideas of the revolutionary who was the dictator's first and greatest enemy. (edited from the 1987 French miniseries 'Trotsky')
Oct 4, 1989
Fascist Legacy: A Promise Fulfilled
Year 1989Episode 1060 min

Fascist Legacy: A Promise Fulfilled

During the Second World War, Italian forces in Yugoslavia murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians. Historians have now exposed the startling political reasons why there was never an Italian equivalent of the Nuremberg Trials. Michael Bryant narrates the story of the implementation of Mussolini's policy of Italianisation in the Balkans. Part 1 of 2.
Nov 1, 1989
Fascist Legacy: A Pledge Betrayed
Year 1989Episode 1160 min

Fascist Legacy: A Pledge Betrayed

At the end of the Second World War, conclusive evidence of war crimes was presented against more than 1,200 high-ranking Italian Fascists. Yet despite constant protests from the governments of Yugoslavia, Greece and Ethiopia, not one Italian war criminal was ever extradited to stand trial for crimes committed during the Italian occupation of their countries. Michael Bryant tells the story of how, for political and military reasons, the British and American governments chose to block the extradition of any Italian war criminals, many of whom by then held key positions in the Italian government. Part 2 of 2.
Nov 8, 1989

Recently Updated Shows

Recently updated shows that might be of your interest.
Irish Blood
Upcoming

Irish Blood

Irish Blood focuses on Fiona, whose path in life is earmarked by her father, Declan, who seemingly abandoned her and her mother on her tenth birthday. After years of channelling anger toward him, to the benefit of her litigious clients, a message from her father sends her to Ireland. There she learns key truths about her father as well as a family that doesn't know she exists, and, moreover, that the story of abandonment that has shaped her entire life - was a lie. A lie intended to protect her and her mother from her father's shady business dealings. Fiona resolves to uncover the full truth about her father and reconnect with the parent she only thought she knew. 

Below Deck
Running

Below Deck

The upstairs and downstairs worlds collide when this young and single crew of "yachties" live, love and work together on board a luxurious mega yacht while tending to the ever-changing needs of their wealthy, demanding charter guests on Below Deck.

Jersey Shore: Family Vacation
Running

Jersey Shore: Family Vacation

The cast of Jersey Shore swore they would always do a vacation together. Now, five years, five kids, three marriages, and who knows how many GTL sessions later, the gang is back together and on vacation in a swanky house in Miami Beach.

Below Deck Sailing Yacht
Running

Below Deck Sailing Yacht

Bravo sets sail on the newest iteration of the highly rated and acclaimed original franchise with Below Deck Sailing Yacht. Trading in the motor yacht famed on Below Deck, this series is set on a luxury sailing yacht with a new crew and equally demanding charter guests looking to follow the wind as they cruise along the crystal-clear blue waters of Corfu, Greece.

GenreTravel
Panorama
Running

Panorama

Panorama is a current affairs programme, featuring interviews and investigative reports on a wide variety of subjects.