Timewatch - Season 13 / Year 1994

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Episodes

Forgotten Heroes - Merchant Seamen at War

Year 1994Episode 160 min

Forgotten Heroes - Merchant Seamen at War

One In four British merchant seamen died during the Second World War. Life on board ship was dangerous, poorly paid and carried a far higher casualty rate than any of the armed services. Yet their bravery and sacrifices have barely been recognised. In this programme the merchant seamen who faced the North Atlantic storms and the deadly U-boat menace to keep Britain supplied during the war years tell their own brave and moving story.

The Real Rasputin

Year 1994Episode 260 min

The Real Rasputin

When Grigorii Efimovich Rasputin was murdered in 1916, rumour and political expediency set to work to paint him as a villain, responsible for the downfall of the Romanov empire, an insane alcoholic capable of any sexual extravagance. This film biography reappraises the myth of the "Mad Monk", using new information as well as first-hand accounts to rescue Rasputin from unjust historians.

Spies in the Sky

Year 1994Episode 360 min

Spies in the Sky

Revealed: The RAF undertook secret missions over the Soviet Union long before the CIA's Gary Powers, a U2 spy-plane pilot, was shot down and put on trial in 1960. Revealed: A British pilot flew a U2 on sorties while on detachment to a unit working with the CIA in Turkey. Revealed: More than 40 Allied aircraft were shot down in 20 years of an undeclared espionage war, and the fate of 138 aircrew is still unknown. Even though the files on many of these incidents remain classified, this programme uncovers many untold stories, listens to the British, American and Soviet points of view, and also hears from the relatives of missing airmen.

Presumed Guilty – A Women's History of Divorce 1945-1969

Year 1994Episode 460 min

Presumed Guilty – A Women's History of Divorce 1945-1969

In the decades leading up to reform of the divorce laws in 1969, thousands of women suffered the injustices of a system that treated a failed marriage as a criminal offence. Timewatch tells the stories of some of these women, and the terrible price they paid to end their marriages.

Racism or Realism? - A History of Immigration

Year 1994Episode 560 min

Racism or Realism? - A History of Immigration

While the British government publicly operated an open-door policy to immigrants, in private it was terrified about the growing black population. Documents released under the 30-year rule and obtained by Timewatch reveal the government's true concerns were for interbreeding and therefore diluting the essential British character, rising crime, and health problems as immigrants came from colonies riddled with disease. Jonathan Dimbleby hosts a debate with representatives from the government and civil service in the 50s and 60s including Enoch Powell and John Bean, a founder member of the British National Party.

Year 1994Episode 660 min

Seeds of War

The question of how the First World War was started has been one of the great controversies of the 20th century. The flashpoint was the assassination in Sarajevo of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg throne. But it was the reaction to his death of a handful of imperial warlords that led to four years of fighting and the death of over eight million people. The producers of this documentary, marking the 80th anniversary of Franz Ferdinand's death, have been round Europe - from Sarajevo to St Petersburg - culling archive film from eight countries to piece together the mysteries and intrigues that led to the Great War.

The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition

Year 1994Episode 760 min

The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition

An entire popular mythology has made the Spanish Inquisition a byword for human evil - sadistic, fanatical and omnipotent. But in reality it was none of these things. How did the truth come to be so distorted? Through special access to the secrets of the Inquisition's own archives, Timewatch presents a very different version of history's most notorious institution. NEW SERIES.

Hitler's Secret Weapons

Year 1994Episode 860 min

Hitler's Secret Weapons

In the final few months of the Second World War, Hitler's revolutionary V1 and V2 missiles terrorised southern England. In London alone, 25,000 homes were levelled and 8,000 people killed as this country became the first to suffer major ballistic missile bombardment from beyond its borders. In remarkable film footage, screened for the first time, of the weapons in various stages of planning and production, Nazi archives reveal how Germany established a technological advantage that could have changed the outcome of the Second World War.

Year 1994Episode 960 min

Flames of War

A film about the horrors of the English Civil War, using letters, diaries and memoirs of ordinary people in 17th-century England. The historical characters of Parliamentarian Lord Saye and Sele, and Royalist Sir Edmund Verney, are represented by their own descendants. Other characters - a soldier, a lawyer, and a political activist - are represented by their modern day counterparts.

Age of the Sphinx

Year 1994Episode 1060 min

Age of the Sphinx

The tale of one man's attempt to rewrite the history of the world by redating Egypt's greatest mystery, the Sphinx. Until now, no one can say for sure why, when or by whom the famous statue was carved. The experts think it is Egyptian and 4,500 years old, but maverick investigator John West claims to have new and conclusive evidence that the Sphinx was constructed many thousands of years before the Pharaohs.

Krushchev – The Peasant Premier

Year 1994Episode 1160 min

Krushchev – The Peasant Premier

In the centenary year of his birth, and using previously unseen home movies, this film explores the contradictions of the Ukrainian peasant's son. He contributed to the crises in Berlin and Cuba, yet he hated the arms race. As Stalin's henchman he had plenty of blood on his hands, yet he denounced his former master and ensured that the terror would never return.

Memo from Machiavelli – How to Succeed in British Politics

Year 1994Episode 1260 min

Memo from Machiavelli – How to Succeed in British Politics

Niccolo Machiavelli's name is synonymous with political intrigue, he was a political pragmatist, and his best-known book "The Prince" is as relevant today as it was in 16th-century Italy. Ian Richardson reads extracts.

Year 1994Episode 1360 min

Typhoid Mary

Story of the woman judged to be such a danger to public health that she was incarcerated by the city of New York for 23 years. In the winter of 1906, Dr George Soper was summoned to Oyster Bay, Long Island, to investigate a mystery. Why had typhoid fever broken out in the house of a rich New York banker? He uncovered an extraordinary trail of sickness and death left by roving Irish cook Mary Mallon. Two of the people who met Typhoid Mary in her isolation hospital speak for the first time about their mysterious friend. Her story quickly became a medical legend which still has resonance today. Faced with an AIDS epidemic, does the state have a right to lock up people for the good of society? SERIES END.

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