Synopsis
Dan Snow recreates a map of Europe on the beach to explain how Britain became involved in World War I.
- Programme: Learning Zone
- Episode: Britain and the Start of WW1
- Channel: BBC Two
- Broadcast year: 2013
- History | British history beyond 1066
Licence: ERA Licence required
UK only
Staff and students of licensed education establishments only
Cannot be adapted
Add Notes
More clips from Learning Zone
A soldier's daughter | Learning Zone
A soldier's daughter | Learning Zone
Sarah was a child in Bolton during the Second World War. With family friend Tyler, she remembers the outbreak of the war and the effect ...
An evacuee's adventure | Learning Zone
An evacuee's adventure | Learning Zone
Betty lived in Cardiff during the war and was evacuated to Aberdare. With her family friend, Anesha, she retraces the journey and desc...
Ancient Egypt | Learning Zone
Ancient Egypt | Learning Zone
A visit to Ancient Egypt, and life 5000 years ago begins by exploring houses and homes, and contrasting them with our homes today.
Ancient Sumer | Learning Zone
Ancient Sumer | Learning Zone
We find out about many of the inventions developed in the area, as well as some of the reasons why the Sumer eventually died out.
Anglo-Saxon Britain | Learning Zone
Anglo-Saxon Britain | Learning Zone
One of the children is sick, and this is used as a means to explore the different approaches to medicine and medical care in Saxon times.
Baby Games | The Learning Zone
Baby Games | The Learning Zone
Psychiatrist Daniel Stern discusses the ways in which parents play with their babies.
Baghdad Circa 900 AD | Learning Zone
Baghdad Circa 900 AD | Learning Zone
Baghdad at the time was the largest city in the world and was the centre of the world’s great trade routes.
Bar management | The Learning Zone
Bar management | The Learning Zone
A bar manager gives a short explanation of how his job works and what you need to make it in the industry.
Benin | Learning Zone
Benin | Learning Zone
Benin is famous for its bronzes. This film explores how they are made, using the 'lost wax' process, and why.
Bronze Age Britain | Learning Zone
Bronze Age Britain | Learning Zone
Life in Bronze Age Britain through the eyes of one family as they learn how copper and tin is mined, and make bronze using a furnace.
Bronze Age Stonehenge gold | Learning Zone
Bronze Age Stonehenge gold | Learning Zone
There are also lots of barrow burials around Stonehenge and one of them, Bush Barrow Man, is used to find out about Bronze Age times.
Bronze Age: making metal | Learning Zone
Bronze Age: making metal | Learning Zone
Raksha visits Butser Ancient Farm to make a bronze age axe head exactly the way Bronze Age man would have done so.
Bronze Age: wool | Learning Zone
Bronze Age: wool | Learning Zone
Raksha visits the Bronze Age at an ancient farm and learns how to make woollen cloth.
Canals | Learning Zone
Canals | Learning Zone
In the 1770s canals linked the country, carrying goods cheaply and efficiently. Without them it is hard to see how the Industrial Revolution could hav...
Children in Roman Britain | Learning Zone
Children in Roman Britain | Learning Zone
A look at how tough life was for the British Roman children and how their education was limited.
Coal | Learning Zone
Coal | Learning Zone
The Industrial Revolution changed Britain and the world fundamentally. It began in Britain, and coal was a key factor.
Daily life in Ancient Egypt | Learning Zone
Daily life in Ancient Egypt | Learning Zone
Dr Joann Fletcher visits the village of Pa-Demi to discover more about the daily lives and tombs of Kha and Merit.
Food Service Management | The Learning Zone
Food Service Management | The Learning Zone
A quick run-down of how a catering business works.
Head of hotel reception | The Learning Zone
Head of hotel reception | The Learning Zone
Head of reception details how she got into the job and what skills are needed.
How hurricanes are formed by Earth's rotation | Learning Zone
How hurricanes are formed by Earth's rotation | Learning Zone
Physicist Helen Czerski explains that hurricanes happen because the earth is rotating. She shows how, because t...
More resources about The world wars and their home fronts
They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)
They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)
Transforming archive footage more than a century old, Peter Jackson brings to life the people who can best tell the story of World War I: the ...
Dunkirk (2017)
Dunkirk (2017)
Hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops find themselves in an impossible situation. Christopher Nolan's epic wartime action thriller.
5: Little Britain | Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain
5: Little Britain | Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain
The Wall Street Crash and the rise of fascist politics in Europe caused chaos in 1930s Britain.
Kate Adie's Women of World War One
Kate Adie's Women of World War One
Distinguished war reporter Kate Adie examines the impact of women's work on the Home Front during the First World War.
6: Britannia at Bay | Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain
6: Britannia at Bay | Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain
The series concludes with an account of Britain during the Second World War, starting with the events at Dun...
Blitz Spirit with Lucy Worsley
Blitz Spirit with Lucy Worsley
Lucy Worsley explores the lives of six real people who lived, worked and volunteered during the Blitz, highlighting the government's reliance ...
Episode 2 | Back in Time for Tea
Episode 2 | Back in Time for Tea
The Ellis family discover how life has changed for northern working class families. The postwar years see the family on rations with no frid...
1: London | Blitz Cities
1: London | Blitz Cities
EastEnders star Shane Richie travels around his home city of London to explore the history of the Blitz there.
7: Britain Alone | Twentieth Century History
7: Britain Alone | Twentieth Century History
Programme looks at how Britain fought Germany alone after the fall of Europe in June 1940.
Clydeside Blitz | Blitz: The Bombs That Changed Britain
Clydeside Blitz | Blitz: The Bombs That Changed Britain
Clydeside was almost entirely destroyed in the Blitz.
Episode 1 | 1940s House
Episode 1 | 1940s House
Reality show where a contemporary family are placed in a house for a number of months in an attempt to live under the conditions experienced in warti...
Episode 1 | Back in Time for Tea
Episode 1 | Back in Time for Tea
The Ellis family travel back in time to reveal how life has changed for northern working-class families over the past 100 years. Their exper...
God Bless You, Mr Chamberlain
God Bless You, Mr Chamberlain
Program marking the 50th anniversary of the Munich Agreement. Robert Harris finds in Chamberlain a strong man who believed he was right to hope...
2: Liverpool | Blitz Cities
2: Liverpool | Blitz Cities
Liverpool actor Ricky Tomlinson, who was born in 1939, looks at the effect the Blitz had on his home city.
Blitz experience | Blitz: The Bombs That Changed Britain
Blitz experience | Blitz: The Bombs That Changed Britain
Survivors share their experiences of the Blitz in Hull. Contains some strong language.
Bombing London | Blitz Spirit with Lucy Worsley
Bombing London | Blitz Spirit with Lucy Worsley
Covering the Germans bombing London and the impact including government censorship of the newspapers.
Dunkirk (2004)
Dunkirk (2004)
The Allies are in retreat, but the Navy can only pick up a few soldiers and Churchill is advised to make peace to save the rest.
Postwar: 1: The Rejection | Politically
Postwar: 1: The Rejection | Politically
David Runciman tells the story of the 1945 election and the dawn of a new age. Why did Winston Churchill find himself so decisively r...
2: Road to War | Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain
2: Road to War | Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain
The country basks in a hot Edwardian summer, but the assassination of an archduke in Sarajevo presages world war.
Episode 3 | Blitz: The Bombs That Changed Britain
Episode 3 | Blitz: The Bombs That Changed Britain
Episode three follows a bomb that fell on Jellicoe Street in the Scottish town of Clydebank.
More from Dan Snow
China and Hong Kong | World's Busiest Cities
China and Hong Kong | World's Busiest Cities
Dan Snow investigates Hong Kong's precarious relationship with China.
New York: America's Busiest City
New York: America's Busiest City
Anita Rani, Ade Adepitan, Ant Anstead and Dan Snow try commuting New York-style, joining 5.5 million commuters on the iconic Staten Island f...
1066 Unpacked | The One Show
1066 Unpacked | The One Show
Dan Snow recruits a team of volunteers to demonstrate the movements made by the rivals to the throne and how King Harold's armies attempted to d...
The Battle for the Isle of Wight | Armada: 12 Days to Save England
The Battle for the Isle of Wight | Armada: 12 Days to Save England
Dan Snow discusses the English and Spanish tactics in the battle for the Isle of Wight.
Learning Zone | The Birth of Empire: The East India Company
Learning Zone | The Birth of Empire: The East India Company
A compilation of short films made specially for schools on the rise and fall of the East India Company, which acc...
Dan Snow's History of Congo | This World
Dan Snow's History of Congo | This World
Dan Snow travels to Congo to reveal how its troubled history has turned one of the world's potentially richest countries into one of...
Episode 2 | D-Day: The Last Heroes
Episode 2 | D-Day: The Last Heroes
The concluding part of historian Dan Snow's documentary series tells the powerful and heroic stories of those who risked their lives on th...
3: Industrial New York | Filthy Cities
3: Industrial New York | Filthy Cities
Dan Snow looks at 19th century New York when migrants arrived in a city consumed by squalor, stench and soot.
04: Sea Change | Empire of the Seas: How the Navy Forged the Modern World
04: Sea Change | Empire of the Seas: How the Navy Forged the Modern World
Dan Snow looks at how the 19th-century Navy used gunboat diplomacy to push British interests furthe...
6: 1973 Middle East | Peter and Dan Snow: 20th Century Battlefields
6: 1973 Middle East | Peter and Dan Snow: 20th Century Battlefields
Peter and Dan Snow unpick the fighting that broke out in 1973. Known by some as the Yom Kippur War, it wa...
7: Culloden: The Jacobites' Last Stand | Battlefield Britain
7: Culloden: The Jacobites' Last Stand | Battlefield Britain
Dan and Peter Snow use computer animation and dramatised testimony to relive defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie's h...