Empire, Slavery and Race

Black Power: A British Story of Resistance

An examination of the Black Power movement in the late 1960s in the UK, surveying both the individuals and the cultural forces tha...

01: What Sort of Boy? | Rainbow City

First episode of a groundbreaking BBC drama series from 1967 about the experience of the West Indian community in Birmingham, featuring ...

03: Calling London | Hidden Empire

June 1943: an RAF plane drops a British agent into occupied France. The agent is a woman, a high-born Sufi Muslim driven by the need for a...

01: The Equalizer | Hidden Empire

A young boy survives the Amritsar Massacre of 1919, in which troops under British command kill hundreds of Indian demonstrators. He vows re...

02: Why You Marry? | Rainbow City

Second episode of a groundbreaking BBC drama series from 1967 about the experience of the West Indian community in Birmingham, featuring Er...

03: A Better Fortune | Rainbow City

Third episode of a groundbreaking BBC drama series from 1967 about the experience of the West Indian community in Birmingham, featuring E...

03: 1965-2011 | George Alagiah: Mixed Britannia

George Alagiah tells the story of couples facing violence on the streets during the 70s, how adoption became a battleground a...

02: 1940-1965 | George Alagiah: Mixed Britannia

George Alagiah tells the story of the GI babies labelled war casualties, the boom in mixed-race couples following mass migrat...

Episode 1 | Empire with David Olusoga

David Olusoga tells the story of the British Empire, from its origins under Elizabeth I to the establishment of colonies in America, th...

01: Martial Races | The World's War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire

David Olusoga challenges our perceptions of the First World War with the stories of the millions of Indian,...

Episode 3 | Empire with David Olusoga

David Olusoga reveals how the Empire reached its maximum size after the First World War but within a generation had begun to collapse, ...

Episode 1 | My Family, Partition and Me: India 1947

Anita Rani marks the 70th anniversary of the Partition of India by exploring its impact on four British families, includi...

Episode 1 | The Birth of Empire: The East India Company

Dan Snow travels through India in the footsteps of the company that revolutionised British lifestyles and laid the fo...

03: Empire | Timelines

An epic sweep through the social history of Britain, from the Norman Conquest to the Miners' Strike.

Episode 2 | Empire with David Olusoga

David Olusoga reveals how the loss of the American colonies led to the colonisation of Australia and how the Indian indenture system wa...

07: Soldiers of Empire | Not Forgotten

In this special edition of Not Forgotten, Ian Hislop uncovers the overlooked stories of soldiers from across the British Empire who fo...

01: Profit and Loss | Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners

In 1834 Britain abolished slavery, a defining and celebrated moment in our national history. What has been largely for...

Black Peoples of the Americas: 01: The Atlantic Slave Trade | History File

The development of the triangular trade is described from its ancient origins, through the Europea...

03: The Jewel in the Crown | British History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley

Lucy explores how British history is a concoction of fibs. She debunks the fibs that surround t...

S03E05: The Independence of India | Days That Shook the World

The story of the Independence of India.

02: Pirates | Britain's Outlaws: Highwaymen, Pirates and Rogues

Sam Willis explores the golden age of piracy during the early 18th century and charts the devastating impact ...

06: Freedom | Michael Wood: The Story of India

Michael Wood examines the British Raj and traces the events that led to the Partition of India in 1947.

20th Century World: 02: The British Empire | History File

The programme uses silhouette images and archive material to illustrate the life of the fictitious Grant family who...

Mahatma Gandhi | Icons

Mahatma Gandhi employed non violent tactics of passive resistance in the face of the largest empire the world had ever known, he not only helped to se...

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...

02: Foreign Legions | The World's War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire

In part two, historian David Olusoga explains how the First World War spread far beyond the mud and trenc...

01: A Taste for Power | Empire

Jeremy Paxman begins by asking how such a small country got such a big head and came to rule a quarter of the world.

Episode 2 | My Family, Partition and Me: India 1947

Anita Rani and her mother Lucky become the first members of their family to return to what is now Pakistan since the Part...

01: A People Stolen | Enslaved with Samuel L Jackson

Samuel L Jackson and a team of journalists and divers explore 400 years of slavery. What happened to the 12 million ensl...

Black Peoples of the Americas: 03: Resistance, Rebllion and Abolition | History File

An overview of the methods used by the abolitionists, such as the famous poster of the s...

02: A Precious Cargo | Enslaved with Samuel L Jackson

Samuel L Jackson examines how, for over 400 years, the transatlantic slave trade became the greatest wealth-generating ...

03: Resistance | Enslaved with Samuel L Jackson

Samuel L Jackson and the team travel through the US to tell the stories of those who resisted slavery, often making the dange...

Black Peoples of the Americas: 02: Everyday Life on a Plantation Island | History File

The schools history series reconstructs the day-to-day experience of slavery for Betty...

Black Peoples of the Americas: 01: The Atlantic Slave Trade | History File

The development of the triangular trade is described from its ancient origins, through the Europea...

04: The Homecoming | Black and British: A Forgotten History

Historian David Olusoga concludes his series with the three African kings who stood up to empire, an irresistible...

The Windrush Generation | Black and British: A Forgotten History

David Olusoga discusses the Windrush Generation.

02: The Price of Freedom | Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners

David Olusoga traces the bitter propaganda war waged between the pro-slavery lobby and the abolitionists.

Episode 1 | The Long Song

Born a slave, July is taken from her mother to a plantation house and forced to work for the odious Caroline. But as she matures she starts to lear...

02: Freedom | Black and British: A Forgotten History

In the second part of his four-part series, historian David Olusoga explores the business of slavery and remembers the b...

The Extraordinary Equiano

The story of Olaudah Equiano, a black slave who emerged from the horrors of the African holocaust to become an English gentleman, marry a white wom...

04: Our People | Enslaved with Samuel L Jackson

Samuel L Jackson and the team examine the events that ended the slave trade and piece together the heritage and identity take...

John Blanke | Black and British: A Forgotten History

David Olusoga discusses Catherine of Aragon's black servants.

Episode 1 | Slavery: Scotland's Hidden Shame

David Hayman presents the first of a two-part documentary exploring Scotland's role in the transatlantic slave trade.

Nelson Mandela: One Incredible Life

Actress Lenora Crichlow sets off to South Africa to discover the story of how Nelson Mandela brought peace to his country and what he mea...

The beginnings of the British slave trade | Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners

David Olusoga investigates the beginnings of the British slave trade in Barbados.

02: Sugar Dynasty | The Slavery Business

A drama-documentary chronicling the true story of the Beckford family, a ruthless 18th-century dynasty which ran Britain's first glo...

04: Making a Fortune | Empire

Jeremy Paxman travels from Jamaica, where sugar made plantation owners rich on the backs of slaves, to Calcutta.

Morant Bay Rebellion | Black and British: A Forgotten History

David Olusoga discusses the legacy of the slave trade in Jamaica in the decades after abolition.