USA

Civil Rights, USA | Witness

The programme uses footage from the BBC archives to explore the USA Civil Rights issues of the 1950s and 60s. Includes interviews with Malcolm X ...

Green Book (2018)

New York, 1962: Italian-American nightclub bouncer Tony Lip gets taken on as a driver for acclaimed African American pianist Donald Shirley on a tour of th...

Martin Luther King and the March on Washington

Documentary commemorating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's March on Washington, speaking to the people who organis...

Civil rights movements | People's Century

This excerpt outlines the methods undertaken during the Civil Rights Movement including ''The Little Rock 9'', Sit-ins, ''Freedom R...

KKK: The Fight for White Supremacy

Documentary investigating the Ku Klux Klan. Film-maker Dan Murdoch witnesses first-hand their secretive rituals and hears why their member...

S11E03: Rosa | Doctor Who

The Doctor and her friends find themselves in the Deep South of America. As they encounter a seamstress by the name of Rosa Parks, they begin to wo...

Martin Luther King Jr | Icons

Martin Luther King Jr was arguably the most influential figure of the civil rights movement, King masterminded a campaign which fought not only...

Harriet (2019)

The story of Harriet Tubman, chronicling her escape from slavery and transformation into a leading abolitionist fighter, who freed hundreds of slaves in the y...

Muhammad Ali | Icons

Muhammad Ali's talent and charisma secured the love of his fans, but his attitudes towards race, religion and America's role in the Vietnam War all chal...

Martin Luther King: American Prophet

Since his assassination in 1968, Martin Luther King has become known as a champion of freedom. Oona King goes on a journey through the D...

George Floyd: A Killing That Shook the World | Panorama

Thousands of people have joined marches against racism after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Clive Myrie ...

Rosa Parks | Face to Face

Martin Luther King tells the story of Rosa Parks, the ''Bus Boycott'' and how this lead to his rise a civil rights leader.

01: Phyllis | Mrs. America

Phyllis is made aware of the potential drafting of young women to fight in Vietnam.

04: Betty | Mrs. America

The Supreme Court makes an historic judgement legalising abortion in the United States, and the Women's Caucus agrees not to confront Phyllis Schlaf...

02: Gloria | Mrs. America

Gloria Steinem launches the feminist magazine MS in New York.

Colour discrimination | Face to Face

Martin Luther King recalls his first instance of being discriminated for his race at the age of six.

05: Phyllis & Fred & Brenda & Marc | Mrs. America

With 33 of the necessary 38 states of the Union ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment, Phyllis Schlafly’s campaign has polar...

04: More Angry Than Afraid | Promised Land

The story of four of the most tumultuous years in Chicago's racial history, from 1965 to 1968. Martin Luther Kingcame to Chicago a...

Alvin Ailey: A Legend of American Dance

The story of Alvin Ailey, a visionary African American choreographer who found salvation through dance, told through his own words an...

Segregation and violence | Face to Face

Martin Luther King speaks of his experiences of segregation and violence as a child.

Seven Journeys In The American West | Secondary Schools

The story of the American West through the words of seven eye-witnesses - settlers, gold diggers, ranchers, homestead...

02: Great Plains | How the Wild West Was Won with Ray Mears

Ray Mears finds out how 500,000 square miles of flat, treeless grassland was the setting for Wild West stories of...

03: 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.

The Gold Rush | How the Wild West Was Won with Ray Mears

Ray details the discovery of gold and why its influence drew so many West across America.

02: Billy the Kid | The Wild West

Drama-documentary about Billy the Kid, notorious gunman of the Wild West. What is the case for the defence of a man who lived and died by t...

03: The Gunfight at OK Coral | The Wild West

Drama-documentary after the famous shoot-out, Wyatt Earp was charged with murder and put on trial. So, was Wyatt Earp truly guil...

01: Custer's Last Stand | The Wild West

Drama-documentary exploring General Custer's motives when, on a blistering hot Sunday in June 1876, 366 men of his 7th Cavalry attack...

Cowboys and cattle | How the Wild West Was Won with Ray Mears

Ray meets a third generation cowboy and learns about life as a rancher on the Great Plains, running cattle drives.

The Oregon Trail | How the Wild West Was Won with Ray Mears

Ray explains the route Pioneers would take through the Great Plains and how naturally this was dictated by a river.

Gold and Boomtowns | How the Wild West Was Won with Ray Mears

As interest in gold mining grew, small towns and gold mining businesses developed almost overnight. Ray explore...

The Mayflower Pilgrims: Behind the Myth

Documentary exploring the Pilgrims' journey west across the Atlantic in the 17th century. Celebrated each year at Thanksgiving, the e...

01: Mountains | How the Wild West Was Won with Ray Mears

How the landscapes of America's three great mountain ranges - the Appalachians, the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada - ...

The Donner Party | How the Wild West Was Won with Ray Mears

Ray tells the story of the Donner Party, a group of Pioneers who chose some poor routes through the Sierra Nevada...

S08E12: Roanoke | Horrible Histories

Queen Elizabeth I loses a colony.

Blackfeet | How the Wild West Was Won with Ray Mears

Ray meets the descendants of the Blackfeet Native American tribe. The plentiful bison were the lifeblood of the tribes a...

04: The Line | Seven Wonders of the Industrial World

A drama-documentary about how two corporate giants raced to link the east and west coasts of America by rail.

Pioneer Mountain Men | How the Wild West Was Won with Ray Mears

Ray speaks to a modern day Mountain Man about what life was like for the Pioneers who tried to earn money off...

09: Disaster at Roanoke | This Sceptred Isle: Empire

Christopher Lee's ground-breaking narrative history series telling the story of the growth of Britain's Empire: Disaster...

Outlaws | How the Wild West Was Won with Ray Mears

Ray discovers the truth posses and outlaws, the likes of which we see in Hollywood.

The Pioneers | How the Wild West Was Won with Ray Mears

Ray explains what kind of people the Pioneers were and why they headed West to find a new way of life.

Till (2022)

After black 14-year-old Emmett Till is lynched in Mississippi for offending a white woman, his grieving mother goes public in her fight for justice. Activist org...

S01E10: The Assassination of JFK | Days That Shook the World

The stories of a day that rocked the American presidency: the assassination of its youngest leader, John F. Kenn...

S01E03: The Assassination of MLK | Days That Shook the World

This program follows the day Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Surviving 9/11

A deeply personal film that moves between accounts of the two-hour period when terrorists attacked the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and hijacked Flight 93 and...

9/11: Inside the President's War Room

Twelve hours with the president on 9/11 - with direct testimony from President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and senior staff - as it cha...

S01E00: Apollo 11 Moon Landing | Days That Shook the World

20/07/1969 - The day Apollo 11 landed on the Moon.

Black Peoples of the Americas: 05: Civil Rights in the US | History File

Drama documentary covering the history of civil rights in the USA in the 50's and 60's. Today's stor...

JFK (1991)

Oliver Stone's re-creation of the 1963 Kennedy assassination in Dallas and its aftermath, focusing on the investigations of New Orleans DA Jim Garrison (Kevin Cos...

KKK: The Fight for White Supremacy

Documentary investigating the Ku Klux Klan. Film-maker Dan Murdoch witnesses first-hand their secretive rituals and hears why their member...

The Black American Fight for Freedom

Fifty years on from the promise of equality and the Civil Rights Act, this documentary reveals the moments where America had the chance ...

02: The Road to Repeal | Prohibition: 13 Years That Changed America

It took the rise of Al Capone and a crime wave that swept the nation to convince America that prohibition...

03: Supremacy | American History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley

Lucy Worsley reveals the myths and deceptions in the story of America following the United States' emergenc...

Eruption at Mount St. Helens | Surviving Disaster

Mount St Helens' in Washington State stood almost 10,000 feet high and in 1980 had not erupted for over one hundred years.

The Kennedy Assassination: Beyond Conspiracy

For forty years, conspiracy theories have raged over the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Now, 3D computer animation of the cri...

The Black Panthers | Storyville

Documentary exploring the Black Panther party, its culture and political awakening for black people, which weaves archival footage with the v...

Malcolm X (1992)

Biographical epic about the influential and controversial black nationalist leader, from his early life and career as a small-time gangster to his ministry ...

22: Star Wars: 1981-1988 | Cold War

Reagan's 1983 ''Evil Empire'' speech sets the tone for a more aggressive US posture against the Soviet Union, and the costly arms race is...

9/11 Ten Years On | The Conspiracy Files

A decade after the attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, the Conspiracy Files looks at why some people still question wh...

George Floyd: A Killing That Shook the World | Panorama

Thousands of people have joined marches against racism after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Clive Myrie ...

9/11 - The Truth behind the Third Tower | The Conspiracy Files

Delving into the final mystery of 9/11: a third tower at the World Trade Centre, which along with the Twin Tow...

02: The American Civil War | American History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley

Lucy Worsley shows how the history of the American Civil War has been retold over time, in mov...

Harriet (2019)

The story of Harriet Tubman, chronicling her escape from slavery and transformation into a leading abolitionist fighter, who freed hundreds of slaves in the y...

The Klu Klux Klan | American History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley

Lucy details the origins of the white supremacist group, the Klu Klux Klan, and how one film made by th...

Martin Luther King | American History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley

Lucy explores Martin Luther King's influence on the civil rights act.

Origins of the Civil War | American History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley

Lucy explains the events and discrepancies that lead to the beginning of the American Civil War ...

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Classic western adventure, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford as legendary outlaws Butch and Kid.

Share-cropping | American History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley

Upon the abolition of slavery, races were largely segregated. Former slaves had no money to buy land, so w...

Liverpool and the American Civil War | A House Through Time

David Olusoga investigates Liverpool's connection with the American Civil War, through the story of a resident of...

02: Abraham Lincoln | Walden on Heroes

Brian Walden contends that the civil-war president did not, as is popularly believed, devote his life to a fight to abolish slavery. B...

03: Robert E Lee | Clydebuilt: The Ships That Made the Commonwealth

During the American Civil War, Glasgow shipbuilders and captains made a fortune running the supplies of w...

Gone With the Wind | American History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley

Lucy examines the troublesome themes within America's hugely successful civil war film, ''Gone With th...

Emancipation Proclamation | American History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley

While there was truth to Lincoln ''freeing the slaves'', some confederate states on the borders...

Lincoln's racial views | American History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley

Lucy finds out about Frederick Douglass, an emancipated former slave-turned politician who spoke ...

01: The Roaring Twenties | Prohibition: 13 Years That Changed America

Ed Asner narrates a documentary examining the effects of Prohibition in America in the 1920s and 30s. T...

S03E02: Saint Valentine's Day Massacre | Days That Shook the World

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929.

S03E02: Rule of the Gun | Days That Shook the World

Gunfight at the OK Corral in 1881 and the St Valentine Days Massacre in 1929.

03: Boom and Bust | Twentieth Century History

History programme for schools narrated by John Tidmarsh. Today's programme looks at the 1920s, a prosperous time in the United ...

05: Roosevelt and the New Deal | Twentieth Century History

President F.D. Roosevelt attempted to solve America's economic problems in the 1930s with the New Deal. With the h...

05: 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.

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker achieve growing notoriety as they carry out a series of robberies with their gang in 1930s America.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt | Icons

Paralysed from the waist down, FDR's bold social and economic reforms turned a country on the brink of catastrophe into a superpower, and h...

07: Hoover Dam | Seven Wonders of the Industrial World

Over one hundred people died when Frank Crowe tried to tame the Colorado River by building the Hoover Dam.

Roosevelt | 1929: The Great Crash

The beginning of Roosevelt's presidency and his investigation into the crash.

American Voices: A History of America 1917-1941 | History File

A history of America, 1917-1941, through the eyes of a variety of characters from the era.

08: 1929: Breadline | People's Century

The economic boom of the roaring twenties comes to a sudden halt in 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression. In the years after a dem...

09: Crime and Prohibition | Time to Remember

Material from the 50s newsreel documentary series Time to Remember tells the story of the media circus that surrounded gangsters...

Consumerism and liberty bonds | 1929: The Great Crash

An exploration of the consumerist culture of the roaring twenties in America.

Episode 1 | Ameireaga air Film/America in Colour

Documentary showing 1920s America in colour for the first time.

S03E03: Fact or Fiction: The War of the Worlds | Days That Shook the World

How a 1938 radio production of ''The War of the Worlds'' caused panic in the United States.

06: 1924: On the Line | People's Century

Henry Ford uses Taylorism, division of labour and the assembly line to manufacture automobiles, and other industries in the United S...

03: The Dry Crusade | Prohibition: 13 Years That Changed America

Examining the very beginnings of Prohibition from early colonial roots andnd the settlers of Kansas to the f...

Episode 9 | Ameireaga air Film/America in Colour

In the early 20th century, leisure and recreation transformed American lives. Newly wealthy, the American society filled fre...

Episode 8 | Ameireaga air Film/America in Colour

In the early 20th century, leisure and recreation transformed American lives. Newly wealthy, the American society filled fre...

S03E05: Let Freedom Ring: The Boston Tea Party | Days That Shook the World

The story of the Boston Tea Party.

The Declaration of Independence | American History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley

Lucy introduces the Declaration, its compromises and the different drafts it went through...

The American Revolution | American History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley

Lucy gives a short summary of the American Revolution which is generally accepted historically.

01: The Shot Heard Around the World | Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War

The war for independence is often regarded as a people's struggle for liberty in th...

The American Revolution: 02: A Messy Divorce | Lucy Worsley Investigates

The American Revolution: 01: The Break-Up | Lucy Worsley Investigates

Lucy Worsley investigates the turning points that led to America’s declaration of independence from Bri...

03: The War Moves South | Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War

The British open a new front in the southern colonies, winning a series of victories and findin...

Hamilton The Musical | American History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley

Lucy speaks to a historian about why despite Hamilton's much lauded reception, it could be in danger...

04: The World Turned Upside Down | Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War

By 1781, the British had enjoyed command of the sea and with it the ability to move th...

Paul Revere | American History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley

Lucy explores the different versions of Paul Revere's iconic tale of riding into the night to warn the Patri...

02: American Crisis 1776 | Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War

As Washington is forced out of New York, his army begins to desert, until a daring raid across...

The Liberty Bell | American History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley

The Liberty Bell's history is actually shrouded in fiction, and comes from a story by the most popular a...

French coalition | American History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley

July 4th 1776 may have been ''independence day'', however battles continued where the Americans received...

Concord and the 2nd Amendment | American History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley

Lucy examines the facts behind the mythologised tale of the Patriot militia who defeated th...