State archives in Britain are thought of as being a pristine area in which we preserve, conserve and utilise the nation’s history. The Public Records acts of 1958 and 1967 require government departments to conserve any information that tells us about our shared past, and how we came to know it. Most members of the public assume their reliability. But are they telling us the truth? In 2009, 5 elderly Kenyan war veterans filed a case against the British government in which they claimed that thousands of Kenyan nationals had been subjected to severe acts of inhumane and degrading treatment, torture and arbitrary killings in the 1950s - all at the hands of the British colonial administration. The case would come to upend all our assumptions about archives’ reliability, and about the way that we write British history itself. This fascinating and important documentary tells their incredible story, exposing the depth of the cover up that rocked the establishment and changed the way we view colonial history forever.
On the 73rd anniversary of the firebombing of Dresden, Dan Snow accompanies British veteran Victor Gregg, a POW in Dresden during the raid, as he returns to the city for a historic meeting with Irene Uhlendorf, who was just 4 years old on the night of the bombing. Together they are able to talk a...
The Palace of Westminster is one of the world's most famous buildings: 'the mother of parliaments'. Since the days of Simon de Montfort parliaments having been meeting at this location in the heart of London. Though plagued by controversy and destruction over its long history the site's significa...
Protect and Survive was a series of films made by the British government in the late 1970s and early 80s. The films accompanied a booklet of the same name, which was issued to households across the country detailing suggested precautions and responses to a nuclear attack. Today, these films with ...
