Watch Timewatch (1982) Online!
Timewatch is a long-running British television series showing documentaries on historical subjects, spanning all human history. It was first broadcast on 29 September 1982 and is produced by the BBC, the Timewatch brandname is used as a banner title in the UK, but many of the individual documentaries can be found on US cable channels without the branding.
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Episode 1 - Who Killed Ivan the Terrible?
Release Date: 2005-01-29Criminologist David Wilson conducts an investigation into the death of Russia's first dictator, who ruled the country during the 16th century. Beginning with rumours that Ivan was strangled by enemies close to him, the historical murder mystery then takes Wilson across Russia and on to the court of Queen Elizabeth I. Forensic science finally reveals the way in which Ivan was dispatched - but who was responsible?
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Episode 2 - Murder in Rome
Release Date: 2005-03-04Rome, 81 BC: Sextus Roscius is accused of patricide. If found guilty, he faces a brutal execution. Defending him is a young lawyer - Cicero. Using the actual trial record, this drama reconstructs one of the most celebrated murder trials in history. NEW SERIES 1/5.
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Episode 3 - Who Killed Stalin?
Release Date: 2005-03-11When Stalin's death from a brain hemorrhage was announced in March 1953, the true details surrounding his death were immediately suppressed: the Soviet Communist Party's power would crumble if foul play was suspected. Acclaimed historian Simon Sebag-Montefiore plays detective, travelling to Moscow to investigate. For the first time, the content of secret KGB files is examined and the official version of Stalin's death is denounced as lies, while interviews with witnesses and experts present an array of motives and suspects. 2/5.
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Episode 4 - Princess Margaret: A Love Story
Release Date: 2005-03-25Her romance with a dashing fighter pilot was the stuff of fairy tales - yet the prospect of marriage between the Queen's sister and Group Captain Peter Townsend, a divorced commoner, divided opinion. In 1955 she ended two years of tabloid speculation by choosing duty over love - but was it a needless sacrifice?
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Episode 5 - The Killer Wave of 1607
Release Date: 2005-04-01It's 9am on 20 January 1607: a 12ft-high wall of water devastates the counties of the Bristol Channel, killing in the region of 2,000. The catastrophe altered the coastline for ever - yet it's been all but forgotten. Scientists Ted Bryant and Simon Haslett team up to find archaeological evidence to support their belief that the event was not a freak storm but a tsunami.
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Episode 6 - Britain's Lost Colosseum
Release Date: 2005-05-20A love of bloody spectacle led the Romans to build amphitheatres all over their Empire. In Britain there were at least 25, the largest in Chester where archaeologists Tony Wilmott and Dan Garner spend three months excavating a complex site of ruins. With the help of computer animation, they bring the amphitheatre back to life.
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Episode 7 - The Year Without Summer
Release Date: 2005-05-27Mount Tambora in eastern Indonesia unleashed the biggest volcanic blast ever in April 1815, a cataclysmic event that could have provoked a change in climate around the world. Thousands starved to death, lurid skies inspired the artist Turner and, out of the freakish cold, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was born. On opposite sides of the globe, two experts investigate.
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Episode 8 - The Gunpowder Plot
Release Date: 2005-11-04In 1605 a group of angry young Catholic men decided to wipe out the monarchy and government by blowing up the Houses of Parliament. To mark the 400th anniversary of the infamous Gunpowder Plot, Timewatch attempts to establish why the conspirators had became so radicalised under the reign of King James I and assesses just how close the plotters came to achieving their aims. 1/4.
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Episode 9 - Pol Pot: The Journey to the Killing Fields
Release Date: 2005-11-11A focus on the man responsible for the deaths of almost two million Cambodians. Dramatic reconstructions, the testimony of acquaintances, and the words of the Khmer Rouge leader himself combine to chart his rise to power and his use of terror and hunger to sustain his new regime. 2/4.
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Episode 10 - Children of the Doomed Voyage
Release Date: 2005-11-18On 17 September 1940 a German U-boat attacked the evacuee ship SS Benares en route to Canada, killing 258 of the 401 on board, including 80 of 100 child passengers. Sixty-five years on, those still living recall how they escaped death by hypothermia and drowning. 3/4.
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Episode 11 - Inside the Mind of Adolf Hitler
Release Date: 2005-11-25Psychological analysis of the biggest madman of the 20th century. How in 1943, a team of Harvard psychologists arrived at startlingly accurate conclusions from a profile they drew up of the Führer, in a bid to predict his future conduct. 4/4.