The History Express

Princess Diana: A Life After Death is different from many of the recent programs commemorating the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana's death. It is not just an anniversary program. It is a powerful summary of Princess Diana's historical, political and social legacy. Princess Diana's death set the British nation thinking deeply about its monarchy and its royal family. In the unstable summer of 1997 a strange atmosphere existed throughout Britain. The country's young Prime Minister Tony Blair had just won an election with a big majority and the tabloid press were pursuing Princess Diana after her separation from Prince Charles. Events were already leading to a full-scale crisis for the British monarchy. The terrible sudden and completely unexpected death of Diana changed Britain. This powerful and original new program looks at the history of Princess Diana's life after her death. The question of the condition of Britain is portrayed in the program - on the one hand through the life of her sons and family after her death and on the other through the collective memory we have through the images and controversies of Diana's life. The British monarchy is now trusted more than ever before. It is politicians who have lost trust. The selfless aspects of Princess Diana's wide interests continue to act as a form of both emotional ballast and inspiration to the British nation and the world at large. The distinguished contributors include Sir Anthony Seldon, Alastair Campbell, Jeffrey Archer, Emily Nash, Katie Nicholl, Catherine Mayer, Richard Kay and Sarah, Viscountess Bangor. Backed by a full orchestral soundtrack, Princess Diana: A Life After Death takes a lasting approach to describing the life of one of the most important women who has ever lived. The programme is intended to have a long life.

This is the story of Sarah Ferguson, once Her Royal Highness, Duchess of York - now an exile from the royal family - a woman who had everything, then threw it away when forced to exploit her name during a huge scandal.

Santa Claus—otherwise known as Saint Nicholas or Kris Kringle— has a long history steeped in Christmas traditions. Today, he is thought of mainly as the jolly man in red who brings toys to good girls and boys on Christmas Eve, but his story stretches all the way back to the 3rd century, when Saint Nicholas walked the earth and became the patron saint of children. Find out more about the history of Santa Claus from his earliest origins to the shopping mall Santas of today, and discover how two New Yorkers–Clement Clark Moore and Thomas Nast–were major influences on the Santa Claus millions of children wait for each Christmas Eve.

The legend of Santa Claus can be traced back hundreds of years to a monk named St. Nicholas. It is believed that Nicholas was born sometime around 280 A.D. in Patara, near Myra in modern-day Turkey. Much admired for his piety and kindness, St. Nicholas became the subject of many legends. It is said that he gave away all of his inherited wealth and traveled the countryside helping the poor and sick. One of the best-known St. Nicholas stories is the time he saved three poor sisters from being sold into slavery or prostitution by their father by providing them with a dowry so that they could be married. Over the course of many years, Nicholas’s popularity spread and he became known as the protector of children and sailors. His feast day is celebrated on the anniversary of his death, December 6. This was traditionally considered a lucky day to make large purchases or to get married. By the Renaissance, St. Nicholas was the most popular saint in Europe. Even after the Protestant Reformation, when the veneration of saints began to be discouraged, St. Nicholas maintained a positive reputation, especially in Holland.

St. Nicholas made his first inroads into American popular culture towards the end of the 18th century. In December 1773, and again in 1774, a New York newspaper reported that groups of Dutch families had gathered to honor the anniversary of his death.

The name Santa Claus evolved from Nick’s Dutch nickname, Sinter Klaas, a shortened form of Sint Nikolaas (Dutch for Saint Nicholas). In 1804, John Pintard, a member of the New York Historical Society, distributed woodcuts of St. Nicholas at the society’s annual meeting. The background of the engraving contains now-familiar Santa images including stockings filled with toys and fruit hung over a fireplace. In 1809, Washington Irving helped to popularize the Sinter Klaas stories when he referred to St. Nicholas as the patron saint of New York in his book, The History of New York. As his prominence grew, Sinter Klaas was described as everything from a “rascal” with a blue three-cornered hat, red waistcoat, and yellow stockings to a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat and a “huge pair of Flemish trunk hose.”

Explore the secret life of one of history's most iconic authors, CS Lewis ("The Chronicles of Narnia") in this doc. Lewis biographer AN Wilson looks behind the curtain of the author who dreamed up Narnia - his passions, goals, and aspirations.

Britain's Treasures from the Air tours more than 40 sites of worldwide importance, such as Stonehenge, the Giant's Causeway and the Lake District, to see how historic landscapes, houses, castles, gardens and buildings have been preserved as landmarks of British history. Both aerial tours are accompanied by thoroughly researched and fascinating narration, and the views captured by the state-of-the-art High Definition camera are breathtaking.

Tells the extraordinary story of Britain's fastest growing religious group - Wicca - and of its creator, an eccentric Englishman called Gerald Gardner. Historian and leading expert in Pagan studies, Professor Ronald Hutton, explores the unlikely origins of modern pagan witchcraft and experiences first hand its growing influence throughout Britain today. Gardner's story and the story of Wicca itself is a bizarre one. Born of a nudist colony in 1930s Dorset, Wicca rapidly grew from a small new forest coven to a worldwide religion in the space of just 70 years. Its a journey that takes in tales of naked witches casting spells to ward off Hitler, tabloid hysteria about human sacrifices and Gerald Gardner himself appearing on Panorama. The film tells of a peculiar man who saw that the world was ready for a new religion based on magic, sex nature and ritual - and gave it to us. In doing so, he created in Wicca, the UK's first religion, one that has taken on a life of its own and is today counted amongst one of the fastest growing faith groups in the world. Through interviews and encounters with Wicca followers, experts and these who knew Gardner, Professor Hutton delves into this unusual world and the story of how its eccentric founder created a religion that is today increasingly seen as a valid alternative to the more orthodox faith groups.

Canada

Battle

Canada

Once upon a time, a pre-teen princess met a dashing young prince. While she didn't lose her glass slipper, her heart was another matter entirely.

The love story of Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, has all the makings of a modern fairy tale. Born Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary in 1926, “Lilibet,” as she is called by her family, was the older daughter of the second son of the reigning King of England and therefore had no reason to think she’d ever become Queen. Philip had been born a Prince of Greece and Denmark in 1921, the nephew of the reigning King of Greece, but by the time he was two years old, his uncle had been deposed and his family exiled to France. Although they were cousins (here’s how they’re related), their lives couldn’t have been more different when they first met in 1934 at the wedding of Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark to Prince George, Duke of Kent.

The first time they met

Eight-year-old Elizabeth was a member of the British royal family, living in a palace with her beloved parents and sister and receiving her education at home. Thirteen-year-old Philip, although descended from royal blood on both sides, lacked stability—his father had abandoned the family to live with a mistress in Monte Carlo, his mother was committed to a mental hospital with schizophrenia, and Philip was financially at the mercy of his wealthier family members who shipped him off to a boarding school they chose because it was the least expensive option. Don’t miss these facts about the Queen you never knew.

The next time they met

Three years later, in May of 1937, both Elizabeth and Philip attended the coronation of King George VI, Elizabeth’s father, who’d unexpectedly found himself King after the death of his father, King George V, and a year later, the abdication of his brother, King Edward VIII (for the love of American divorcee, Wallis Simpson). At that point, the lives of Elizabeth and Philip began to diverge even further, with Elizabeth finding herself heir presumptive to the throne and Philip’s life taking a turn for the worse with the death of his sister, Cecile (along with her husband, two children, unborn child, and mother-in-law) in a plane crash and the death of his guardian, Lord Milford Haven, to bone cancer.

The time they fell in love

It was only a matter of happenstance that the two met again in July 1939. Elizabeth, now 13, was visiting the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, Devon with her parents and sister, and Philip, 18, who had enrolled at the school two years earlier, happened to be their sole tour-guide, but only because two other cadets had contracted mumps.

It was love at first sight, at least for the wide-eyed young teen Elizabeth, who wrote Philip letters and kept a framed photo of the handsome young man by her bed. While Philip certainly kept up his end of the correspondence, he didn’t think of it as more than an “amusing diversion,” according to Devon Live, at least initially. By Christmas of 1943, however, Philip was Elizabeth’s guest at the royal family’s Christmas celebration at Windsor Castle. These are the “facts” about Queen Elizabeth that just aren’t true.

The obstacle they had to overcome…

As with any fairy tale in which the prince and princess must overcome an obstacle before living happily ever after, the story of Elizabeth and Philip hit a bit of a snag before the happy ending. While King George VI wanted nothing more than for the happiness of his beloved “Lilibet,” he had his doubts about Philip. Not only was Philip lacking financial independence, but he was also considered a bit “rough” around the edges.

Nevertheless, by 1947, Philip had George’s permission and proposed to Elizabeth in Scotland with a ring he’d designed himself. He even renounced his birth titles, becoming Philip Mountbatten, and became a naturalized British subject. Of course, she said “yes.”

The night before the wedding, King George VI bestowed upon Philip the titles of Duke of Edinburgh,