The coronation of the young Queen Elizabeth on June 2nd 1953, the first coronation ever to be televised. Despite the death of Queen Mary on 24 March, the coronation went ahead, as Mary had asked before she died, taking place as planned on 2 June 1953. On 31 August 1997, Diana was fatally injured in a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris, which also caused the deaths of her companion Dodi Fayed and the driver, Henri Paul, acting security manager of the Hôtel Ritz Paris. Millions of people watched her funeral.
28 June 1914 and April 1945 The Story Behind two pistol shots: the single bullet, fired by a young Serb nationalist that triggered World War 1 and the self-administered shot that brought about the end of Adolf Hitler and World War 2.
4 April 1968 and February 1990 How tow men - both intellectuals and determined opposers of racial oppression - came to symbolise the fight foor equality as their lives for their cause.
At exactly 5.32am on August 6th 1945, a B29 Bomber, The Enola Gay, took off from a small island in the South Pacific on a clandestine operation. It's mission? To drop a bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, a bomb unlike any other that would change the world forever. This film dramatises the minute by minute events leading up to the world's first ever atomic bombing. Based on extracts from President Truman's personal diaries whick show the decision-making process reflecting America's real fear that the Japanese would never give up, Japanese eyewitness accounts of the tragedy in Hiroshima, diaries written on board Enola Gay, and the personal testimony of Colonel Paul Tibbets, the man who led the mission so secret not even his crew knew the enormity of what they were doing. One millionth of a second after detonation, Hiroshima ceased to exist as a city. As estimated 100,000 people were killed and 47,000 buildings flattened. Nobody knows exactly how many civilians died in Hiroshima but its impact will be felt forever.
17 July 1918 and 9 November 1989 The Murder of the Russian royal family marked Russia's irrevocable move from a monarchy to a Communist state. Seventy Years later, the fall of the Berlin Wall symbolised the collapse of the ideology.
9 November 1938 and 14 May 1948 Just ten years after the Nazis openly attacked Jews and their property - a huge step on the nightmare spiral to the Holocaust, the 2000 year old dream of a Jewish homeland becomes a reality and the state of Israel is Born.
26 November 1922 and 17 September 1822 Two days that brought ancient Egypt dramatically to life. In 1822, Jean-Francois champollion cracks Egyptian hieroglyphs. One hundred years later, Howard Carter reads the name on a tomb and makes an amazing discovery.
In September 1970 Terrorists hijacked a number of jetliners, flew them to Jordan and kept numerous hostages to enforce their demands. In December 1988 Pan Am flight 103 was blown from the sky killing all aboard and a number of Lockerbie Scotland residents.
2 December 1942 and 26 April 1986 The first controlled nuclear chain reaction heralded the atomic age, but Chernobyl's runaway chain reaction was the first warning. How did the most exciting scientific breakthroughs ever lead to the disaster that the world had dreaded?
22 November 1963 and 8 August 1974 No one could have dreamed or anticipated the seismic shocks America suffered in the 20th century with the assassination of its youngest-ever leader and the disgrace and expulsion of its most successful election winner.
It is 19th October 1977 and Concorde taxis onto the runway at Toulouse Airport. Onboard, the crew are preparing for an historic day - the first supersonic test flight to New York. At JFK airport, protestors are waiting with a hostile welcome, but for the Concorde team and the French and British governments it is a moment that represents the end of an exhausting struggle.
14 October 1947 and 4 January 1967 Compelled by a sense of patriotic duty and driven by incredible bravery, 20 years separate the determined efforts of two mens aim to become the fastest men on the planet.
9 May and 28 August 1963 The intriguing stories behind two of Britain's most audacious robberies centres on the parts played by the central characters mastermind criminals, victims, a getaway driver and the King himself.
22 August 1962 and 20 July 1944 Two assassination attempts that, if successful, might have changed the course of history: the Algerian Secret Army's attempt to shoot President de Gaulle of France and Colonel von Stauffenberg's planting of a bomb under Hitler's desk.
12 April 1633 and 12 April 1961 Two days on which science challenged the conventional view of our place in the universe: April 12, 1633 when Galileo stands trial for heresy for claiming the sun and not the Earth is the centre of the known universe, and exactly 328 years to the day later (1961) when Soviet cosmonaut Major Yuri Gagarin steps from the Earth into space.
September 1824 and 20 November 1953 Two archaeological 'discoveries' which profoundly altered our understanding of the natural world: the first unearthing of the bones of an ancient giant reptile, and the astonishing discovery of the 'missing link' between ape and man - soon to be revealed as an elaborate hoax.
19 June 1953 and 25 May 1951 The differing fates of the most famous Soviet spies are explored as, in the USA, the Rosenbergs face the electric chair for passing atomic secrets to the Soviets and, after a dramatic flight, the British spies Burgess and Maclean find safety in the hands of the KGB.
26 October 1881 and 14 February 1929 From the wild west and the mob-run city come two stories that have entered American mythology: the gunfight in the obscure mining town of Tomestone and Al Copone's frenzied attack on George 'Busgsy' Malone in Chicago.
7 June 1967 By the third day of a six day war, Israeli forces have destroyed egypt's armies in the Sinai, captured the West Bank and seized the Old City of Jurusalem. But the euphoria of victory soon turns to anguish.
