Days That Shook the World: Season 3

From the tragedies of history to the triumphs of scientific development; these are the landmarks of our time that, when juxtiposed, provide a distillation of history's defining experiences. On each of these days, the lives of millions were changed forever. Season three examines the gunfight at the OK Corral and the St Valentine's Day Massacre; the fine line between fact and fiction that was blurred by the publication of The Hitler Diaries and Orson Wells radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds; and popular uprisings with the flight of the last Iranian Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and the execution of former Romanian president Nicolai Ceausescu.

Episode 1. The War to End All Wars

11 November 1918

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month 1918, Armistice is declared in Europe, bringing to an end the war to end all wars. For over four years the Allied armies joined lately by the US have fought the Germans in bloody, violent and often-futile trench warfare. British casualties alone total over 2 million. This film tells the dramatic story of the final days of the war, as officers knowingly lead their soldiers to their deaths and Germany turns to anarchy. And on a railway siding in a wood in France, hostile negotiations between the Allied and the German delegates urgently take place. It is a race to end the war.

Episode2. Battle for the Holy City

07 June 1967

On 7 June 1967, the third day of the Six Day War, Israeli forces complete the destruction of Egypt's armies in the Sinai, capture the entire West Bank of the River Jordan, and seize the Old City of Jerusalem. By the time the war ends three days later, Israel has quadrupled the territory under her rule. But the euphoria of victory has turned to anguish as the unresolved issues of this remarkable war continue to plague relations between Israelis and Arabs today.

Episode 3. The Battle of Midway

04 June 1942

In the space of just four minutes, at a tiny Atoll in the Pacific Ocean called Midway, the entire course of World War Two was transformed. On 4th June 1942 - just six months after Pearl Harbour - the massed forces of the US and Japanese fleets met for a decisive showdown. Thanks to both sides' use of a relatively new piece of technology - the aircraft carrier - this battle would be decided without the ships of either fleet ever coming within sight of each other. At Midway, America's carrier pilots destroyed Japan's best ships and killed nearly four thousand men - the cream of Japan's naval elite. It was a blow the Japanese would never recover from, making the outcome of the conflict in the Pacific virtually inevitable and releasing precious American military resources for the conflict in Europe.

Episode 4. The Road To Revolution

25 December 1989 and 16 january 1979

It is Christmas Day, 1989. In Bucharest, the capital of Romania, a firing squad takes aim. Nicolae Ceaucescu, hated dictator of the Romanian people, falls dead alongside his wife Elena. Within hours, pictures of the bullet-riddled bodies are flashed around the world, as the last of the Eastern European states declares its independence of Communist rule and foreshadows the death of the Soviet dream.

Ten years earlier, an event in Iran paved the way for a new ideology that would shape the world forever. On 16 January 1979, a Boeing 707 lifts off from Teheran International Airport. At the controls, Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran. He is leaving his ancestral homeland as the people take to the streets, burning his picture and tearing holes in banknotes bearing the imperial symbol. He will never return. Meanwhile, in a modest Paris suburb, his successor, Ayatollah Khomeini, awaits the call that will bring him out of exile to a tumultuous welcome...

Episode 5. Rule of the Gun

26 October 1881 and 14 February 1929

At 3pm on 26 October 1881, 30 shots rang out in 30 seconds in the OK Corral in the obscure mining town of Tombstone, Arizona. In that short half-minute, the lives of three men were ended and the men who killed them - Wyatt Earp and his brothers Morgan and Virgil, along with a psychopathic dentist called Doc Holliday - would be immortalised. The most enduring legend of Wild West folklore was born.

Chicago: February 14, 1929. Al Capone has ordered a reprisal hit on his bitter rival George ‘Bugsy' Malone. The ensuing carnage cost the lives of seven men and awoke America to a new brand of unbridled lawlessness on its streets. No one was ever brought to justice for the crime that became known as The St Valentine's Massacre.

Using new evidence and testimonies that have never been made public before, this episode casts new light on the most spectacular mob slaying in history.

Episode 6. The Cost of Betrayal

19 June 1953 and 25 May 1951

It is 8pm on 19 June 1953. At Sing-Sing prison, New York, Julius Rosenberg and his wife Ethel are due to be executed by electric chair. Thousands of supporters parade on two continents and radio broadcasts are sponsored on their behalf. Letters asking for clemency pour into the White House, and Pope Pius XII intercedes to ask for mercy. The couple's two young sons marched outside the prison with signs reading "Don't Kill My Mommy and Daddy". Now they, like their parents, sit powerless, hoping for a miracle. But, sentenced for passing atomic secrets to the Soviets, a crime described by their judge as "worse than murder", there is to be no reprieve.

At 9pm on 25 May 1951, Donald Maclean finishes the birthday meal cooked for him by his wife, bids her farewell, and climbs into a car driven by his friend, Guy Burgess. It is to be another five years before Britain hears from them again - safe in the arms of the KGB in Moscow. This is the dramatic story of their flight from the West and the end of the infamous Cambridge spy ring, the Soviet Union's most valuable network of double agents in England.

Episode 7. Let Freedom Ring!

6 December 1773 and 14 August 1947

The Boston Tea Party, on December 16 1773, began when a group of American ‘patriots' dressed up as Mohawk Indians and raided a ship in a Boston harbour. Their mission was to destroy 324 chests of tea. This simple act of vandalism embodied a spirit of anti-Colonial rebellion that would spark a Revolution.

At the stroke of midnight on August 14th 1947, the ruling British Empire relinquished its iron grip on its most lucrative outpost as it handed over the governance of India to its people. As the impending mood of festivity approached midnight, celebrations across the country turned sour and the inevitable fight between the warring religions began to reach its climax, leaving a web of irretrievable devastation and destruction in its path, the impact of which still reverberates across the subcontinent to this day.

Episode 8. Fact or Fiction?

October 30 1938 and 24 April 1983

On the evening of October 30, 1938, an innovative radio production of HG Wells' novel The War Of The Worlds triggered a night of panic and destruction across the USA. An estimated 1.2 million listeners mistakenly believed that their nation was in the grip of a genuine attack by Martians. This is the story of how the night's event unfolded and turned a 23-year-old actor named Orson Welles into an overnight sensation.

On 24 April 1983, The Sunday Times in London - one of the world's oldest and most venerable publications - went to press with its biggest-ever scoop: the previously unseen, and unknown, diaries of Adolf Hitler. There was just one problem; they were fakes. Careers were destroyed and reputations ruined by one of the most reckless gambles in the history of journalism.

In World War 1, British casualties alone totalled   2 million.

The broadcast of The War of the Worlds duped on estimated 1.2 million listeners.

Despite lasting less than a minute, the gunfight at the OK Coral became the basis for countless Wild West stories and many films.

No one has ever been brought to justice for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

No one drank tea at the Boston Tea party. American patriots emptied 342 chests of tea into the sea in defiance of measures introduced by British parliament.