The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
The square rigger is arguably the most important vehicle in history. In the 19th century these boats transported finished goods and raw materials all over the world, transforming Britain from a second-rate European power into the richest and most powerful nation on earth.
Sailor and writer Tom Cunliffe sets out on the Phoenix, a plank-perfect square rigger, to discover just how these incredible boats changed Britain and the world forever.
Broadcaster and writer Suzy Klein explores the remarkable music that became the soundtrack to the roaring 18th century.
As money poured in from a flourishing trade empire, the British rediscovered a taste for pleasure and fun, and music was at the very centre of it. Aspiring young girls played the keyboard to attract a good husband and nothing beat dancing a minuet if you wanted a place in the best society.
Europe's best composers and performers descended upon Britain, certain that the 'rage for music' would make them rich. Music had become a tool for social mobility, but it was also starting to shape the physical fabric of Britain - concert halls, assembly rooms and pleasure gardens sprang up across the country as the thirst for entertainment grew.
The heroic tales of World War II are legendary, but Operation Crossbow is a little-known story that deserves to join the hall of fame: how the Allies used 3D photos to thwart the Nazis' weapons of mass destruction before they could obliterate Britain.
This film brings together the heroic Spitfire pilots who took the photographs and the brilliant minds of RAF Medmenham that made sense of the jigsaw of clues hidden in the photos. Hitler was pumping a fortune into his new-fangled V weapons in the hope they could win him the war. But Medmenham had a secret weapon of its own, a simple stereoscope which brought to life every contour of the enemy landscape in perfect 3D.
The devil was truly in the detail. Together with extraordinary personal testimonies, the film uses modern computer graphics on the original wartime photographs to show just how the photo interpreters were able to uncover Hitler's nastiest secrets.
There will always be those who think they can commit the perfect murder. In reality it's virtually impossible to leave no evidence at the scene of a crime. Fingerprints, hair, fibres and blood can all lead to the killer. In this second episode, surgeon Gabriel Weston explores the cases that were solved by examining the smallest traces of forensic evidence, from the first murder case solved in the UK based on fingerprint evidence to the patterns of blood in a bedroom which helped overturn an infamous murder conviction.
As well as looking to the past, Gabriel investigates the cutting-edge techniques that are proving vital in catching the killers of today. Amazingly, forensic science can now detect with pinpoint accuracy where someone has walked across an area the size of Scotland, based on nothing more than the soil stuck to the sole of a suspect's shoe.
Neil Oliver is given exclusive access to a team of historians and scientists investigating the final resting place of Alfred the Great. Alfred's bones have been moved so many times over the centuries that many people concluded that they were lost forever. Following a trail that goes back over 1,000 years, the team wants to unravel the mystery of Alfred's remains. Travelling from Winchester to Rome, Neil also tells the extraordinary story of Alfred's life - in the 9th century, he became one of England's most important kings by fighting off the Vikings, uniting the Anglo-Saxon people and launching a cultural renaissance. This was the man who forged a united language and identity, and laid the foundations of the English nation.
The film investigates the equally extraordinary story of what happened to Alfred's remains after his death in 899. They have been exhumed and reburied on a number of occasions since his original brief burial in the Anglo-Saxon Old Minster in Winchester. The Saxons, the Normans, Henry VIII's religious reformers, 18th-century convicts, Victorian romantics and 20th-century archaeologists have all played a part in the story of Alfred's grave.
Neil joins the team as they exhume the contents of an unmarked grave, piece the bones together and have them dated. With the discovery of some unexpected new evidence, the film reveals the extraordinary outcome of an important investigation.
Explorer Paul Rose tells the story of his hero Fridjtof Nansen who, in 1892, announced a daring plan to be first to the North Pole, an idea considered so off-the-wall that no scientist would volunteer to join him on a venture they believed was nothing short of suicide.
He allowed his ship to become stuck in the crushing pack ice, hoping it would drift to the Pole, and then set off on foot across the frozen wastes. Nansen became the forefather of polar exploration, inventing practical techniques that today allow people to survive, travel and work in the most hostile and forbidding places on our planet.
THURSDAY 08 SEPTEMBER 2016
THU 19:00 World News Today (b07tmcr8)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (b07tq0fc)
Simon Bates presents the weekly chart show, first broadcast on 8 April 1982. Includes appearances from Haircut 100, Chas & Dave, Boomtown Rats, Elton John, Stevie Wonder & Paul McCartney, Foster & Allen, Goombay Dance Band and Pigbag.
THU 20:00 The Science of D-Day (b045gr8m)
In June 1944, one of the greatest amphibious assaults in history was launched from the south coast of England. Within a matter of hours, 7,000 vessels had landed 156,000 troops on the beaches of Normandy. It was a manoeuvre that changed the course of the war and tested innovations in science and engineering for the first time.
In this programme, engineer Rob Bell looks at the nuts and bolts which made such a staggering invasion possible - from giant troop-carrying gliders to tanks that could drive on water - and how necessity really did become the mother of invention. Like all new inventions, not all of them worked and resulted in devastating consequences. We find out why. This is the science of D-Day.
THU 20:30 Hive Minds (b07v34vs)
Series 2
Cruciverbalists v Ortographobes
Fiona Bruce presents the quiz show where players not only have to know the answers, but have to find them hidden in a hive of letters. It tests players' general knowledge and mental agility, as they battle against one another and race against the clock to find the answers.
The Cruciverbalists take on the Ortographobes in the first episode of the second series.
THU 21:00 Lost Sitcoms (b07tq1kv)
Hancock's Half Hour
Series which recreates three classic lost British sitcoms with a stellar new cast. In this episode of Hancock's Half Hour originally broadcast in 1956, Tony has a new neighbour whose behaviour is very, very suspicious.
THU 21:30 James May: The Reassembler (b076wf8f)
Series 1
Telephone
James tackles a 1957 Bakelite dial telephone - 211 pieces, most of them very small indeed, must be reassembled in the correct order if this telephone is ever to ring again. From the receiver with its carbon filings that enable speech to be amplified, to the electrical pulses created by the dial itself that connect the phone to the outside world, James soon discovers that every single piece of the telephone played a crucial role in revolutionising communication around the world.
THU 22:00 The Beginning and End of the Universe (b075dxsq)
The End
Professor Jim Al-Khalili carries us into the distant future to try to discover how the universe will end - with a bang or a whimper? He reveals a universe far stranger than anyone imagined and, at the frontier of our understanding, encounters a mysterious and enigmatic force that promises to change physics forever.
THU 23:00 The Wonderful World of Blood - with Michael Mosley (b05nyyhf)
Of all the wonders of the human body, there's one more mysterious than any other. Blood: five precious litres that keep us alive. Yet how much do we really know about this sticky red substance and its mysterious, life-giving force?
Michael Mosley gives up a fifth of his own blood to perform six bold experiments. From starving it of oxygen to injecting it with snake venom, Michael reveals the extraordinary abilities of blood to adapt and keep us alive. Using specialist photography, the programme reveals the beauty in a single drop. Michael even discovers how it tastes when, in a television first, he prepares a black pudding with his own blood.
Down the ages, our understanding of blood has been as much myth as science, but Michael reveals there might be truth in the old vampire legends, as he meets one of the scientists behind the latest research that shows young blood might be able to reverse the ageing process - the holy grail of modern medicine.
THU 00:00 Life Story (p026vhj2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 on Monday]
THU 01:00 Natural World (b00z7x5h)
2010-2011
The Last Grizzly of Paradise Valley
Canadian wildlife film-maker Jeff Turner returns to his roots and embarks on a beautiful and lyrical exploration of the wildlife around his home in the Cascade Mountains of southwestern British Columbia. Tracking the wildlife through the four seasons of one year, he encounters many animals from his childhood including black bears, a family of osprey, coyotes and mule deer. But the animal he most wants to find and film is one of the few remaining grizzly bears that still survive in these mountains.
THU 02:00 Top of the Pops (b07tq0fc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 02:35 The Wonderful World of Blood - with Michael Mosley (b05nyyhf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:00 today]
FRIDAY 09 SEPTEMBER 2016
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b07tmcrl)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 BBC Proms (b07tq1pz)
2016
Verdi Requiem
The 2016 Proms season draws to a close with a bang not a whimper, with Verdi's thunderous Requiem. Marin Alsop is at the helm of the penultimate prom, conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the BBC Proms Youth Choir.
Tom Service introduces for television and talks to Marin Alsop backstage. The soloists lining up for Verdi's largest scale non-operatic work are soprano Tamara Wilson, mezzo-soprano Alisa Kolosova, Dimitri Pittas and bass Morris Robinson.
The Requiem had its British premiere in 1875 at the Royal Albert Hall with the composer himself conducting and it is still packing the audiences in. Its fire and brimstone depiction of death and destruction never fails to appeal, most famously of all in the tumultuous Dies Irae.
FRI 21:10 Sounds of the Sixties (b051rz4l)
Reversions
1964-5: Getting in on the Act 3
The Seekers kick off this episode of the sixties archive pop programme. The Hollies and The Byrds, precursors to Crosby, Stills and Nash, also appear.
FRI 21:20 Sounds of the Sixties (b051rz0q)
Reversions
The Singer and the Song
Sandie Shaw, Dusty Springfield and Lulu sing a few classics in this solo artist-themed episode of the sixties archive pop programme.
FRI 21:30 Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie (b06f17bk)
The DIY Movement
The story of British indie over three musically diverse episodes. Much more than a genre of music, it is a spirit, an attitude and an ethos.
In the 1970s, the music industry was controlled by the major record labels, and the notion of releasing a record independently seemed like an impossible dream. At a time when even The Sex Pistols were on a major label, the true act of rebellion was would be to do it yourself.
It took an independent release from Buzzcocks in 1976 with the Spiral Scratch EP to begin a change in the game. The initial pressing of 1,000 copies was funded by family and friends and sold out immediately. The notion of independently releasing your own music was compelling, and it became a call to action.
Independent record labels began to pop up all over the UK, each one with its own subculture and sound - from Factory in Manchester to Zoo in Liverpool, Postcard in Glasgow and London labels such as Mute, Beggars Banquet and Rough Trade. They were founded by people with no business experience, just a passion for music and a commitment to helping others achieve creative autonomy. These labels were cutting, releasing and distributing the music themselves. Bedsits became offices and basements became studios. This was DIY, and it felt like a countercultural movement set against all that the mainstream had to offer.
These labels were pivotal in getting the new sounds to a generation hungry for change. Queues of hopeful bands waited to drop off demo tapes, and the first wave of indie bands emerged from the newly formed labels. It was a fantastically creative, if somewhat hand-to-mouth time, yet bands also had the freedom to make all the decisions about their image and musical direction themselves. Pioneering music from bands such as Joy Division, Throbbing Gristle, Echo and the Bunnymen, Orange Juice and Aztec Camera is featured in this episode.
These new indie sounds offered a defiantly oppositional stance to prevailing trends in popular culture. With new music exploding out of cities everywhere, it was indie label founder Iain McNay, from Cherry Red, who had the idea for an indie chart - its music spoke to a generation of kids who did not identify with the mainstream sounds on the radio.
FRI 22:30 Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie (b06gxxxk)
The Alternative 80s
Episode two explores a time when the independent labels transformed from cottage industries into real businesses that could compete with the majors. It examines the evolution of 'indie' - a guitar-based genre of music with its own sound, fashion and culture.
Independent record labels provided a platform for some of Britain's most groundbreaking artists at this time, including The Jesus and Mary Chain and The Smiths, who would burst onto the scene in 1983 staging a mainstream intervention and starting a small revolution.
In the midst of shiny 80s sounds and shoulder-padded fashion, indie was anti-image and anti-flamboyance. Through many of the indie bands in this period, everyday life was repackaged in melody and poetic lyrics. It's not hard to see why a generation of youth, disaffected from the times they were living in, sought refuge in the poetic haze of early indie. The bands were accessible too, and aspiring music journalists could meet their favourite indie stars at the small and intimate gigs where they performed.
The programme concludes in the late 80s with the Madchester scene, as alternative music crossed over into the mainstream chart. This breakthrough was inspired by a merging of indie rock and the burgeoning acid house culture, and it was led by a new crop of bands such as The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays.
The series is presented by BBC Radio 6 Music's Mark Radcliffe and this episode features exclusive interviews with performers including James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers, New Order's Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert, Shaun Ryder, Suede's Bernard Butler, The KLF's Bill Drummond, Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian, Cocteau Twins' Simon Raymonde, The Jesus and Mary Chain's Jim Reid, and Talulah Gosh's Amelia Fletcher.
It also includes interviews with a number of influential music industry figures such as former Happy Mondays manager Nathan McGough, Pete Waterman, Factory Records' designer Peter Saville and journalists Alexis Petridis and Sian Pattenden.
FRI 23:30 Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie (b06hhxr7)
Into the Mainstream
The story of British indie over three musically diverse episodes. Much more than a genre of music, it is a spirit, an attitude and an ethos.
It's 1989 and a new grassroots music craze is sweeping across Britain. Despite the authorities railing against 'the zombification of a nation', acid house and its bed partner ecstasy are influencing a wave of indie bands. On the eve of a new decade while original independent labels struggle in the wake of acid, young indie labels Heavenly and Creation are thriving, signing both Manic Street Preachers and Primal Scream respectively.
By the mid 90s, in a bid to break the stranglehold of American grunge bands, the music press construct Britpop and push two bands, Oasis and Blur, to the top of the pile. The key thing that separates Britpop bands from the previous generation is the mindset. These bands, who grew up in the Thatcher era, want to sell (and make) a million. Bands with an old indie ethos, such as Suede, are still breaking through but will switch from independent labels to majors, thus guaranteeing international recognition.
Indie truly goes mainstream when Noel Gallagher shakes hands with Tony Blair and Oasis fill Knebworth. The spirit of the DIY boom had all but gone and indie becomes a genre rather than an alternative approach to making and releasing music. The late 90s are dark days for indie, but as Rough Trade rises from the ashes with two fresh signings - The Strokes and The Libertines - it feels like a new dawn.
More new completely independent labels emerge. They've learnt from the mistakes of old and are excellent at artist development - labels such Domino, who manage the Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand. We hear why these two bands - who had the majors tripping over themselves to sign them - choose Domino instead.
These bands also heralded a new way in which music was being discovered. It's the fans at a grassroots level, sharing their favourite band via clips on social media, who would be the new A&R - alerting the record labels to new talent.
We finally come full circle to discover just what constitutes indie music now, if there still a need for independent labels and, finally, whether the spirit of rebellion that inspired the DIY movement of the 1970s still exists today.
The series is presented by BBC Radio 6 Music's Mark Radcliffe and this episode features exclusive interviews with performers including Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays, The Libertines' Carl Barat, Stuart Murdoch from Belle & Sebastian and Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne. It also includes interviews with a number of influential music industry figures such as James Endeacott, formerly of Rough Trade Records and founder of Sony BMG subsidiary record label 1965 Records, Heavenly Recordings' Jeff Barrett, Creation Records' Alan McGee and indie music author Richard King.
FRI 00:30 Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie (b06f17bk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:30 today]
FRI 01:30 Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie (b06gxxxk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:30 today]
FRI 02:30 Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie (b06hhxr7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:30 today]
FRI 03:30 Sounds of the Sixties (b051rz4l)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:10 today]
FRI 03:40 Sounds of the Sixties (b051rz0q)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:20 today]
LIST OF THIS WEEK'S PROGRAMMES
(Note: the times link back to the details; the pids link to the BBC page, including iPlayer)
After Life: The Strange Science of Decay
02:30 SUN (b012w66t)
All Together Now: The Great Orchestra Challenge
21:00 TUE (b07tmnwj)
BBC Proms
19:00 SUN (b07tmglx)
BBC Proms
19:30 FRI (b07tq1pz)
Beck
21:00 SAT (b07tmdw7)
Catching History's Criminals: The Forensics Story
22:00 WED (p02l4px7)
Catching History's Criminals: The Forensics Story
03:00 WED (p02l4px7)
Clydebuilt: The Ships that Made the Commonwealth
20:00 SAT (p01n4kb7)
Clydebuilt: The Ships that Made the Commonwealth
01:00 WED (p01n4kb7)
Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank
23:00 TUE (b0078z27)
Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank
23:30 TUE (b0078z5p)
Frost on Sketch Shows
23:00 MON (b01sg96h)
Hidden Histories: Britain's Oldest Family Businesses
22:00 TUE (b03qlp97)
Hive Minds
20:30 THU (b07v34vs)
Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings
20:00 TUE (b01b4v8t)
Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings
02:30 TUE (b01b4v8t)
James May: The Reassembler
21:30 THU (b076wf8f)
Janis Joplin: Little Girl Blue
02:10 SAT (b0755ms6)
Life Story
22:00 MON (p026vhj2)
Life Story
00:00 THU (p026vhj2)
London 1666
20:30 MON (b07v642t)
London: A Tale of Two Cities with Dan Cruickshank
21:00 MON (p00r36lv)
London: A Tale of Two Cities with Dan Cruickshank
03:00 MON (p00r36lv)
Lost Sitcoms
21:00 THU (b07tq1kv)
Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie
21:30 FRI (b06f17bk)
Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie
22:30 FRI (b06gxxxk)
Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie
23:30 FRI (b06hhxr7)
Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie
00:30 FRI (b06f17bk)
Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie
01:30 FRI (b06gxxxk)
Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie
02:30 FRI (b06hhxr7)
Natural World
01:00 THU (b00z7x5h)
Operation Crossbow
21:00 WED (b011cr8f)
Planet Ant: Life Inside the Colony
01:00 TUE (p00scslp)
Planet Oil: The Treasure That Conquered the World
00:00 TUE (b053gf85)
Rule Britannia! Music, Mischief and Morals in the 18th Century
20:00 WED (b040w7xx)
Rule Britannia! Music, Mischief and Morals in the 18th Century
02:00 WED (b040w7xx)
Scotland's Home Movies
19:00 SAT (b065gxgj)
Sound of Cinema: The Music That Made the Movies
00:00 MON (b03b965y)
Sounds of the Sixties
21:10 FRI (b051rz4l)
Sounds of the Sixties
21:20 FRI (b051rz0q)
Sounds of the Sixties
03:30 FRI (b051rz4l)
Sounds of the Sixties
03:40 FRI (b051rz0q)
Storyville
22:00 SUN (b075f0n4)
The Art of Australia
02:00 MON (b03ccmpt)
The Beginning and End of the Universe
00:30 SUN (b0754t74)
The Beginning and End of the Universe
22:00 THU (b075dxsq)
The Boats That Built Britain
19:30 TUE (b00sbp0t)
The Boats That Built Britain
19:30 WED (b00scqb3)
The Bridges That Built London with Dan Cruickshank
19:30 MON (b01jv5nr)
The Science of D-Day
20:00 THU (b045gr8m)
The Search for Alfred the Great
23:00 WED (b03sbp73)
The Search for Life: The Drake Equation
01:30 SUN (b00wltbk)
The Story of Musicals
22:30 SAT (b0192pyj)
The Story of Musicals
23:30 SAT (b019c7pz)
The Story of Musicals
00:30 SAT (b019jshb)
The Wonderful World of Blood - with Michael Mosley
23:00 THU (b05nyyhf)
The Wonderful World of Blood - with Michael Mosley
02:35 THU (b05nyyhf)
Timewatch
23:30 SUN (b016xjwh)
Top of the Pops
01:30 SAT (b07sxd6v)
Top of the Pops
19:30 THU (b07tq0fc)
Top of the Pops
02:00 THU (b07tq0fc)
Voyages of Discovery
00:00 WED (b0074t4k)
Wild
20:45 SUN (b00jd9yx)
Woolly Mammoth: Secrets from the Ice
21:00 SUN (b01fkcdr)
Woolly Mammoth: Secrets from the Ice
01:00 MON (b01fkcdr)
World News Today
19:00 MON (b07tmcqp)
World News Today
19:00 TUE (b07tmcqw)
World News Today
19:00 WED (b07tmcr3)
World News Today
19:00 THU (b07tmcr8)
World News Today
19:00 FRI (b07tmcrl)