BBC Teach Class Clips – Planning D-Day - Worksheet to support the BBC excerpt
Historian Dan Snow and numerous British and American survivors tell the story of how the D-Day landings were planned.
BBC Teach > Secondary resources > GCSE History > D-Day: The Last Heroes
Following the disastrous attempt to attack Dieppe in 1942, the Allies realised only meticulous planning would allow them to get through the Nazi Atlantic Wall defences of mainland Europe.
Aerial photos taken from Spitfires of the entire coast of France allowed analysts at RAF Medmenham to find a weak point in the defences on the beaches of Normandy.
British Commandos and US Rangers took part in stringent training in stealth raids and amphibious attacks, so that they could lead the invasion of 156,000 men.
Former Commandos recall their emotions the night before the attack on 6th June 1944, knowing it would would mean death and injury to thousands.
This short film is from the BBC series, D-Day: The Last Heroes.
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This is a two page resource
In the first episode of a three-part series, Professor Robert Bartlett explores how the Normans developed from a band of marauding Vikings into the formidable warriors who conquered England in 1066. He tells how the Normans established their new province of Normandy -‘land of the northmen’ - in northern France. They went on to build some of the finest churches in Europe and turned into an unstoppable force of Christian knights and warriors, whose legacy is all around us to this day. Under the leadership of Duke William, the Normans expanded into the neighbouring provinces of northern France. But William’s greatest achievement was the conquest of England in 1066. The Battle of Hastings marked the end of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy and monarchy. The culture and politics of England would now be transformed by the Normans.
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BBC - Armada: 12 Days to Save England - Episode 2 - Worksheet to support the BBC Documentary
In the second part of a major three-part drama-documentary series, Anita Dobson stars as Elizabeth I, and Dan Snow takes to the sea to tell the story of how England came within a whisker of disaster in summer 1588. Using newly discovered documents, Dan relives the fierce battles at sea and we go behind the scenes in the royal court of Elizabeth as the Spanish fleet prepares for full-on invasion.
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BBC - Armada: 12 Days to Save England - Episode 3 - Worksheet to support the BBC Documentary
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The final episode of a three-part drama-documentary series telling the story of how England came within a whisker of disaster in summer 1588.
Newly discovered documents reveal a remarkable web of misunderstandings that stopped the Spanish from invading, and show how the English victory forged the reputation of Elizabeth.
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BBC Documentary - Genghis Khan - Rise Of Mongol Empire
He was a man who combined the savagery of a real-life Conan the Barbarian with the sheer tactical genius of Napoleon, a man from the outermost reaches of Asia whose armies ultimately stood poised to conquer Europe. His name was Genghis Khan.
Today the name of Genghis Khan is synonymous with dark evil yet in his lifetime he was a heroic figure, a supreme strategist capable of eliciting total devotion from his warriors.
He grew up in poverty on the harsh unforgiving steppe of Mongolia. From the murder of his father, the kidnap of his wife and the execution of his closest friend, he learned the lessons of life the hard way.
So how did this outcast come to conquer an empire larger than the Roman Empire? And was Genghis Khan the brutal monster who ruthlessly slaughtered millions in his quest for power, or was he a brilliant visionary who transformed a rabble of warring tribes into a nation capable of world domination?
Filmed entirely on location in Mongolia, the film tells the truth behind the legend that is Genghis Khan.
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ABC - The Century Americas Time 1929 1936 - Ep4 - Stormy Weather
America – a nation that claimed ever-increasing wealth as a birthright – was rudely awakened by the Great Depression, which caused 25 percent unemployment, the closing of 9,000 banks, and the loss of $2.5 billion in deposits. This program captures a people’s struggle as they faced the collapse of prosperity and diminished hope of being able to experience the American Dream.
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By the early 1950s, a holy trinity of oil, plastics and fertilisers had transformed the planet. But as Professor Iain Stewart reveals, when the oil-producing countries demanded a greater share in profits from the western energy companies, the oil and gas fields of the Middle East became a focus for coup d’etats and military conflict.
In the North Sea, Prof Stewart recalls the race against time to find alternative supplies in the shallow, but turbulent waters both here and in America’s Gulf coast.
The offshore discoveries in the 1970s proved to be a game changer. It marked an engineering revolution, the moment when ‘difficult’ oil and gas (previously unviable sources) could be commercially produced from the ocean depths. It was the moment when Western Europe and the US finally unshackled themselves from their 20th-century energy security nightmare.
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Julius Caesar is the most famous Roman of them all: brutal conqueror, dictator and victim of a gruesome assassination on the Ides of March 44 BC. 2,000 years on, he still shapes the world. He has given us some political slogans we still use today (Crossing the Rubicon), his name lives on in the month of July, and there is nothing new about Vladmir Putin’s carefully cultivated military image, and no real novelty in Donald Trump’s tweets and slogans.
Mary Beard is on a mission to uncover the real Caesar, and to challenge public perception. She seeks the answers to some big questions. How did he become a one-man ruler of Rome? How did he use spin and PR on his way to the top? Why was he killed? And she asks some equally intriguing little questions. How did he conceal his bald patch? Did he really die, as William Shakespeare put it, with the words Et tu, Brute on his lips? Above all, Mary explores his surprising legacy right up to the present day. Like it or not, Caesar is still present in our everyday lives, our language, and our politics. Many dictators since, not to mention some other less autocratic leaders, have learned the tricks of their trade from Julius Caesar.
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BBC Lucy Worsley Episode 1 The First Georgians: The German Kings Who Made Britain
Dr Lucy Worsley’s series begins in 1714 when, to prevent the crown falling into the hands of a Catholic, Britain shipped in a ready-made royal family from Hanover.
In 1714, to prevent the crown falling into the hands of a Catholic, Britain shipped in a ready-made royal family from the small German state of Hanover. To understand this risky experiment, presenter Dr Lucy Worsley has been given access to treasures from the Royal Collection as they are prepared for a new exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace - providing a rare and personal insight into George I and his feuding dynasty.
The Hanoverians arrived at a moment when Britain was changing fast. Satirists were free to mock the powerful, including the new royals. The Hanoverians themselves were busy early adopters of Neo-Palladian architecture, defining the whole look of the Georgian era. When the French philosopher Voltaire visited, he found a ‘land of liberty’ unlike anything in Europe - Britain was embracing freedom of speech and modern cabinet government.
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Dan Snow travels back to a seething Manhattan in the throes of the industrial revolution. Millions fled persecution, poverty and famine in Europe in the 19th century in search of the Promised Land. When they arrived what they found was even worse than what they’d left behind.
New York was a city consumed by filth and corruption, its massive immigrant population crammed together in the slums of Lower Manhattan. Dan succumbs to some of the deadly disease-carrying parasites that thrived in the filthy, overcrowded tenement buildings. He has a go at cooking with some cutting edge 19th century ingredients - clothes dye and floor cleaner - added to disguise reeking fetid meat. And he marvels at some of the incredible feats of engineering that transformed not just the city, but the world.
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BBC - Jerusalem: The Making of a Holy City—Ep1 -Wellspring of Holiness
Author and historian Simon Sebag Montefiore presents a three-part series illuminating the history of the sacred and peerlessly beautiful city of Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is one of the oldest cities in the world. For the Jewish faith, it is the site of the Western Wall, the last remnant of the second Jewish temple. For Christians, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the site of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For Muslims, the Al-Aqsa mosque is the third holiest sanctuary of Islam.
In episode one, Simon delves into the past to explore how this unique city came into being, explaining how it became of such major importance to the three Abrahamic faiths, and how these faiths emerged from the Biblical tradition of the Israelites.
Starting with the Canaanites, Simon goes on a chronological journey to trace the rise of the city as a holy place and discusses the evidence for it becoming a Jewish city under King David. The programme explores the construction of the first temple by Solomon through to the life and death of Jesus Christ and the eventual expulsion of the Jews by the Romans, concluding in the 7th century AD, on the eve of the capture of Jerusalem by the Muslim caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab.
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Historian Simon Montefiore follows a chronological journey to trace and illuminate the sacred and peerlessly beautiful history of Jerusalem, one of the oldest cities in the world.
Ep1- Simon Sebag Montefiore begins a history of Jerusalem by exploring how it came into being and how it became so important to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Ep2- Simon Sebag Montefiore continues his history of Jerusalem by discovering the impact of Islam and the crusaders’ attempt to win it back for Christianity.
Ep3- How Jerusalem became the object of rivalry between Christian nations, the focus of the longing of Jews and the site of one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.
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BBC Twentieth Century Battlefields - Ep2 - Midway - Worksheet to support the BBC Documentary
Written as an enrichment/flipped/independent learning activity the worksheet contains a variety of data collection activities for the video.
Covers the War in the Pacific from the Attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of the Coral Sea and then in more detail on the Battle of Midway. The episode also focuses on the rise of the aircraft carrier in World War II. Dan Snow takes part in a training exercise with the Royal Navy where they tackle a simulated engine room fire.
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Romanov Russia with Lucy Worsley - Ep2 - Age of Extremes - Empire of the Tsars - Worksheet to support the BBC Documentary
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Lucy Worsley continues her journey through Russia in the footsteps of the Romanovs, the most powerful royal dynasty in modern European history.
In this episode she examines the extraordinary reign of Catherine the Great, and the traumatic conflict with Napoleonic France that provides the setting for the novel War and Peace.
Lucy begins in the 18th century, when the great palaces of the Romanovs were built. But in Romanov Russia, blood was always intermingled with the gold - these splendid interiors were the backdrop to affairs, coups and murder.
At the magnificent palace of Peterhof near St Petersburg, Lucy charts the meteoric rise of Catherine the Great, who seized the Russian throne from her husband Peter III in 1762 and became the most powerful woman in the world. Catherine was a woman of huge passions - for art, for her adopted country (she was German by birth) and for her many lovers.
Lucy visits the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, once the home of Catherine’s vast art collection. Here she explores how, once Catherine had taken the throne, she compensated for her foreign origins by taking careful control of her image, using her portraits and clothes to create a brand that looked authentically Russian yet also modern and sophisticated. Lucy tells how Catherine expanded her empire through military victories overseas, while at home she encouraged education and introduced smallpox inoculation to Russia. But Catherine struggled to introduce deeper reforms, and the institution of serfdom remained largely unchanged. Lucy explains how this injustice fuelled a violent rebellion.
Nevertheless, Catherine left Russia more powerful on the world stage than ever. But all she had achieved looked set to be undone when Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812. Lucy relives the pivotal battle of Borodino, when the Russian army finally confronted the French forces; the traumatic destruction of Moscow; and, under Catherine’s grandson Alexander, the eventual victory over the French that provided the Romanov dynasty with its most glorious hour.
Written as an enrichment/flipped/independent learning activity the worksheet contains a variety of data collection activities for the video.
Covers the Yom Kippur War from start to finish concentrating on both the Syrian and Egyptian fronts. It also briefly covers the six day war of 1967, in which Israel launched a preemptive strike against Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Does not cover one engagement primarily, other than a slight focus on the Battle of Chinese Farm near the Suez Canal. The Palestinian struggle for statehood is heavily emphasized. The episode is filmed in the Negev Desert in Southern Israel, since neither Egypt nor Syria gave permission to film in their countries. Dan Snow learns how to operate an anti-tank missile.
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Cold War (TV Series) Ep.22 - Star Wars - Supporting Worksheet for the BBC / CNN co-production, narrated by Kenneth Brannagh - Written as a extension and enrichment task for GCSE, it would also be appropriate for A Level studies.
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Reagan’s 1983 Evil Empire speech sets the tone for a more aggressive US posture against the Soviet Union, and the costly arms race is renewed. He hopes that space-based anti-missile systems known as Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) could render nuclear weapons obsolete, but the Soviet Union is concerned of upsetting the MAD paradigm that had kept the world safe. Gorbachev assumes power in the Soviet Union, setting to reform the Soviet economy and encourage greater openness. He bonds well with both Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, charismatic to Soviet sensibilities, but the SDI issue prevents arms control agreements being made in Geneva Summit or Reykjavík. The weakness of the Soviet system is revealed by the Chernobyl disaster and Mathias Rust’s Red Square stunt. Knowing the Soviet Union could not compete with SDI without the economic welfare of its people being severely curtailed, whose exposure to popular culture and foreign media has led to raised expectations, Gorbachev eventually agrees to a landmark agreement, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Disarmament commences, under the maxim of doveryai, no proveryai. Interviewees include Donald Regan, Sir Charles Powell, Roald Sagdeev and Mikhail Gorbachev. The pre-credits scene shows an advertisement for Reagan’s 1984 election campaign.
Cold War (TV Series) Ep.4 - Berlin - Supporting Worksheet for the BBC / CNN co-production, narrated by Kenneth Brannagh - Written as a extension and enrichment task for GCSE, it would also be appropriate for A Level studies.
It is written in Publisher formatted for A3 printing, but can be amended and saved as a PDF for A4 printing.By 1947, the United States placed as a high priority the revival of the German economy, an approach opposed by the Soviet Union. After the introduction of a Deutsche Mark the Soviet Union began to allow increasingly stringent checks on passenger and cargo flows travelling to the French, British and American sectors of Berlin, located in the heart of East Germany. This ultimately led to a blockade on all rail and road transport linking West Berlin, but an extensive airlift operation (Operation Vittles) allowed the city to survive. The Communists were however successful in staging a putsch in the Berlin municipal government, eventually leading to the divisions of both Berlin and Germany. Interviewees include Gail Halvorsen, Sir Freddie Laker and Clark Clifford. The pre-credits scene shows the Berlin airlift in operation.
Cold War (TV Series) Ep.7 - After Stalin - Supporting Worksheet for the BBC / CNN co-production, narrated by Kenneth Brannagh - Written as a extension and enrichment task for GCSE, it would also be appropriate for A Level studies.
Nikita Khrushchev becomes Soviet leader after the death of Stalin. Khrushchev rolls back a number of oppressive measures that existed under Stalin, restores relations with Yugoslavia and redirects resources to consumer needs. In a secret speech to the Soviet leadership he condemns Stalin's ruthless rule. West Germany is allowed to rearm, provoking the formation of the Warsaw Pact. Khruschev still wants Eastern Europe to remain within the Soviet orbit - he sends in troops to quell revolts in East Germany, Poland and, most significantly, Hungary. Interviewees include Anatoly Dobrynin, Charles Wheeler and Sergei Khrushchev. The pre-credits scene shows life in Soviet Union under Stalin's personality cult.
Cold War (TV Series) Ep.16 - detente - Supporting Worksheet for the BBC / CNN co-production, narrated by Kenneth Brannagh - Written as a extension and enrichment task for GCSE, it would also be appropriate for A Level studies.
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The wartime allies demobilise - the United States enjoys its economic strength and resurgence while Britain and the rest of Europe is exhausted. A new series of purges takes place in the Soviet Union, and is ravaged by famine. Germans are expelled from territories now given to Poland by the Soviet Union, and differences emerge over Germany's post-war rehabilitation. Stalin increases his grasp on Eastern Europe, although does not intervene on the side of the Communists in the Greek Civil War. Britain's power influence goes into decline, weakened from the war and a severe winter. Food shortages threatening stability throughout Europe. The United States begins to adopt with a more assertive foreign policy, countering Soviet influence in Turkey and Iran. Interviewees include Lord Annan, Sir Frank Roberts and Paul Nitze. The pre-credits scene features Winston Churchill's 1946 "Iron Curtain" speech in Fulton in the United States, which set the tone for confrontation.