Secret History: The First Brit: Secrets of the 10,000 Year Old Man TV - Tony Robinson TV - Neil Oliver TV - Horizon TV - David Mattingly - Alice Roberts TV - Jo Quinn - Roman Britain From the Air TV - The Untold Invasion of Britain TV - Roman: In Praise of Britain - Vikings: The Rise & Fall TV - Bettany Hughes TV - Dr Robert Beckford TV - Sam Willis TV - Peter & Dan Snow TV - Mankind: The Story of All of US TV - Waldemar Januszczak TV - Michael Wood: The Great British Story TV - Francis Pryor TV - Richard D Hall & Alan Wilson TV - Simon Schama TV - David Dimbleby TV - Venerable Bede - The British TV - Bloody Queens: Elizabeth & Mary TV - Elizabeth I - David Starkey TV - Lucy Worsley TV - The Last Days of Guy Fawkes TV - Tracy Borman & Xand van Tulleken TV -
Science is about to reveal the truth about where we come from and who we really are. It’s a story that begins about 10,000 years ago before Britain became an island and our first ancestors arrived. We’re following Britain’s most ambitious ancient human DNA project ever. Secret History: The First Brit: Secrets of the 10,000 Year Old Man, Channel 4 2018
10,000 years ago marked the end of the last Ice Age. ibid.
Cheddar Man had blue eyes … Cheddar Man had dark hair … Cheddar Man was probably darker than we initially expected … Dark to Black. ibid.
The beautiful country that surrounds us – the rugged coastline, the rolling green hills, the craggy mountains – were formed millions of years ago when Britain was a very different place. Giant geological forces have shaped the land we know today. Tony Robinson, Birth of Britain: Volcanoes, National Geographic 2010
It’s an epic story of giant volcanoes, colliding continents, and of how Britain was ripped away from what is now north America. It’s the story of the Birth of Britain. ibid.
Edinburgh had once been a volcano ... Hutton unlocked one of the greatest mysteries of the world ... The tell-tale signs of an ancient volcano. ibid.
But there’s another force that has had perhaps the greatest effect on the landscape we see around us today: Ice. During the last Ice Age most of Britain would have been covered with a great sheet of ice up to a mile thick. Tony Robinson, Birth of Britain: Ice
Loch Ness was once filled by an enormous powerful glacier. ibid.
Scientists suspect that this natural cycle of climate change is being disrupted by human activity. ibid.
The landscape around me has been shaped by ancient oceans and erupting volcanoes and ice ages. But it’s here down in the mud that the real treasures of Britain are buried: coal, lead, even tin have been pivotal in making Britain what it is today. Tony Robinson, Birth of Britain: Gold
Gold: it underpinned our economies, celebrates the pinnacles of our achievements, and epitomises the extremes of luxury and wealth ... What is surprising is Britain’s gold heritage. ibid.
The amount of gold we can get hold of is tiny. ibid.
8,000 years ago a tsunami passed through this sea ... a phenomenally destructive force. Tony Robinson, Britain’s Stone Age Tsunami, Channel 4 2013
Nearly four hundred miles of our prehistoric coast ... An astonishingly rich lifestyle ... We call this drowned world Doggerland. ibid.
A time of sex scandals, executions, and codpieces. Tony Robinson’s History of Britain s1e1: The Tudors, Channel 5 2022
In Henry’s reign living in town was going out of fashion. ibid.
The average life expectancy was just 35 years. ibid.
The unsung heroes who really put the great into Britain were just the ordinary folk who had to cope with the most dramatic changes the world has ever seen. Tony Robinson’s History of Britain s1e2: Victorians
Life on the factory floor was cheap, a combination of lethal machinery and long hours meant that gruesome accidents, even death were never far away. ibid.
Matchgirls like Sarah were expected to work fourteen-hour shifts virtually all of it on their feet. ibid.
The Georgian period was particularly cruel and nasty. In everything from laws to living standards there was a huge chasm between the poor and the wealthy. Tony Robinson’s History of Britain s1e3: Georgians
An empire that stretched all the way from Egypt to Hadrian’s Wall and brought people from Europe, Asia and Africa to live here. Tony Robinson’s History of Britain s2e1: Romans
Why do we regard some places as being more sacred than others? Neil Oliver, Sacred Wonders of Britain I, BBC 2014
The coming of a whole new age, one that would see great monuments, sacred monuments rise from the earth around Britain. ibid.
The time of the stone circles had begun. ibid.
3,350 years ago much of east Anglia was a landscape of marshland, shallow waterways and ponds. Neil Oliver, Sacred Wonders of Britain II
Sacred Wonders of Britain is the story of how our island has been shaped by belief. ibid.
Even to war-hardened Roman soldiers, the Druids appeared a terrifying spectacle. ibid.
This new religion was undercover and banned in the Roman empire. Neil Oliver, Sacred Wonders of Britain III
It’s the Lindisfarne Gospels. Books were rare. ibid.
Historians and archaeologists have long thought that the story of the earliest Britons was lost to the mists of time ... Archaeological sites all over the UK and northern Europe are producing evidence that paints these people in a very different light ... Thanks to science we now have an increasingly clear picture of pre-history. Horizon: First Britons, BBC 2015
A culture that made jewellery, that traded and manufactured as well as hunted. ibid.
The catastrophic tsunami fatally flooded Doggerland. ibid.
The idea of farming – the so-called Neolithic revolution – started in the Middle East and swept north and east across Europe ... 6,000 years ago Britain joined the revolution: the first Britons wholeheartedly signed up for farming. ibid.
A very fragmented territory. There’s no Britain as such. There are no Britons as a coherent group. There were lots of regional peoples. Professor David Mattingly
No other era has quite captured our imagination like Roman Britain ... Who were these Romans? How did they manage to rule here for nearly four hundred years? And why in the end did it all fall apart? Dr Alice Roberts, Roman Britain: A Timewatch Guide, BBC 2015
The Vindolanda tablets have this extraordinary importance in ancient history. Dr Jo Quinn, Oxford University
In 43 A.D. the Romans landed an invasion army of 40,000 men on the Kent coast. Just four years later they started work on a new town they called Londinium. Roman Britain from the Air, ITV 2014
North Britain: about two thousand years ago. The Romans ruled most of Europe but not here. Scattered groups from all over north Britain rose up against the Roman Empire. The Emperor they defied was Septimius Severus. He was an African. To steal Rome’s throne he had waded through blood. The Untold Invasion of Britain, Channel 4 2010
A war that would change Britain for ever. ibid.
Road to Rome April 193 A.D. – having declared himself Emperor, Severus moved on Rome with utmost haste ... The outsider was now the most powerful man in the world. ibid.
Hadrian’s Wall built almost a century earlier still marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. It snaked across the hills all the way from the North Sea to the Irish Sea splitting the island in two. ibid.
Crippled by age, Severus was carried north. Riding alongside was his son and heir Coracalla. ibid.
Archaeologists are still discovering evidence of his huge army. ibid.
The Emperor was at the head of one of the largest invasion forces the Roman Empire ever mobilised. It needed massive logistical support. ibid.
40,000 Romans marched to the foot of the Scottish highlands. ibid.
York 210 A.D. This is where Severus came to die ... Britain’s African Emperor died at York 211 A.D. ibid.
Rome never marched into Scotland again. ibid.
How lucky you are, you Britons. More blessed than any other land ... Your winters are not too cold, your summers are not too hot. Roman, In Praise of Britain, 4th century
Britain just seems to go past. ibid.