For more than two years Europe has teetered on the edge of an economic precipice - one of the factors that has pushed Britain back into recession. How exactly did Europe get itself into the current financial mess? Talking to historians, economists and politicians, BBC business editor Robert Peston takes a long view of the euro - from Churchill's vision of a United States of Europe to the bail-outs
The Great Famine was a period of mass starvation, disease and emigration in Ireland between 1845 and 1852. It is sometimes referred to, mostly outside Ireland, as the Irish Potato Famine because one-third of the population was then solely reliant on this cheap crop for a number of historical reasons. During the famine approximately 1 million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland, c
This film by the documentary-maker Martin Durkin presents the arguments of scientists and commentators who don't believe that CO2 produced by human activity is the main cause of climate change.It's a controversial film that was roundly attacked by some scientists and enthusiastically received by others, and the arguments it contains are an important part of the wider debate on the causes of clim
This is the story of a so called Californian hip-hop duo known as Silibil n' Brains little did the the fans know that this group where actually from Scotland and were faking an american identity to get noticed.At the beginning of the new millennium Silibil n' Brains or Billy Boyd and Gavin Bain respectively, were making music together in Scotland but after being branded as "The Rapping Proclai
It shouldn't have happened that Homo sapiens, our species, managed to survive and overcome the odd which have been against us for over 200,000 years. We are not indestructible and there are many evolutionary dead ends but our ancestors managed to not only survive, but also to spread into every corner of the globe.It was only our ancestors who managed to spread and colonise some of the most diffi
We live in an age of astonishing advances, engineers can land a car sized rover on Mars, Physicists probe the essence of old matter, while we communicate wirelessly on a vast world wide network but underlying all these modern wonders is something deep and mysteriously powerful. It's been called the language of the universe, and perhaps its civilisations greatest achievement, its name is mathematic
In 1665, death stalked the streets of London, The Great Plague was responsible for killing over 100,000 people which equates to one in three of the cities inhabitants. We know something of the horror of that summer through the diaries and letters which were written by the wealthy literate of the day. This included the likes of Samuel Pepys, a man who kept a daily record of what he saw but hidden i
Twenty-three bizarre looking vehicles line up at the starting gate of the DARPA Grand Challenge with one thing in common: there s nobody behind the wheel. Sponsored by the Pentagon s research agency this race for robotic driverless vehicles has a $2 million prize. Its ultimate goal is to gather new ideas for the future of unmanned warfare.With names like Terramax Highlander Ghostrider and Stanley
This thirty two minute documentary explores the act of hitchhiking in a unique manor. Filmmaker Thomas Francine an experienced hitchhiker, having traveled over 26,000 miles through 13 countries records some of his journeys and the people he has encountered revealing to us that even though hitchhiking is now widely considered somewhat dangerous to do, he himself has never been in a dangerous situat