Days That Shook the World S1/P

Days That Shook The World was first shown by the BBC in 2003 and follows the trend of drama-documentaries by mixing reconstructions with news footage in a series of hour-long shows that take two important and somewhat related days and dramatises and documents what happened. This connection can be somewhat loose, such as the pairing of Marconi's first transatlantic radio transmission and Concorde's first flight into John F Kennedy airport in New York. Granted, the ocean that had to be crossed is the same but the mediums, technology and importance are vastly different. However, some are very much better, including a genuinely tense and shocking dramatisation of the Kristallnacht. In occasional moments, the series breaks from its own rules by devoting an entire hour to one subject, such as the bombing of Hiroshima or to the negotiations that brought the first world war to an end but, typically, it's a half-hour per topic and, sometimes, offers some very surprising moments in amongst the expected.

As a History buff I really enjoy watching any kind of documentaries about the past, and I think this series is great. A lot of different events are covered, all of them are interesting and very well researched. The narrator is good and the footages are great. Just don't expect to see anything in HD however. So if, like me, you are a History buff who enjoys watching all kind of documentaries then I highly recommend this series. :)

Here are the episodes you'll find on this Set ( Pilot + Season 1 ):

- Pilot: The Wright Brothers/Apollo 11's Moon Landing
- The Coronation of Elizabeth II/The Death of Diana
- The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand/The Death of Adolf Hitler
- The Assassination of Martin Luther King/The Release of Nelson Mandela
- Hiroshima
- The Murder of the Romanovs/The Fall of the Berlin Wall
- Kristallnacht/The Birth of Israel
- Tutankhamun's Tomb/Deciphering the Rosetta Stone
- Black September Hijackings/Lockerbie
- First Nuclear Reaction/Chernobyl
- The Assassination of JFK/The Resignation of Nixon
- Marconi's First Transatlantic Radio Transmission/Concorde's First Transatlantic Flight
- Faster than Sound: Chuck Yeager/Donald Campbell

I saw this program on the history Channel and loved it! I even taped it so I could use it as a resource to teach my high school history students. The VCR tape was starting to get old and the quality was deteriorating. I figured I would get it on DVD to replace it - boy was I wrong! This DVD has a dry, English accent narrator which was not on the American History Channel version. His voice is matter-of-fact, and not dramatic enough to keep you interested. After a while, it became like white noise, and all I was really watching was old black and white archival footage. It's amazing how the absence of a Hollywood voice has such an effect...I'm disappointed.

THIS IS AN INTERESTING BRITISH SERIES. I FOUND IT TO BE INFORMATIVE AND ENJOYABLE.