In 1939 Hortense, illegitimate but intelligent and ambitious, is brought up on Jamaica with the family of charismatic, free-thinking Michael, who joins the Air Force when war breaks out and goes to England. After the war, Hortense, now a qualified teacher, makes a marriage of convenience to Gilbert Joseph, paying for his passage to England on condition he sends for her. She not only hopes to see Michael again but believes that living in Britain will give her more scope. When she arrives in London in 1948, she is extremely disappointed by the one room in which they must live and the obvious colour prejudice. Queenie, their liberal landlady, is also a woman used to disappointment, marrying decent but dull and sexless Bernard to get her away from the family farm. Whilst Bernard - now presumed missing - was in the Air Force during the war, she first took in lodgers from the armed forces, partly for the company, including Michael, with whom she had sex.

In 1939, young Professor Bruttenholm destroyed Erzsebet Ondrushko, a female vampire who bathed in the blood of innocents to stay young. Now someone in upstate New York is trying to bring her back, and the elderly Professor Broom has decided to investigate it himself. He takes the top BPRD agents, Hellboy, Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien, who are more worried about his welfare than the return of any vampire. Their tune changes when they face a horde of ghosts, a phantom wolf pack, witches, harpies, a giant werewolf and Erzsebet herself. Hellboy ends up battling the Queen of Witches, the goddess Hecate, who wants him to embrace his true destiny, a destiny that includes the destruction of mankind.

In this charming film based on the popular L.Frank Baum stories, Dorothy and her dog Toto are caught in a tornado s path and somehow end up in the land of Oz. Here she meets some memorable friends and foes in her journey to meet the Wizard of Oz who everyone says can help her return home and possibly grant her new friends their goals of a brain, heart and courage.

In 1939, visionary aircraft designer Barnes Wallis designed a very special bomb that would bounce across water and destroy German dams. The raid in 1943 was a success and a 1950s feature film carried the the Dambusters story into British legend.

Born of the need for a four-engine propeller bomber, the Constellation soon became the backbone of long range civil aviation. The Lockheed Constellation is celebrated today as one of the finest flying machine ever built. Design of the Constellation began just before World War Two in 1939, when Pan American Airways and Transcontinental & Western Air (later TWA) issued a design requirement for a 40-passenger airliner for their domestic routes. Production of the resulting L-49 by Lockheed began, but was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. The US Army Air Corps commandeered at least 22 of the aircraft off the assembly line, designated them C-69s, and used them as transports. After the war, when civil production resumed under several designations, the military ordered a new, longer-range version called the C-121.

After England and France had declared war on German Empire, a front line formed in the west. Germans and Frenchmen stood facing each other on the Siegefried line or on the Maginot line until the end of the Sit Down War. In May 1940, a German Major Offensive, involving 3 army divisions and 10 tank regiments began against the Netherlands, Belgium and France. After separating the allied armies, they succeeded in encircling the British expeditionary force in Dunkirk.This was followed by the battle for France. With their victorious end to the Western campaign, the German army succeeded in a great military victory over a stronger defendant.The armistice between Germany, Italy and France was signed on the 22nd of June, 1940 in the forest of Compiegne in the former railway carriage of Marshall Foch.

This program looks at the tidal wave of violence and aggression which carried the world into another major conflagration. Mussolini invades Abyssinia Massacre at Nanking The Bombing of Guernica Rise of the Luftwaffe The Rape of Czechoslovakia.

This program shows how the German Panzers and Stukas unleashed a new form of warfare which proved devastating, swiftly overrunning Norway, Denmark, France, and the Low Countries. Cavalry versus Tanks The Maginot Line The Luftwaffe Triumphant Panzers drive to the Channel

The Panzer was a vital cog in Hitler s awesome war machine - a decisive weapon at the cutting edge of Blitzkrieg . At Kursk, the tank would have a major influence on the eventual outcome of the war. Made with the co-operation of the Bovington Tank Museum, this film features rare action footage of the Panzers, including the famous Tiger Tank, in action and unique footage of the last surviving Panzers to produce a powerful record of the evolution of massed armoured warfare from 1939 to 1943.