Chronicle (1966)

Glyn Daniel and Magnus Magnusson present a documentary about the Vikings who colonised Greenland and allegedly discovered North America. At the Royal Library in Copenhagen, Magnus Magnusson studies the Flatey Book, a medieval Icelandic manuscript containing sagas of the Norse kings.

The extraordinary winged lions and vivid reliefs of battles and sieges from the ancient military capital of the Assyrians have been known for a century. Now, fourteen seasons of excavation have yielded yet more remarkable finds. The story of this dig is told by the man responsible for the newest discoveries, Professor Max Mallowan and by Sir Mortimer Wheeler

The suggestion that Stonehenge was a prehistoric observatory and computer of great complexity is one of the most startling in the recent history of science. Professor Gerald Hawkins of Massachusetts reports the latest developments of his theory.

Dr. John Napier and Professor Kenneth Oakley describe the finding in Hungary of a skull which is an important new link in the jigsaw of human evolution.

The uncovering at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk of an eighty-foot-long Anglo-Saxon warship with a magnificent royal treasure buried in it was brought to an abrupt close by the outbreak of war in 1939. South Cadbury hill fort in Somerset may be the site of King Arthur's Camelot. New Grange in County Meath, Ireland, is one of the largest and finest prehistoric burial mounds in Western Europe. Chronicle reports the problems, findings, and prospects of the current excavations of these three remarkable sites.

General Sir Brian Horrocks tells the story of the Battle of Dorking Gap - an invasion that never took place but which rocked complacent Victorian England.

Nine hundred years ago the Normans, under Duke William, invaded England. Chronicle cameras trace the invasion - and what led up to it - as seen in the Bayeux Tapestry.

The Great Fire of London happened 300 years ago and the story of that disaster is told in tonight's programme.

"We are weary, and since we have attained our goal and realised the great idea of our life we shall finally cease our efforts here in Troy." It was May 1873: within days of writing these words the famous millionaire archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann was to make his greatest discovery - the golden treasure he thought belonged to King Priam. Chronicle tells the story of this remarkable find and follows the treasure to its last known destination - Berlin.

Did the Irish monks of the seventh and eighth centuries A.D. reach Iceland across 800 miles of stormy North Atlantic? Magnus Magnusson examines the latest evidence for one of the most remarkable feats of seamanship in the Dark Ages.

According to classical authors the Romans got their best geese from northern France. Glyn Daniel recruits Olympic gold medal winner Ann Packer to investigate how long it would have taken to walk geese from northern Gaul in France to Rome, Italy. This march, which was described by the classic Roman writer Pliny in his 'Natural History' in the 1st Century AD, also serves as a practical demonstration of how keen the Romans were on their version of foie gras.