Timewatch

Political life has always been full of mysteries and secrets. The Zinoviev Letter led to the defeat of the first Labour Government in 1924. Was it genuine - or was it an early attempt to use 'red scare' tactics to bring down a democratically elected government? And if so, who sent it? The Prince of Transylvania received a pension from Charles II and a magnificent burial in Rochester Cathedral. But was he a prince or a con-man - and why was he so hideously murdered? Christopher Andrew and Gabriel Ronay investigate two political mysteries.

Peter France presents three films which reflect the extent to which codes of 'honour', allegiance' and 'behaviour' have had their effect on British history. How far should men go to defend their honour?

Peter France picks two stories from the past series which deal with men of mystery.

Oliver Cromwell was a tyrant, a repressed religious bigot who murdered a king, ruthlessly ended the world's first socialist movement and had grand designs to make himself King Oliver I. Oliver Cromwell was a superb man - patriotic, a magnificent warrior and civilised with a tremendous sense of humour, a bursting conscience in matters of state and religion and personally unambitious. Which assessment even approaches the truth? Views of Oliver Cromwell vary as much today as when Parliament asked him to become King in 1657. How do modern historians view the parliamentarian who some have called the greatest Englishman?

In Georgian times, a crippling illness struck thousands of cider drinkers in the west of England, who found mysterious relief only by taking the waters at Bath Spa. In Victorian England, prostitutes, seen as carriers of venereal disease, were forcibly detained and treated in hospitals until they were considered unlikely to infect the male population - particularly the lower ranks of the Army and Royal Navy. Peter France introduces two stories which show how previous generations have dealt with the problem of lead pollution and a disease in its time as worrying as AIDS.

Mary Queen of Scots has come down to us as a tragic heroine - but what kind of respect does she command as a 16th-century ruler? Anne Boleyn is usually seen either as a scheming predator or as a pathetic figure executed because she failed to produce a male heir for Henry vm. Historians Jenny Wormald and Eric Ives set out to show that the popular images of Mary and Anne have to be radically reassessed and Peter France sets their tragic stories into the context of the religious turmoil of the 16th century.

This month Peter France , with change in mind, presents three films. The first highlights the distortions which followed the last attempt by central government to impose educational benchmarks on the majority of British schools. The second records the memories of disinherited Londoners who recall the community spirit of a Notting Hill street torn down for redevelopment 25 years ago. The third allows Cambridge don, David Cannadine , the chance to explore present attitudes to British history.

In Georgian times a crippling illness struck thousands of cider drinkers in the west of England. Their only relief was found in the waters at Bath Spa - relief that remained unexplained until the manned space programme of the 20th century. Twelve Good Men and True The Bar Theatrical Society re-enacts the trial in 1670 of William Penn and William Mead which established the right of a jury to return an independent verdict.

Timewatch joins the American Manuscript Society on a visit to London to learn of their enthusiasms and their obsessions.

What really happened in Russia in October 1917? How far can we rely on the vivid films from the period to give us a true picture of the Revolution and, of incidents such as the storming of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg? Christopher Andrew, in a critical examination of documentary evidence and the memories of Russian emigres who were eyewitnesses to the events of 1917, steers a path through the propaganda, censorship, carelessness and sheer misunderstanding that have distorted the historical record in Russia and the West for the past 70 years.

From the Age of Chivalry exhibition at London's Royal Academy of Arts Peter France introduces two films which examine the reality behind the ideal. When Manfred von Richthofen died in 1918 he had become a figure of myth; a knight of the air with 80 victories to his credit. But the legend of the Red Baron hid a quiet, aloof man whose aristocratic sense of honour drove him to his death.

Twenty-six years ago Adolph Eichmann , the Nazi officer, was tried in Jerusalem. Timewatch explores the trial through a controversial book, Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a philosopher, had written with great insight on the historical position of Jews in modern western society and on the rise of Nazism. It was therefore with a sense of deep hurt and outrage that many Jews read her reports from Jerusalem. She questioned the legality and political purpose of the trial, she portrayed Eichmann as 'banal rather than evil' and she made sweeping comments on questions of Jewish resistance and cooperation. Using archive film of the trial and interviews with friends, historians and survivors of the camps in New York and Jerusalem, this documentary pieces together the different reactions to Arendt's arguments, and to the painful process of turning the Holocaust into history.