Timewatch

The extraordinary story of one of the war's most secret alliances - between the US Naval Intelligence and the Mafia. Denied for 50 years, the pact was in fact begun on the New York waterfront and sealed in the mountains of Sicily. Now the key players speak for the first time about the deal uniting US Intelligence with "Lucky" Luciano and Don Calo Vizzini - the most feared Godfathers of their day. In Palermo, Leoluca Orlando, head of Italy's newest political party and the Mafia's number one target, talks about the tragic legacy of this most unholy alliance.

The origins of the troubles in Northern Ireland and new evidence of the Irish government's role in the emergence of the Provisional IRA. With interviews with Irish ex-cabinet ministers and former leading members of the Republican movement, it details Dublin's funding of the IRA, why it favoured the more radical elements and how the Irish governement plotted to invade Northern Ireland in 1970.

Tells the story of 200,000 Polish children stolen by the Nazis during World War II. They were taken to the Reich. The younger children were given over for adoption by Nazi families and the older ones went to Hitler Youth Camps or worked for German families as maids or farmhands. Those who did not fit were sent to concentration camps. The film focuses on the experiences of two cousins who were stolen on the same day. One was 4 years old and the other was 10. They both eventually returned to Poland but the experience marked them in different ways.

A new profile of the man who was director of the FBI for nearly 50 years. It would appear that the Mafia had some kind of hold over him. The American Mafia, it is asserted, had damaging evidence about Hoover's sex life and they knew about his homosexuality. Hoover's attitude to organised crime underwent a sea change between the 1930s and 1940s. He turned a blind eye during the vital years of its growth allowing it to gain a firm grip on American society.

Explores the social history of the contraceptive pill with the help of three generations of women. The inventors of the pill hoped it would solve the world's population crisis, but it turned out instead to be the chosen birth control method of the Western world, not of the developing countries. Suggests that after decades of sex without responsibility, HIV and AIDS have sent sexual attitudes back to the fearful pre-pill days of the 1950s.

Delves into the myth surrounding William F. Cody who entertained millions of people throughout the world with the adventures of Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show between 1883 and 1916.

Asks whether Britain's area-bombing campaign during World War Two was a necessary strategy to defeat Hitler or a war crime.

Pepole who were involved in the carrying out of the death penalty recall their experiences and emotions. Includes comments from Syd Dernley, the last living hangman, who considered it `just a job'; the prison chaplain Leslie Lloyd-Rees; and the last living judge to have sentenced a man to hang - Lord Denning. Also includes footage of the last working gallows in Britain at Wandsworth Prison.

New archaeological research has given fresh insight into what happened in the Roman amphitheatre. Cruelty and violence became the cornerstone of political and social life. The entertainment often ended in horrible scenes of torture and bestiality. Features computer reconstructions of the Colosseum.

Tells the story of the largest armoured battle ever fought. It took place at Kursk, south of Moscow in 1943. It lasted seven weeks, resulting in 254,470 dead on the Russian side and 100,000 on the German side. Hitler was determined to launch this last great offensive on the Eastern Front which, in the event, he lost. The programme uses archive footage of the battle, specially-shot scenes of the terrain where the battle was fought and the testimony of many who fought there.

he inside story of how 10 republican prisoners, including Bobby Sands, starved themselves to death in the Maze Prison in 1981, featuring interviews with surviving strikers, IRA victims and politicians including Dr Garret Fitzgerald and Lord Whitelaw.

Documentary following a meeting in Israel of two adult groups: one comprising the children of Nazi war criminals, the other - children of Holocaust survivors. The meeting was arranged by Israeli psychologist Dan Bar-On in an attempt to exorcise their shared past.

Investigative biography of Lee Harvey Oswald. Covers his life from a troubled childhood to his service in the US Marines, to his defection to the Soviet Union in 1959 and his return to the United States in 1962. Aims to enable the viewer to make a decision about who was reponsible for Kennedy's assassination.

Report on the extent of the tyranny of Mao Tse Tung's regime from 1949 until his death in 1976. His rise to power and the revolution which swept away the corruption of Chiang Kai Chek was accompanied by optimism, but in the followinging 25 years he was to almost destroy China. His doctor speaks of Mao's sexual encounters with young girls and a former Red Guard reveals that cannibalism played a part in the Cultural Revolution.