The Windsors: A Royal Family

Discover how completely King George V and his advisors transformed the royal house of Saxe-Coburg- Gotha into the House of Windsor, when the family's German heritage became a serious public relations liability.

Go behind the sensationalism and sentimentality of the story of Edward VIII and his 1936 abdication to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.

Follow the reign of Queen Elizabeth II and see how, beginning with her televised coronation in 1953, the Queen and her family made shrewd use of the media to maintain the aura of the popularity of the monarchy.

In the 1990s, the monarchy plunged from general approval into disarray, brought down by the very forces it had used to promote itself. Historians ask whether and how the House of Windsor might reinvent itself in the new millennium.