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1954-1963

Episode number: 1

Overview: Michael Buerk looks back at the birth of BBC Television News and how it showed the post-war world taking shape: the black and white era of Winston Churchill, the death of John F Kennedy and the birth of the pill, the Beatles and the permissive society

1964-1973

Episode number: 2

Overview: Charles Wheeler reflects on an age which saw America embroiled in the war in Vietnam, violent clashes over civil rights and Watergate; an age when 'mods' fought 'rockers' - and man landed on the moon.

1974-1983

Episode number: 3

Overview: Kate Adie remembers the three-day week, the IRA's mainland bombing campaign, Charles and Diana and the arrival of Britain's first woman Prime Minister, whose political fortunes were transformed when she took the country to war over the Falklands.

1984-1993

Episode number: 4

Overview: John Simpson looks at a decade of profound change. The Berlin Wall came down, while apartheid collapsed along with communism. Thatcher's Britain was transformed and tragedy came to Lockerbie, Enniskillen - and Ethiopia.

1994-2004

Episode number: 5

Overview: Jeremy Bowen introduces the age of 24-hour news, when the world watched the September 11th attacks live on television. Diana was killed in Paris; Concorde made its last flight; there were ware in Europe, Afghanistan and Iraq; and a new war - the War on Terror.