Days That Shook the World
S01E08: First Nuclear Reaction / Chernobyl
2 December 1942 and 26 April 1986. The first controlled nuclear chain reaction heralded the atomic age, but Chernobyl's runaway chain reaction was the first warning. How did the most exciting scientific breakthroughs ever lead to the disaster that the world had dreaded?
Overview
Days That Shook the World is a British documentary television series that premiered on BBC Two on 17 September 2003. The programme features various milestones throughout history. It has been broadcast on the BBC, Discovery Channel UK, The History Channel and Viasat History.
The series was also released on DVD by the Polish edition of Newsweek in 2007.
Episodes
S01E02 The Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand / The Death of Hitler
28 June 1914 and April 1945. The Story Behind two pistol shots: the single bullet, fired by a young Serb nationalist that triggered World War 1 and the self-administered shot that brought about the end...
S01E03 The Assassination of Martin Luther King / The Release of Nelson Mandela
4 April 1968 and February 1990. How two men - both intellectuals and determined opposers of racial oppression - came to symbolise the fight for equality as their lives for their cause.
S01E04 Hiroshima
This episode dramatises the minute by minute events leading up to the world's first ever atomic bombing. Based on extracts from President Truman's personal diaries which show the decision-making process reflecting America's real fear that...
S01E05 The Murder of the Romanovs / The Fall of the Berlin Wall
17 July 1918 and 9 November 1989. The Murder of the Russian royal family marked Russia's irrevocable move from a monarchy to a Communist state. Seventy Years later, the fall of the Berlin Wall symbolised...
S01E06 Kristallnacht / The Birth of Israel
9 November 1938 and 14 May 1948. Just ten years after the Nazis openly attacked Jews and their property - a huge step on the nightmare spiral to the Holocaust, the 2000 year old dream...
S01E07 Tutankhamun's Tomb / Deciphering the Rosetta Stone
26 November 1922 and 17 September 1822. Two days that brought ancient Egypt dramatically to life. In 1822, Jean-Francois champollion cracks Egyptian hieroglyphs. One hundred years later, Howard Carter reads the name on a tomb...
S01E08 First Nuclear Reaction / Chernobyl
2 December 1942 and 26 April 1986. The first controlled nuclear chain reaction heralded the atomic age, but Chernobyl's runaway chain reaction was the first warning. How did the most exciting scientific breakthroughs ever lead...
