How the BBC Began

The eyewitnesses and participants in the BBC’s early history recount some of the triumphs and disasters as new frontiers of broadcasting were mapped out – often by accident rather than design.

BBC TV’s first female newsreader, Nan Winton, tells the story of how she was sacked, and staff from the BBC’s monitoring service explain the role they played in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The story of how the BBC struggled to be impartial at critical moments in British history and how it handled social changes in Britain after the Second World War.