For all too many people, history consists of no more than a set of familiar and well-worn stories such as the incompetence of First World War British generals, the heroic struggle of the suffragettes and the saintly devotion to duty of Florence Nightingale. We seldom stop to ask ourselves if Florence Nightingale actually saved any lives or whether the suffragettes hindered or helped women to gain the vote. In this channel, Simon Webb, author of many books of popular history, examines some of our favorite historical characters and incidents, looking at the truth behind the myths. We learn, for example, that Magna Carta has nothing to do with habeus corpus or the so-called 'British Values' and that slavers from Africa were raiding England at least half a century before the English began taking slaves from Africa. This channel is for anybody who has ever questioned the stories which they learned during history lessons at school.
