ITV - Great Mysteries and Myths of the 20th Century: Set 1 (1996)

For everyone who believes that fact is stranger than fiction there can be nothing in the world more fascinating than the search for the truth behind the most extraordinary mysteries and myths of the Twentieth Century.
This is a truly unique collection of those stories… Stories with hidden depths and dark secrets; often shrouded by superstition and tragedy. Tales of extraordinary courage, awesome misfortune or unbelievable luck, that have for countless years defied logic and explanation.
Now, as we can look back over the whole century for the first time, with the help of rare and previously undiscovered archive film, it is possible to bring to light a fascinating new perspective on these compelling and unpredictable enigmas.
Whether it is the mystery of Donald Campbell's death, the curse of the Mummy's Tomb or the events surrounding the fate of Glen Miller, this television series is a visual feast for everyone who is prepared to believe that everything is not always as it at first seems.

Produced by Nugus/Martin Productions for Thames International

Part 1: The Lindbergh Baby Mystery
Charles Lindbergh was the first man to fly across the Atlantic Ocean single handed. His celebrity soon produced an attractive wife and young son who kept the family in the newspaper headlines. Mysteriously, on the night of 1 March 1932, twenty-month-old Charles Lindbergh Junior was snatched from his bedroom cot at the family mansion in Hopewell, New Jersey. Despite ransom notes and the payment of money, the young child was found murdered and the trail led to a German carpenter, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, who went to the electric chair for the killing. However, he must have had accomplices. Who was the mysterious Isidor Fisch? Why did Lindbergh's parlour maid commit suicide after police interrogation? Who built the kidnapper's ladder? Should three people have been executed - not one?


Part 2: The Hindenburg Crash Mystery
During the 1930s, Hitler's massive Hindenburg airship was the pride of Nazi Germany. Able to carry sixty passengers across the Atlantic in great luxury, it represented a major technological feat of its age. However after an electric storm, the giant airship attempted to land at Lakehurst New Jersey, one and a half hours late at its mooring mast. Suddenly, the entire ship burst into flames with the loss of most of the passengers and crew. Recently discovered archive film from inside the airship shows the first indication of an explosion. Was it an accident? Or sabotage by an anti-Nazi member of the crew who misjudged the time setting on his bomb?


Part 3: The Anastasia Mystery
When Nicholas II, Alexandra and the Russian royal children were executed by the Bolsheviks at Ekaterinberg at the end of World War I, there was talk of not all the children being killed. In particular, one daughter - Anastasia - was said to have survived. In the mid-twenties, a young woman was fished from a German canal suffering from amnesia. Her name was Anna Anderson and she became the possible claimant to the Romanov fortune. Many believed her stories of the Russian court, but it was only after her death and the use of DNA sampling that the full truth emerged.


Part 4: The Red Baron Mystery
To the men he led, he was simply der Rittmeister - The Captain. To the world, he was know as 'The Red Baron' - the epitome of the fighter ace and the stuff of legend. He shot down more enemies of the Fatherland then any other of Germany's pilots during World War I. On 21 April 1918, he was shot down. He managed to land his tri-plane, but was dead of his wounds when found by Australian infantry. Had they killed him? Or was it a bullet from one of the RAF fighters which were chasing him in hot pursuit?


Part 5: The Tutankhamun Mystery
"At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping form the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues and gold - everywhere the glint of gold." With these words, Howard Carter described the greatest archaeological discovery ever made. Nothing before or since has equalled the splendour and magnificence of the tomb he had uncovered in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. But did the Pharaoh's tomb hide a darker secret which was to claim the lives of twenty-one victims?


Part 6: The Comet Mystery
After the invention of the jet engine during World War II, Britain raced ahead to produce the world's first jet liner - the Comet. It was rushed into service and after many successful trips to Africa, India and the Middle East it suddenly started to crash in mysterious circumstances. After exhaustive underwater searches, the fuselage of one particular aircraft was painstakingly tested to the point of destruction. What was found dictated the shape of all subsequent aircraft windows.


Part 7: The Gallipoli Mystery
By 1915, trench warfare in Europe was deadlocked and the Allies decided to try and defeat Germany by the backdoor. The plan was to attack the weak Turkish empire in the Middle East. By using Naval power and an amphibious landing, the Allies hoped to seize control of the Peninsula of Gallipoli at the entrance to the Black Sea. However, what actually happened was an unmitigated disaster. This programme takes the viewer behind the scenes to explore the reasons for the failure of the Dardanelles campaign.


Part 8: The Amelia Earhart Mystery
Amelia Earhart was the all American heroine of the 1930s. Her barnstorming flights across America, the Atlantic and the rest of the world had inspired a generation, but suddenly, on the last leg of her Pacific crossing on her ultimate round-the-world trip she and her co-pilot disappeared over Japanese occupied territory. Had she been on a spying mission for the US Government? Why were no traces of her aircraft found? Had she been captured by the Japanese and then executed for her part in an elaborate, intelligence gathering mission? - or was she simply the victim of exhaustion and a navigation error?


Part 9: The Patton Mystery
After the end of World War Two on 10 December 1945, America's successful and outspoken General Patton was involved in an auto accident on his way to a pheasant shoot near Mannheim, and died of his injuries 11 days later. He seemed to be on the road to recovery but suddenly died in his sleep. Was his death accidental, or had he made deadly political enemies? In the wake of Germany's surrender, Patton made no attempt to conceal his deep mistrust of the USSR - and his conviction that the Allies would soon face the Russian bear in a Third World War. Was his volatile attitude considered by some to be serious threat to an uneasy postwar peace at a time of growing tension in Europe? Could Stalin's agents have been involved? This compelling documentary uses archival photographs, film of the general himself speaking, and spectacular combat footage to portray Patton's life story.


Part 10: The Pearl Harbor Mystery
By the time America entered the war in December 1941, Britain had been at war with Germany for two years. Japan and Germany as strong allies, both held sophisticated electronic coding equipment with which to transmit their secret military traffic. Since 1939, Britain had been able to read most of the German and Japanese codes and may have known of the Japanese plan to attack Pearl Harbor. Did Churchill know of the attack several days beforehand and was President Roosevelt told in time? Is this why the US aircraft carriers sailed from Pearl Harbor before the fatal attack?


Part 11: The Rudolf Hess Mystery
In May 1941, while London suffered under a rain of bombs and Adolf Hitler was making his plans to attack Russia, his devoted supporter Rudolf Hess flew solo to Scotland. Hess' objective: to extend a hand of peace to the British. Who hatched this daring but ultimately unsuccessful plan? Was this the desperate act of a lone madman, a trap set by the British, or a secret official German operation? Was it to set up a fifth column? Whatever the reason, Hess was found hanged in his cell in Spandau Prison in 1987 as the age of 93. Why would the Russians not release him? Was he murdered to prevent the reason for his visit ever becoming known? An intriguing examination of the known facts attempts to clarify this fascinating wartime mystery. Supported by extensive film, photographs and interviews, this documentary pieces together a jigsaw puzzle of tantalizing secrets. Discover what part was played in this drama by an array of powerful and famous wartime figures.


Part 12: The Mata Hari Mystery
Nearly eighty years after her death Mata Hari remains the 20th Century's most powerful icon of female betrayal. Legend has it that she was the exotic spy who used sex to secure military secrets. She was the forerunner of a small army of silent screen vamps who preyed mercilessly on their besotted male victims. The myths which surrounded her extraordinary life and death were largely of her own creation. They also owed much to the motives of the men who arrested, tried and executed her for espionage. But was Mata Hari ever a spy? Or was she innocent of the crimes with which she was charged in the darkest days of the First World War? Was Mata Hari the spy who never was?


Part 13: The Odessa Mystery
SS is the abbreviation of Schutzstaffeln, the German for protection squads. This started life as Hitler's personal bodyguard during the early days of the Nazi party. From these small beginnings, the SS evolved into the most powerful arm of the Nazi administration, under the personal control of Heinrich Himmler. By the end of the war, the Nazis were defeated and members of the SS on the run for their involvement in the Final Solution. The Odessa was the organisation which enabled many to escape to South America. Many evaded justice but some of its most celebrated escapees were tracked down including Adolf Eichmann and Klaus Barbie.


Part 14: The D-Day Mystery
D-Day was the largest amphibious operation ever mounted in the history of world conflict. It not only transported hundreds of thousands of men and their equipment onto the beaches of Normandy, but also supplied their fuel, stores and supplies on a logistical basis never previously seen. Hitler was completely taken by surprise - the result of several major deceptions involving dummy armies, mythical bomber squadrons and the "secret plans" supposedly discovered in a briefcase.