Showing on a Screen Near You: BBC's History 2000

In January, the BBC launched a new History 2000 initiative to help audiences take their interest in history further. Over the next eighteen months a national network of partners in libraries and the heritage community will create opportunities for peoples, inspired by a rich mix of BBC history programmes on television and and radio, to engage in learning more for themselves. Meanwhile the digital media will offer new and exciting ways of bringing the past to life.

One feature of the buildup to the millennium year has been the urge to understand the importance and meaning of the past. The BBC's millennium slogan 'Reflect: celebrate: anticipate' acknowledges the need to take stock of our personal and national histories in order to see ourselves as we really are, and to prepare for a future characterised by rapid change. Programme makers have responded with an unparalleled range of programmes, from oral histories at a local level to landmark series taking in the sweep of British, and global, history. Wherever you look, history is a ‘hot’ subject.