Peter France presents his pick of the past year's history stories and reveals their often surprising sources.
A chance conversation led to the unearthing of a First World War story which is missing from all the textbooks: the exploits of the women who opposed the war, held an international gathering at the height of hostilities, and mounted an extraordinary diplomatic initiative to end the carnage in Europe.
A letter from a prison governor provided an insight into the jails we have inherited from Victorian planners and philanthropists. Their intense vision of social reform can still be traced in the fabric of the buildings themselves.
And a Sussex merchant's diary, surfacing in a Los Angeles archive, shed fascinating light on the scientific revolution at the end of the 17th century.
SAMUEL JEAKE , the Sussex merchant, cast horoscopes for his own life to prove, by the new empirical methods, that astrology really worked. Directors CHRIS MOHR
JON BENTLEY , ROBERT MARSHALL Producer CHRIS MOHR Editor ROY DAVIES