Things We Forgot to Remember

Michael Portillo invites us to look again at our collective memories of great events and characters from the past. Rediscovering forgotten events that challenge our understanding and put the complication back into history. The four half hour documentaries are broadcast every Sunday from Nov 13th.

Last refreshed: August 19th, 2025 at 3:16 PM ⓘ

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Episodes

TWFTR: The Junkers of Woodbridge Airfield

Through the story of a German night fighter captured in Suffolk, Michael Portillo remembers the crucial electronic war waged between the Axis and the Allies. In July 1944 the crew of a Junkers JU88 night fighter, lost and without fuel, emergency landed their plane on an RAF airfield in Suffolk. This gift from the skies provided British Air Intelligence with the latest German radar secrets. Throughout the war a technological see-saw had been underway with each side trying to gain the the advantag...

Jul 04, 2012•28 min

TWFTR: The Georgian Facade

Michael Portillo examines the Georgian period. We remember the politeness, elegance, wealth and taste but forget how the Georgian regime supressed political dissent and wrote out of history those opposed to its version of Britishness.

Jun 11, 2012•27 min

TWFTR: The Morgenthau Plan

Michael Portillo discovers an American porposal for post war Germany called the Morgenthau plan. Its punative measures aimed at deindustrialising Germany and making it a 'giant potato patch' unable to wage war. It's very different from the Marshall plan we all remember but it was signed by President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.

Jun 07, 2012•27 min

TWFTR: Magna Carta and the 1216 invasion

Michael Portillo discovers how we've forgotten that Magna Carta led to a civil war and a French invasion of England.

Jun 01, 2012•28 min

TWFTR: The English Armada

We hear a great deal about the Spanish Armada and how plucky England fought off this maritime behemoth with superior seamanship, English gumption and some helpful weather. But we forget that the very next year 'plucky' England sent an equally immense armada to invade Spain. Michael Portillo discovers the disasterous story of Francis Drake and the English Armada.

Dec 12, 2011•28 min

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