American History's Biggest Fibs

Our stories define us. Revealing more about who we are now than who we were then. Take the American Revolution. This moment made America: the David-and-Goliath battle of men with high ideals versus the might of the British Empire. Or so we're told. Historian Lucy Worsley uncovers the real story that underpins the birth of a nation in a dizzying hour of alternatives to the alternative facts.

Abraham Lincoln has gone down in history as the visionary who ended slavery in one of America's bloodiest conflicts. But as historian Lucy Worsley reveals: Lincoln's personal views, and the behavior of his troops towards black Americans, weren't as noble as they appeared. From the rise of the Ku Klux Klan to the current racial protests, you might wonder if the Civil War has ever really ended.

We think of the 1950s in America as a golden era of abundance, harmony and the American dream made real. But, as this final instalment of historian Lucy Worsley's fascinating debunking of American mythology makes clear, this was a carefully constructed illusion. In truth, the era of America's global supremacy was a time of government deception, racial conflict and fears of nuclear annihilation.