"The son of escaped slaves, Lewis Howard Latimer (1848-1928) is considered one of the greatest black inventors. John Brown was a notable abolitionist of this period. Hanged in 1859 he advocated the use of armed insurrection to overthrow the institution of slavery in the USA. Jesse Owens triumphed at Hitler's showpiece 1936 Olympics yet snubbed by American figures of power. The 1948 Nationalities Act led to Windrush Generation in the UK. The writer...

The leader. The iron fist. The Great Purge. With unopposed rule over his country. Huge human sacrifice defeating Hitler. Stalin's reward at Yalta, the regions he held & geopolitical power. Stalin died in 1953.

The films industry was reflecting some of the Civil Rights issues in the USA reflected in The Heat of the Night with the talents of Quincy Jones as composer and the voice of Ray Charles. John Barry's unique orchestral sounds infused the Bond Franchise, Born Free, The Ipcress File and Zulu. Maurice Jarre who started the decade with Laurence of Arabia would score the outstanding Dr Zhivago with "Lara" theme and John Frankenheimer's war epic The Train....

Film Director, Anthony Mann born in 1906 best remembered for his work in the film noir. He directed films for a variety of production companies, from RKO to MGM, and worked with many major stars of the era. He made several Westerns with James Stewart, such as Winchester '73 (1950), and he was the director of the medieval epic El Cid (1961), working with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren. He also directed the big-budget film Cimarron (1960), which starred...

New names were emerging Carter Burwell's Barton Fink (1991), Conspiracy Theory (1997), The Big Lebowski (1998) and Three Kings (1999). James Newton Howard's Falling Down (1993), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), The Fugitive (1993) and The Sixth Sense (1990). James Horner's Apollo 13 (1995), Braveheart (1995), Pelican Brief (1993), Patriot Games (1992) and Titanic (1997). Hans Zimmer with As Good as It Gets (1997), Thelma & Louise (1991) and True Romance...

The birth of the music soundtrack drew influences from across the world. Expressionist Germany, Post revolution Russia and America where cinema was heading towards the 1930s and the arrival of sound. The early period featured musical scores played live from Charlie Chaplin, Joseph Carl Briel, Gottfried Huppertz, Hans Erdman and Dimitri Shostakovich whose work included Nosferatu, Birth of A Nation, Metropolis and City Lights. The first fully composed...

A sea change in the movie Industry with a new breed of independent film makers were coming to the fore. Lalo Shifrin's Dirty Harry theme bringing the tougher edgier cop, and Isaac Hayes' memorable Shaft. The legendary Nino Rota who scored the extraordinary Fellini films La Strada and La Dolce in the 1950s, created the anthemic, powerful score for The Godfather (1972) remembered for the classic "Love Theme" with those famous 12 notes. Mike Oldfield's...

Joseph Leo Mankiewicz was born in Pennsylvania in 1909 had a long Hollywood career, and won the Oscar back-to-back for both Best Director and Best Screenplay for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950) starring Bette Davis. During his long career in Hollywood, Mankiewicz wrote forty-eight screenplays. He also produced The Philadelphia Story in 1941. However, he is best known for the films he directed, Guys & Dolls, Cleopatra and the...

The night of November 8, 1923, is arguably the most significant and transformative in the history of the twentieth century. A localised uprising in the Bavarian capital of Munich, led by a small man with a toothbrush moustache and a poisonous yet compelling grandiloquence, would have repercussions that would lead to the political shackling of an entire nation, the most abhorrent crimes of the century and a world war. You might say, Adolf Hitler came...

The hard-hitting director who had seen atrocities at the end of the war as a marine in China became known for his violent scenes. He is remembered for Ride the High Country, The Wild Bunch, Cross of Iron, and The Getaway but ultimately as the man who reinvented the western.