From the Magna Carta to the Falklands, the years that have made Britain, for better and for worse

Did the longbow secure victory at Agincourt or are the English just better in mud? Did Queen Elizabeth I know the Armada had capitulated when she delivered one of the most inspiring speeches in all history? Where did Wellington meet his Waterloo? Was the vote to leave the European Union Britain's modern Peasants' Revolt?

Colin Brown travels to the sites of some of the most significant events in British history to skewer inaccuracies embedded in popular parlance and reveal the truth behind the stories that make Britain great.

Colin Brown is author of the acclaimed history Whitehall: The Street That Shaped a Nation. Formerly political editor of the Sunday Telegraph and Independent on Sunday, deputy political editor of the Independent, and correspondent for the Guardian, he covered breaking news in Downing Street and Westminster for over 30 years. He lives in London.

1215: The Magna Carta. 1415: Henry V. 1588: Defeat of the Spanish Armada. 1688: The Bill of Rights. 1815: Waterloo. 1833: Abolition of the slave trade. 1928: Women's suffrage. 1940: Dunkirk and Churchill's last stand. 1945: Creation of the welfare state. 1982: Falklands War.