Horrible Histories is a British children's live-action historical and musical sketch comedy television series, based on the bestselling book series of the same name by Terry Deary. The show was produced for CBBC by Lion Television with Citrus Television and ran from 2009 to 2014 for five series of thirteen half-hour episodes, with additional one-off seasonal and Olympic specials.

The TV show carries over the graphic style and much of the content of the Horrible Histories book series. It maintains the franchise's overall irreverent but accurate focus on the dark, gruesome or scatological aspects of British and other Western world history, spanning predominantly from the Stone Age to the post-World War II era. Individual historical eras or civilisations are defined and named as in the books, with sketches from several different time periods combined within a single episode. Live-action sketches—which often parody other UK media or celebrities—and music videos are intercut with animations and quizzes. The starring troupe are Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, Sarah Hadland and Ben Willbond, alongside a large supporting cast headed by Katy Wix, Lawry Lewin, Alice Lowe and Dominique Moore. The black rat puppet "host", Rattus Rattus, appears in short bridging segments, explaining the factual basis for each sketch and helping children understand the facts. (Full article...)

Nicholas Parsons during a recording of BBC Radio 4's Just a Minute. First aired in 1967, the comedy panel game was chaired by Parsons for over 50 years and it won a Gold Sony Radio Academy Award in 2003.

The BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award is an award given annually as part of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year ceremony each December. The award is given “for outstanding achievement in the face of adversity”, and BBC Sport selects the winner. The award is named after the BBC sports presenter Helen Rollason, who died in August 1999 at the age of 43 after suffering from cancer for two years. Helen Rollason was the first female presenter of Grandstand. After being diagnosed with cancer, she helped raise over £5 million to set up a cancer wing at the North Middlesex Hospital, where she received most of her treatment.

The inaugural recipient of the award was horse trainer Jenny Pitman, in 1999. Other winners include South African Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius, who won the award in 2007. Several recipients have not played a sport professionally, including Jane Tomlinson, who won in 2002, Kirsty Howard (2004), Phil Packer (2009), Anne Williams, who received the award posthumously in 2013, and eight-year-old Bailey Matthews (2015). Michael Watson, who won the award in 2003, had a career in boxing but was paralysed and almost killed in a title bout with Chris Eubank. He won the award for completing the London Marathon, an accomplishment that took him six days. Former footballer Geoff Thomas won the award in 2005; he raised money by cycling the 2,200 miles (3,540.56 km) of the 2005 Tour de France course in the same number of days as the professionals completed it. In 2006, Paul Hunter posthumously received the award, who died from dozens of malignant neuroendocrine tumours – his widow Lindsay accepted the award on his behalf. (Full article...)

George Maxwell Alagiah OBE (/ˌæləˈɡaɪə/; 22 November 1955 – 24 July 2023) was a British newsreader, journalist and television presenter. From 2007 until 2022, he was the presenter of the BBC News at Six, and also the main presenter of GMT on BBC World News from its launch in 2010 until 2014. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours. (Full article...)

The BBC Birmingham national network production centre is based in The Mailbox in Birmingham. The Mailbox also serves as the headquarters for BBC English Regions and is the home of BBC West Midlands.

Highlights from Wikipedia's Did you know

• ... that the proposed BBC television special Planet Relief, created to raise awareness of climate change, was cancelled before it was made, for fear that it would be biased against climate sceptics?

• ... that the episodes of the BBC 7 sitcom Knocker have titles such as "Privinvasionacy", "Obselejectivitysence" and "Confidentialitydence"?

• ... that BBC traffic reporter Sally Traffic has also narrated poetry albums for the blind?

• ... that the BBC journalist Barbara Plett's admission of having cried at the sight of the terminally ill Yasser Arafat led to a controversy?

• ... that crime novelist P. D. James listed the 2007 series Help Me Anthea, I'm Infested as one of the most embarrassing television programmes the BBC has ever produced?

• ... that after being wiped by the BBC, all four episodes of the Doctor Who serial The Time Meddler were discovered in Nigeria in 1984?
• ... that the BBC commissioned a painting of a 1987 Bullingdon Club photograph featuring David Cameron and Boris Johnson to circumvent copyright protection?
• ... that Jauchzet dem Herren, alle Welt by Heinrich Schütz, a 1619 setting of Psalm 100 for double choir, was performed at the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in 1972?
• ... that the programming language Acorn System BASIC was so non-standard that one commenter suggested that using it on the BBC Micro would be a disaster?