The British Pathé Archive

On 6 June 1944, the Allies commenced their campaign to liberate Western Europe - D-DAY. Watch the events unfold in this British Pathé Newsreel.

Terrorist attacks in Britain and America dating from as early as 1919 - gallery: http://www.britishpathe.com/gallery/terrorism 

Image: The “Mad Bomber of New York” George Metesky behind bars.

Afghan King’s Day With Royal Navy, 1928: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/afghan-kings-day-with-royal-navy/

It’s 50 years since Harold Wilson became Labour leader! Here he is meeting Khrushchev in 1963: Original Newsreel

50 years ago, Charles de Gaulle famously said “non” to Britain’s membership of the European Economic Community. Click here to view the 1963 newsreel.

Some British inventions are great, some are terrible. Here are the slightly dodgy ones: http://www.britishpathe.com/workspaces/jhoyle/British-inventions-the-eccentric-and-the-not-so-gr/thumb

Like the British countryside? Then you’ll love these! Here’s a selection of 66 classic clips from our archive chronicling the story of the countryside from the 1930s to the late 1960s.

http://www.britishpathe.com/workspaces/show/jhoyle/British-countryside/thumb

This still is taken from one of the films in the collection, a travelogue about picturesque Shaftesbury in Dorset.

Sunderland Bridge, County Durham, 1896

People often ask us what our oldest footage in the archive is and a quick search reveals there are only 38 films pre-1900. Some of this footage includes William Gladstone’s funeral (1898), Scenes from the Boer War (1899), Brighton beach bathing scenes (1898) and the New York Fire Brigade in action (1896). All of these films deserve blogs of their own but one of our most interesting newsreels (honestly) is a montage of clips filmed around the UK in the 1890s entitled Early Traffic Scenes.

Piccadilly Circus in 1896 – any similarities to today? The horse-drawn buses look overcrowded and as the original mobile billboard, the buses flaunt rather bold and confident advertisements such as: “Cadbury’s Cocoa. ABSOLUTELY PURE – therefore BEST”.

If there was ever a time for the congestion charge - the traffic looks worse outside the Bank of England in 1897 than it does today. You can watch more of some of the oldest online moving footage here.

Visit our 1890s Traffic gallery.