The Wild West

This episode sheds new light upon the anathemised General Custer, questioning the standard view of him as an incompetent and vainglorious idiot and presenting him as an intelligent and ruthless man, whose last battle could easily have been a victory if things had gone as he'd planned.

Billy the kid, the most notorious figure of the wild west, is on trial again... this time the world's three leading experts, re-examining old evidence and pondering letters from Billy the Kid that have never been seen before, try to determine just how guilty he was, and whether the then governor of New Mexico, Lew Wallace, really had promised Billy a pardon, and if so, why? Was Billy the Kid the psychopathic killer history says he is or was he completely different from the legend that has built up around him?

The gun fight at the okay corral is, perhaps, the most famous shootout in history. In thirty seconds a new image in legend was born - the legend of the Righteous Lawman. But what was Wyatt Earp truly like? After the gunfight at the OK Corral Earp was not seen as a hero. He was charged with murder and put on trial for his life. Was he a 'Righteous Lawman' fighting for justice and equality, or was he just a ruthless enforcer, hardly bett...