Newsreel archive British Pathe has uploaded its entire collection of 85,000 historic films to YouTube, making rare 20th century videos available to the public.
History enthusiasts will now be able to watch footage of everything from the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, the Hiroshima bombing, and Emily Davison throwing herself under the King's horse, in high resolution.
Alastair White, general manager of British Pathe, described the archive as a "treasure trove".
"Our hope is that everyone, everywhere who has a computer will see these films and enjoy them," said Mr White.
"This archive is a treasure trove unrivalled in historical and cultural significance that should never be forgotten. Uploading the films to YouTube seemed like the best way to make sure of that."
Considered to be the finest newsreel archive in existence, British Pathe was once a dominant feature of the British cinema experience.
Spanning from 1896 to 1976, the collection includes footage from Britain and around the world of major events, famous faces, fashion trends, travel, sport and culture.
The project is being managed by German company Mediakraft, which has been responsible for numerous past YouTube successes. The company will be creating new content using British Pathe material in English and in foreign languages.
The newsreel's 3,500 hours of footage was first digitised in 2002 thanks in part to a grant from the National Lottery.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article