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Scotland's History: The Top Ten - your country's history needs you...
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Scotland's history is being put to the vote on Friday 24 November.
The vote to choose the essential elements of Scottish history from 30 topics -
people, events and ideas - will go live on bbc.co.uk/scotlandshistory immediately after the transmission of the third episode of Scotland's History: The
Top Ten.
The half-hour programme, which goes out at 8.30pm on BBC Two Scotland tomorrow (Friday 24
November), will reveal the third and final batch of 10 up for consideration.
The
vote will remain open until midnight, Tuesday 28 November and the result will be
revealed in a special programme on St Andrew's night (Thursday 30 November).
Presenter Neil Oliver says: "Scotland's history is your history - all of us who
live here in this country - and we want the public to vote.
"Whether your ancestor was an ancient Pict, your grandmother came from the Indian
sub-continent, or you have just arrived from Eastern Europe - what should you
really know about the history of the country you live in?
"That is the essence of the challenge - to define what are the key elements that
make Scots who they are.
"Any such list can never be definitive, but to take a snapshot at this stage in
time as to what people think are the defining need-to-know aspects of Scottish
history is just a fascinating opportunity."
Over the last two weeks, the series has already unveiled the following 20 topics
and their advocates:
 The Scottish Empire - historian Michael Fry
The Slave Trade - author James Robertson
Unification (of Scotland) - Alex Woolf, St Andrews University
Engineers and Inventors: James Watt - Rowan Brown, Curator of Technology
at National Museums of Scotland
The Enlightenment - broadcaster James Naughtie
Irish Immigration - Martin Mitchell, Strathclyde University
Entertainers - actor Sanjeev Kohli
Margaret Thatcher - David Stewart
Renaissance Court: James IV and V - Katie Stevenson, St Andrews
University
Working Women - journalist Dr Norman Watson
Declaration of Arbroath - Ted Cowan, Glasgow University
The Reformation - Jenny Wormald, Edinburgh University
Burns - Owen Dudley Edwards, Edinburgh University
Tartanry - folklorist Margaret Bennett
Scientists: James Clerk Maxwell - Bruce Borthwick
The Scottish City - historian Hamish Fraser
Radicalism - historian Michael Donnelly
Treaty of Union - Richard Finlay, Strathclyde University
Clearances - Donald William Stewart, Edinburgh University
Football - Bill Murray, La Trobe University, Australia.
The results of the public vote will be revealed in a special programme on St
Andrew's night (30 November), alongside the deliberations of a panel of history
professionals chaired by Professor Tom Devine.
Joining him to debate and wrestle with the ongoing significance of the 30 different
topics to get them down to the essential ten of Scottish history are: Allan
MacInnes, of Aberdeen University; Alison Cathcart, of Strathclyde University; David
Caldwell, National Museums of Scotland; Doreen Grove of Historic Scotland; Duncan
Toms, Principal Teacher of History at Bearsden Academy; and Katie Barclay, a Ph.D
student at Glasgow University.
Notes to Editors
The 30 topics were whittled down from more than 1,000 nominations received from
voxpops around the country and to bbc.co.uk/scotlandshistory.
HM
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