Lucy Worsley is taking viewers back to the American Revolution tonight in a two-part Two history series that sets out to tell the conflict from the British side. The program, listed for 9pm, is billed as the untold version of the story and arrives as the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is marked.

The first part begins in New York, where George Washington read out what the series calls “the ultimate breakup letter.” From there, the program looks at the events during King George III’s reign that led up to the declaration, bringing the political break between Britain and the American colonies into focus from the other side of the Atlantic.

That makes the series less a broad survey than a timed historical argument. The anniversary gives it immediate relevance, but the angle matters too: the revolution is one of the best-known stories in modern history, yet Worsley is using this broadcast to revisit it through the British perspective, which she describes as the untold version.

The timing also places it among the night’s TV listings rather than as a standalone special. Alongside the history program, the Chelsea Flower Show is kicking off at the Royal Hospital Chelsea for five days in May, a reminder that the schedule is crowding in major seasonal events even as broadcasters lean on anniversary programming.

The series’ value lies in what it asks viewers to reconsider. By tying the first reading of Washington’s message to New York and tracing the path through King George III’s reign, it frames the Declaration of Independence not as a single rupture, but as the end point of a longer political unravelling. Tonight’s broadcast should do more than retell familiar history: it is built to show why the British version of the revolution still has an audience 250 years on.