History with Christopher Hitchens (video)

Christopher Hitchens on the History of the 20th Century: UK and US (1995)

Studs Terkel introduces radical atheist (self proclaimed "anti-theist"), who takes a look at recent US and UK history.

(The Film Archives, 7/14/14) Who's Hitchens? He was an author, the son of British Royal Navy Commander Eric Hitchens, who often referred to his dad as simply the "Commander."

Christopher Hitchens at the mic in 2007 (W)

The day after Christmas in 1943, the Commander was deployed onboard the HMS Jamaica when it sank the German warship the Scharnhorst.

Chris would later refer to his dad's hateful contribution to the war: "Sending a Nazi convoy raider to the bottom is a better day's work than any I have ever done."

He also stated that "the remark that most summed him [his father] up was the flat statement that the war of 1939 to 1945 had been 'the only time when I really felt I knew what I was doing'."

Hitchens' mother, Yvonne, "died" in Athens in 1973 when, despite first reports in The Times that she had been murdered, it was later concluded that her death had been the result of a suicide pact with her boyfriend, the Christian Reverend Timothy Bryan.

Hitchens travelled to Athens to identify his mother's body, which may have warped his mind and/or view of the Christian church.

• Christopher Hitchens Wiki