At the peak of its empire,
when the Union Jack flew over a quarter of the planet,
England collected art and artifacts as fast
as it collected colonies.
This place, the British Museum, is the showcase
for those extraordinary treasures.
Its centerpiece is the Great Court,
an impressive example of Europe's knack
for preserving old architectural spaces
by making them fresh, functional and inviting.
The stately Reading Room,
a temple of knowledge and high thinking, was the study hall
for Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, and T.S. Eliot.
Karl Marx researched right here while writing "Das Kapital."
The British Museum is the chronicle
of Western civilization.
You can study three great civilizations --
Egypt, Assyria, and Greece -- in one fascinating morning.
The Egyptian collection is the greatest outside of Egypt.
It's kicked off with the Rosetta Stone,
which provided the breakthrough
in deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Discovered in 1799, it told the same story in three languages:
Greek...
A modern form of Egyptian...
And ancient Egyptian.
This enabled archeologists
to compare the two languages they understood
with the ancient Egyptian, which was yet to be deciphered.
Thanks to this stone, they broke the code,
opening the door to understanding
a great civilization.
The Egypt we think of -- you know, pyramids, mummies,
pharaohs, and guys who walk funny --
lasted from about 3000 to 1000 BC.
It was a time of unprecedented stability, very little change
in government, religion, or arts.
Imagine, 2,000 years of Eisenhower.
Egyptian art was art with a purpose.
It placated the gods.
The entire pantheon, a cosmic zoo of deities,
was sculpted and worshipped,
and it served as propaganda for the pharaohs.
They ruled with unquestioned authority
and were considered gods on earth.
And much of the art was for dead people,
for a smoother departure and a happier afterlife.
In ancient Egypt, you could take it with you.
Corpses were painstakingly mummified.
The internal organs were removed and put in jars.
Then the body was preserved with pitch, dried,
and wrapped from head to toe.
The wooden coffin was painted with magic spells and images
thought to be useful in the next life.
The finely decorated coffins
were put into a stone sarcophagus like this.
These were then placed in a tomb,
along with the allotted baggage for that ultimate trip.
The Great Pyramids were just giant tombs
for Egypt's most powerful, carefully designed
to protect their precious valuables
for that voyage into the next life.
In its waning years, Egypt was conquered by Assyria,
present-day Iraq.
These winged lions guarded an Assyrian palace
nearly 900 years before Christ.
Assyria considered itself
the lion of early Middle Eastern civilizations.
It was a nation of hardy and disciplined warriors.
Assyrian kings showed off their power in battle
and by hunting lions.
This dying lioness, roaring in pain, was carved
as Assyria was falling to the next mighty power, Babylon.
History is a succession of seemingly
invincible superpowers, which all eventually fall.
Greece, during its Golden Age, roughly 400 BC, set the tone
of so much of Western civilization to follow.
The city of Athens was the site of a cultural explosion,
which within a couple of generations
essentially invented our notion of democracy, theater,
literature, mathematics, science, philosophy,
and so much more.
An evocative remnant of Greece's glory days
is the sculpture which once decorated the Parthenon,
a temple on the Acropolis Hill in Athens.
Here, a long procession of citizens
honors the goddess Athena.
The carvings of the temple's pediment,
even in their ruined state, are a masterpiece,
showing gods and goddesses
celebrating the birthday of Athena.
The Greeks prided themselves on creating order out of chaos,
here symbolized by the struggle between half-animal centaurs
and civilized humans.
First, the centaurs get the upper hand.
Then, the humans rally and drive them off.
In Golden Age Greece,
civilization finally triumphed over barbarism.
Prime ministers, like Winston Churchill,
have long lived and worked on Whitehall.
Here, Churchill's wrapped in the iconic trench coat
he wore as he led Britain
through the dark days of World War II.
Duck under sand bags
and descend into the Churchill War Rooms.
This was the secret underground nerve center
of the British government's fight against the Nazis
in the desperate battle for Britain.
Shut down after victory in 1945 and ignored for decades,
it's open today as a fascinating time warp
for visitors to explore.
Audio guides give it meaning.
Man: On the morning of 16 of August, 1945,
the day after V-J day, at the end of the war,
the map officers tidied their desks,
switched out the lights for the first time in six years,
and went home.
And that's the way the room stayed.
Steves: You'll see the room where Churchill
famously took his short naps.
In this room,
the progress of the entire war was followed
as day-by-day movement of troops
and convoys was charted.
And this room was the communication hub
from where Churchill maneuvered Britain to ultimate victory.
The adjacent museum introduces you to Churchill the man.
It brings the colorful statesman to life,
complete with his trademark cigar, bow tie,
cognac -- he loved his drink --
and famous hat.
You'll get a taste of Winston's irascibility,
wit, work ethic,
even the industry of kitschy knickknacks he inspired.
The immense Victoria & Albert Museum
is named for the royal couple who did so much
to support the many triumphs of their day.
Like lots of London's top attractions, it's free.
The V&A grew out of the Great Exhibition of 1851.
This first "world's fair,"
housed in a temporary glass and steel people's palace,
celebrated the Industrial Revolution
and the greatness of Britain.
The theme of the Britain Galleries
is "style, taste, and design from 1500 through 1900."
Four hundred years of English fashion history
are corseted into a series of exquisite display cases.
This painting, from around 1600, is of a woman
wearing this actual garment.
It was typical formal daywear,
linen and silk embroidered with silver thread.
Nightcaps were fashionable among aristocratic men.
This tortoiseshell and silver toiletries kit
shows that in 1640, careful grooming was as important
as dressing magnificently.
In the 1670s, shoes were called "straights,"
and there was no difference between right and left.
Whalebone and lacing kept torsos flat and long.
Fans were tools for flirting.
It was said, while a man's weapon was a sword,
a woman's weapon was a fan, and the fan did more damage.
In the 1740s, a rich woman's court dress
was an extravagant display of wealth,
even if it meant she entered rooms sideways.
The huge collection illustrates
the far reach of the British Empire,
from its exquisite Indian art
to its sumptuous hall of Chinese artifacts.
The hall of casts is filled with plaster copies
of Europe's greatest statuary,
made for the benefit
of London's 19th-century art students
who couldn't afford a rail pass.
Students could compare the Renaissance genius
of Donatello, whose "David" was Europe's first male nude
since Roman times, and that of Michelangelo
a century later,
with his more heroic "David".
Around the back you'll find that this David
came with an accessory, a clip-on fig leaf.
As this was the Victorian Age,
when royal ladies came to visit,
they'd hang it on the statue for modesty.
The Tate Modern, opened to celebrate the millennium,
fills an old power station.
It kicked off the 21st century
with a high-voltage collection of art from the 20th.
Visitors enjoy an entertaining cocktail of Dalí,
Picasso,
Stella,
Pop Art,
and Dada.
While you can simply wander enjoying the refreshing
juxtaposition of bizarre images and surreal fantasies,
you can also rent an audio guide
that lets you stroll through the collection
accompanied by the voice of the artists describing their work.
The British Library is the national archive.
The statue of Isaac Newton
measuring the immensity of the universe
symbolizes the library's purpose --
to preserve the record of man's endless search for knowledge.
The massive building fills
180 miles of shelving with over 12 million books.
For sightseers, only one room matters,
the Treasures Room.
It showcases early gospels on papyrus,
the first complete New Testament,
written in Greek from the 4th century.
Illuminated manuscripts
with pages lovingly illustrated by monks,
some of the finest art from Europe's Middle Ages.
And the Gutenberg Bible from 1455.
Gutenberg's revolutionary movable metal type
made printing affordable.
By bringing information to the masses,
this innovation helped power Europe into the modern age.
The Magna Carta from 1215
documents the first steps towards government by people
rather than kings.
And the king was forced to hang his seal on it.
Cases are dedicated
to the titans of English literature,
showing, for instance, early editions of Shakespeare's plays.
You'll see precious musical manuscripts --
a handwritten score of Handel's Messiah,
a Beethoven work tracing his stormy creative process,
and handwritten Beatles lyrics.
Ponder the evolution of maps.
In 1350, this view came with Jerusalem at the center.
By 1550, with this,
you could plan your next trip to England.