The History of English in Ten Minutes is a series of short animated videos from Open University. They are humorous and quick – so quick that you may need to replay them a few times in order for them to sink in. They are slightly irreverent, and aimed at the 12 and up crowd, so please preview them before showing them to a class. I like the Shakespeare one since my daughter has been recently studying the famous playwright:
Open University also offers 7 videos in their series 60-Second Adventures in Thought, which includes interesting philosophical topics such as The Grandfather Paradox.