The devastating train crash that killed dozens of people in South Croydon in 1947, factories destroyed by German World War Two bombers and politicians landing at Croydon Airport are all documented in historic archive footage made public this week.
The 1948 Croydon North by-election and wreckage of the 1961 aeroplane crash in Norway in which 34 pupils and two teachers from Archbishop Lanfranc School died also feature in films from British Pathé's archives uploaded onto YouTube this week.
A more light-hearted film captures an after-dinner walking club speed-walking from Croydon to Godstone in 1920.
The 23 videos are among 85,000 - totalling 3,500 hours of footage - being uploaded onto YouTube by British Pathé, which is making its entire archive available to view.
Watch some of the videos below and find more on YouTube.
1. Croydon schoolboys killed in aircrash (1961)
2. Croydon train crash (1947)
3. Walking race from Croydon to Godstone (1920)
4. German flying officers arrive at Croydon (1937)
5. Foreign Secretary Austen Chamberlain arrives at Croydon Airport and is greeted by his mum (1927)
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