IT WILL pitch Robert the Bruce's routing of the English at Bannockburn against Archie Gemmill putting the Dutch defence to the sword with his silky World Cup skills.
The emotional reopening of the Scottish Parliament after 300 years may have to fight against Sean Connery swaggering on to the big screen as James Bond and alerting the world to the nation's suave and sexy manhood.
A major TV series to be broadcast later this year will set out to find the greatest events in Scottish history. Viewers will be asked to nominate their most important moments and then vote for them in a nationwide poll.
Great battles will compete with feats of engineering, culture, intellectual thought and politics for the top slot, although seminal sporting moments will not be forgotten.
The producers want to find out which events have captured the imagination to the extent that they are ingrained as part of the national identity.
This means key dates such as the victory at Bannockburn in 1314, and the Act of Union in 1707 will be compared with the publication of a work of literature or a major achievement in the sporting arena.
The series, with a budget in excess of £100,000, will be kick-started by TV promotions asking viewers to send in their nominations. Three half-hour programmes in November will use on-screen champions - celebrities and historians - to make their case for 30 key events. Viewers will then be encouraged to vote for their favourites online.
The series will culminate in a one-hour studio debate among a seven-strong panel of Scotland's leading historians, chaired by Professor Tom Devine on St Andrew's Night (November 30), when the winner will be revealed.
Events already certain to feature strongly are the Wars of Independence, in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, the 18th-century publication of the works of Robert Burns, the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath, and the 16th-century Reformation.
Les Wilson, the creative director of Caledonia TV, which is making the series for BBC Scotland, said: "We want to generate a public debate about the 10 things you really should know about if you are living in Scotland. It is a way of stimulating discussion and debate about Scottish history."
The programme will follow a similar format to other blockbuster series in which the public has played a major part, including Restoration, about neglected buildings, and Greatest Britons, in which viewers voted for Winston Churchill as the towering figure of British history.
Scotland's History: The Top 10, to be presented by Neil Oliver, the archaeologist who fronted the BBC's Two Men in a Trench, also follows concern that Scottish history has been downgraded on the school curriculum.
However, historians, politicians and writers - in a snapshot poll conducted by Scotland on Sunday - believe the programme will perform an important role in redefining Scottish identity.
Professor Tom Devine, the Sir William Fraser chair of Scottish history at Edinburgh University, said: "It will be up to the audience to decide, but I am looking forward to the debate.
"It should be a dynamic discussion and I suspect the Wars of Independence, with the likes of Wallace and Bruce to the fore, will be up against the great thinkers of the Enlightenment, such as Hume and Smith. There are bound to be more modern achievements thrown in for good measure."
Dr Allan MacInnes, holder of the Burnett-Fletcher chair of history at Aberdeen University, who will also sit on the studio panel, said: "This is a great idea. It is a little bit like the X Factor applied to history. It will hopefully show that television can educate and inform rather than just entertain.
"I suspect the Wars of Independence, the Reformation and the Treaty of Union to be the three biggest topics nominated, but there's no guessing what the public could vote for."
Ian Rankin, the Edinburgh-based author of the Rebus detective novels, named Scotland's 3-2 victory over England in 1967 - when Jim Baxter dominated Wembley - among his top Scottish moments.
He said: "That win was important because it re-established Scottish football, particularly after England's victory in the 1966 World Cup. It was nice to have a laugh at England's expense."
Rankin added: "On a personal level, the building of the Forth Bridge was hugely important. It is a fantastic Scottish monument."
He also cited Connery's first appearance as 007 in Dr No (1962) as a pivotal moment in the nation's cultural history.
"It showed that Scots were sexy and suave and gave us an international film presence."
Sport figured prominently in the suggestions of Margo MacDonald, the Independent MSP for the Lothians. She said: "Archie Gemmill's goal (1978) has got to be right up there. Football runs through Scottish veins and that goal showed, and still shows today, that Scotland has style and commitment.
"Allan Wells' winning of the gold medal in the 100 metres at the Moscow Olympics has also never been surpassed."
Politics figured strongly in the choices of MSP Wendy Alexander, which included the creation of the NHS and the Scotland Act which ensured a devolved parliament for Scotland in 1999.
She said: "Overnight, the NHS removed the fear of the costs associated with illness for millions of Scots. The Scotland Act restored a parliament to Scotland and it is rare to make such a fundamental constitutional change without conflict or violence."
Wilson suspects there will be wide differences of opinion between viewers and the history professionals. "You never know what the public might come up with," he said.
A BBC Scotland spokeswoman added: "We see this programme as a really good way to raise awareness of Scottish history and to generate debate around it in a form that has a serious purpose but also leaves room for a bit of fun."
Verdict of the great and good
Andrew MarrBroadcaster and former BBC political editor
Joint 1st: The Battle of Bannockburn (1314) and the Declaration of Arbroath (1320): "You have to have the idea as well as the military victory."
||6968|| Philosopher David Hume's refusal, on his deathbed in 1776, to give up his beliefs: "He had reshaped western thought and his friends thought he would recant when he was dying of cancer. He didn't."
||67
66|| The Disruption of 1843, when one third of the Church of Scotland broke off to form the Free Church, in protest at state interference in the Kirk. "It was a fantastically important moment and one of the first times people gave up their salaries on a point of principle.
||6564|| The Battle of Flodden Field, 1513: "With the death of James IV, Scotland lost its last great king and with it any genuine opportunity of a rich and long lasting Scottish renaissance."
||63
62|| The publication of Hugh MacDiarmid's Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926): "Although he is terribly unfashionable and was daft and politically inconsistent, he is Scotland's greatest modern poet."
Margo MacDonald
Independent MSP for the Lothians.
||5958|| Archie Gemmill's goal in Scotland's 3-1 victory over Holland in the 1978 World Cup.
||5756|| Robert the Bruce's victory at Bannockburn.
||55
54|| Allan Wells winning gold in the 100m at the Moscow Olympics in 1980.
||5352|| Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin, 1928.
||51
50|| Scottish independence? "The best is yet to come."
Professor Tom Devine
Sir William Fraser Chair of Scottish History, University of Edinburgh, and author of The Scottish Nation
||4746|| The Wars of Independence, 1286-1314. "They were basic to the building of the nation and prevented the conquest of Scotland by England."
||4544|| The Reformation: "It ensured the modern religious identity of modern Scotland."
||43
42|| The Union of Scotland and England, 1707: "Whatever one's political view, there can be no doubt that a long-term relationship with England was vital to the framework that helped Scots have a huge impact throughout the world."
||4140|| The Scottish Enlightenment, 1740-1790: "Scots had a huge intellectual influence not only in Europe but across the world."
||39
38|| The First World War: "Per head of population more Scots combatants died than any other nation, and the legacy remains with a war memorial in every town. It symbolised the watershed between the success of the 19th century and the depression of the 1920s and 1930s, resulting in the decline of Scotland's heavy industries."
Dr Louise Yeoman
Historian and author of Reportage Scotland: Scottish History in the Voices of Those Who Were There.
||3534|| Robert the Bruce's victory at Bannockburn, 1314.
||3332|| The Vikings' triumph over Eoganan, the Pictish king, in 839, which encouraged the Scots to fight. "If that hadn't happened we might still be living in Pictavia."
||31
30|| Chepman and Myllar print the first books in Scotland, 1508.
||2928|| The abdication of Mary Queen of Scots, 1567.
||27
26|| James VI and the Union of the Crowns, 1603. "It is significant because that was when we got into bed with the Elephant [England]."
Ian Rankin
Author of the Rebus novels
||2322|| Scotland beating England 3-2 at Wembley in 1967.
||2120|| The publication of Lanark by Alasdair Gray, 1981. "It was the greatest Scottish novel since Sir Walter Scott, and encouraged a lot of us who were thinking of becoming writers."
||19
18|| The building of the Forth Bridge, 1883-1890.
||1716|| Allan Wells winning gold in the 100m at the Olympics, 1980.
||15
14|| Sean Connery's first appearance as James Bond in Dr No, 1962.
Wendy Alexander
Labour MSP and former Executive minister
||1110|| The arrival of St Columba in Iona, 563. "It was the start of Christianity."
||98|| The Act of Union, 1707.
||7
6|| The Scottish Enlightenment.
||54|| The creation of the National Health Service, 1948.
5 The Scotland Act, 1998.
