History of the World podcast

7000 BCE onwards - Proto-Indo-Europeans are believed to have spoken a language ancestral to over four hundred languages of the modern world.  Why do we believe this when there is no firm evidence of a...

4 Aug 201937min

2500 - 1600 BCE - The city of Mohenjo-daro has some surprisingly modern civil aspects. This episode explores the discoveries and suggest what they can tell us about the people who lived there.

28 Jul 201938min

3300 - 1600 BCE - A mysterious, but peaceful and successful trading civilisation.  Their undeciphered script cannot hide some amazing and unique aspects.

21 Jul 201942min

1190 BCE? - The Trojan War is a mythological story about a city called Troy which was attacked after a large wooden horse was pulled into the city secretly containing Greek warriors.  Is there any cha...

14 Jul 201945min

1600 - 1070 BCE - Mythology and archaeology are the ingredients of a good ancient period story and the Mycenaeans are no exception.  The rise and fall of the first civilised mainland Greeks.

7 Jul 201950min

2000 - 1450 BCE - Our first European civilisation takes us to the island of Crete in the Mediterranean where we learn of bare breasted ladies, bull-leaping, huge palaces and the ferocious Minotaur in ...

30 Jun 201944min

1200 BCE - 900 CE - Alphabets emerged from early writing systems and were so practical that they evolved and supplanted many of the systems in place around the world.  Find out how.

23 Jun 201938min

3300 - 1200 BCE - What is writing and why did people start doing it?  We analyse the earliest known writing systems and read between the lines.

16 Jun 201945min