America, Japan and the Atomic Bomb
On 6 August 1945, an American B29 bomber dropped the world's first deployed atomic bomb over Hiroshima. Three days later, Nagasaki was at the receiving end of a second American A-bomb. Why did America...
4 Aug 202032min
The Red Scare
In the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy was the public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fuelled fears in the United States of widespread Communist subversion. McCarthy believed Soviet spies a...
31 Jul 202023min
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was one of history’s most ruthless and ambitious warriors – King of the Franks, then King of the Lombards, conqueror of the Saxons, leading to the Pope crowning him Roman Emperor. But plen...
28 Jul 202032min
The Rise of the Monasteries
In the Middle Ages, Christian monasteries played an integral role in the generation and spread of knowledge. Scholarship flourished behind monastery walls and monks became experts in a wide range of f...
27 Jul 202024min
The Troubles in Northern Ireland
On 10 April 1998 – Good Friday – the UK’s Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, signed an agreement that signalled the end of 30 years of violence and bitter sectarian confli...
24 Jul 202024min
The Genius of Shakespeare
Arguably the world’s greatest ever dramatist, after five and a half centuries William Shakespeare remains as popular as ever. But how did he became so famous? How did later authors boost his reputatio...
21 Jul 202020min
America's Entry into the World Wars
When World War I broke out in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the United States would remain neutral. The U.S.A. only officially entered the conflict three years later. It took the Japanese ...
17 Jul 202018min
The Spread of Christianity
In the first century after his crucifixion, the teachings of Jesus quickly spread throughout the Greco-Roman world and his early followers often faced severe persecution. But how did people around the...
14 Jul 202034min
