Pope Joan
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a story that circulated widely in the middle ages about a highly learned woman who lived in the ninth century, dressed as a man, travelled to Rome, and was elected Pope...
27 Feb 202546min
Socrates in Prison
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Plato's Crito and Phaedo, his accounts of the last days of Socrates in prison in 399 BC as he waited to be executed by drinking hemlock. Both works show Socrates prepar...
20 Feb 202550min
The Battle of Valmy
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most consequential battles of recent centuries. On 20th September 1792 at Valmy, 120 miles to the east of Paris, the army of the French Revolution faced Prus...
13 Feb 202547min
Slime Moulds
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss slime mould, a basic organism that grows on logs, cowpats and compost heaps. Scientists have found difficult to categorise slime mould: in 1868, the biologist Thomas Hu...
30 Jan 202551min
Vase-mania
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss eighteenth century 'vase-mania'. In the second half of the century, inspired by archaeological discoveries, the Grand Tour and the founding of the British Museum, parts...
23 Jan 202556min
Plutarch's Parallel Lives
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek biographer Plutarch (c46 AD-c120 AD) and especially his work 'Parallel Lives' which has shaped the way successive generations see the Classical world. Plutarc...
16 Jan 202556min
The Habitability of Planets
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss some of the great unanswered questions in science: how and where did life on Earth begin, what did it need to thrive and could it be found elsewhere? Charles Darwin spe...
9 Jan 202552min
Nizami Ganjavi
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the greatest romantic poets in Persian literature. Nizami Ganjavi (c1141–1209) is was born in the city of Ganja in what is now Azerbaijan and his popularity soo...
2 Jan 202552min
