How Catherine of Aragon Learnt to be Queen
The Spanish infanta Catalina of Aragon was raised to be a Queen, betrothed at the age of three to the heir apparent of the English throne, Arthur Prince of Wales. Eight years after Arthur's death, she...
12 Nov 202159min
WW1 and its Aftermath with Sebastian Faulks
Sebastian Faulks is a novelist who really needs no introduction, perhaps most famous for his novel Birdsong, he has written powerfully and poignantly about the impact of war on the human spirit. In th...
11 Nov 202124min
Did Immigration Really Cause the Fall of Rome?
Boris Johnson recently stated that the fall of Rome was caused by 'uncontrolled migration' and the image of a mighty empire bought to its knees by hordes of barbarians from the east is certainly a pow...
10 Nov 202139min
The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was an icon of the Cold War and a physical embodiment of the divide between East and West. Its rise and fall was a microcosm of the conflict and its fall marked the beginning of a new ...
9 Nov 202153min
Colonel Gaddafi and Libya
Even after his overthrow and bloody death in 2011, Colonel Gaddafi still looms large over Libya but there is much more to the history of this important and often misunderstood country. It is the 16th ...
8 Nov 202132min
Bar Kokhba: Hadrian's Worst Nightmare
In AD132 began the bloody struggle over who would rule a nation. The clash of two ancient cultures was fought between two strong-willed leaders, Hadrian, the cosmopolitan ruler of the vast Roman Empir...
7 Nov 202140min
The Gunpowder Plot
On 5 November 1605, an audacious plan to decapitate the British state was foiled when Guy Fawkes and nearly a ton of gunpowder were discovered in an undercroft beneath the House of Lords. The plan was...
5 Nov 202144min
The Vikings Who Beat Columbus to America
Five centuries before Christopher Columbus set foot in America, the Vikings had already crossed the Atlantic. Using new dating techniques, scientists studying timber buildings at L’Anse aux Meadows on...
4 Nov 202123min
