Letters from the front line

Between 1939 and 1945, the Nazis killed nearly 300,000 people with learning disabilities or psychiatric illnesses. Some 400,000 more were forcibly sterilised. Historian Dagmar Herzog speaks to Ellie C...

8 Juni 202538min

What happens when you step inside a fairy ring? Where did the figure of the Green Man come from? And why have so many East Anglians been terrorised by a menacing, dog-like creature called Black Shuck?...

7 Juni 202545min

Shakespeare is now a towering figure of global theatre. But in the 1590s, he was just an up-and-coming young playwright, trying to scratch out a living in Shoreditch's emerging theatre scene. Daniel S...

5 Juni 202535min

Plague, war, regicide, famine, revolt – during the 14th century, life for people in England was turned on its head. Historian Helen Carr charts this extraordinarily turbulent period through the lives ...

3 Juni 202552min

In the latest episode of our monthly series charting the past behind the present, historians Rana Mitter and Hannah Skoda explore the ways the Second World War continues to shape the world of today. P...

2 Juni 202545min

From merriment to mummification, new year revelries to funerary rites, wine played a key role in ancient Egyptian culture. Islam Issa speaks to Matt Elton about why the alcoholic drink was so importan...

1 Juni 202535min

In everything from the social sciences and technology to art and architecture, 18th-century Scotland saw a flowering of ideas and innovation. But what made the Enlightenment in Scotland different to t...

31 Maj 202537min

During the Second World War, a promise by President Roosevelt to provide supplies to nationalist China led to the creation of an ill-fated air supply route from India, across a perilous stretch of the...

29 Maj 202545min