The summer that changed everything for the Kennedys
Historian Leigh Straw describes one pivotal summer in the life of the Kennedy family. With most of the family in their Cape Cod summer home, the summer of 1944 was marked by personal grief and politic...
10 Dec 202538min
Margaret Beaufort: life of the week
Born in the tumultuous 15th century, Margaret Beaufort – mother of Henry VII – endured personal tragedy, dynastic danger, and the ever-shifting fortunes of power. Yet she emerged as one of the most in...
9 Dec 202547min
Idi Amin's willing helpers
Idi Amin is 20th-century Africa’s most notorious ruler – a cartoonish tyrant who has been bracketed with the likes of Hitler and Stalin. And it’s true that, as Uganda’s dictator for most of the 1970s,...
8 Dec 202541min
“You can’t kill and maim with impunity”: the powerful legacy of Nuremberg
In the 80 years since Nazi leaders stood in the dock, how has the international community sought to deal with war criminals around the globe? For this concluding episode of our four-part series on the...
7 Dec 202536min
Assassins vs Templars
The Assassins and the Knights Templar are two of history’s most intriguing, enigmatic and legendary groups. While they may seem vastly different on the surface, their intertwined stories reveal a surp...
5 Dec 202550min
WW2's Tunisian campaign: the Stalingrad of Africa
For the Allies it was an enormous triumph and for Nazi Germany it was another Stalingrad. But 80 years on, the battle for Tunisia is barely mentioned in popular accounts of the Second World War, havin...
3 Dec 202546min
Empress Matilda: life of the week
In the tumultuous aftermath of Henry I’s death, England was thrown into one of the most chaotic civil wars in its history – the Anarchy. At the heart of the struggle stood Empress Matilda: daughter of...
2 Dec 202542min
How warhorses transformed medieval England
William the Conqueror used them to devastating effect in 1066. Robert the Bruce worked out how to neutralise them. And when Richard III was knocked from his, England would never be the same again. Her...
1 Dec 202536min
