How did the US get so many guns?
Today there are an estimated 450 million guns in civilian hands in the United States – ten times the number than at the end of the Second World War. But how did that conflict spark a weaponry boom? An...
29 Sep 202448min
Communism: everything you wanted to know
First published in 1848, the The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels presents communism as a 'spectre' haunting Europe. During the century that followed, this revolutionary ideology ...
28 Sep 202448min
Liberating WW2 Naples: triumph and tragedy
When Allied forces arrived in Naples in October 1943, they found a city on its knees. Already ravaged by three years of war, Naples had been further decimated by German occupiers and now faced a despe...
26 Sep 202429min
1066: the battle for England | 1. Vikings, Normans and rebellious Anglo-Saxons
The roots of the Norman Conquest of 1066 can be traced all the way back to 1016 – when England was hit by an earlier foreign invasion. This time, the assault came from Denmark and the forces of Cnut. ...
25 Sep 202452min
Churchill's prewar crisis meetings
In the run-up to the Second World War, Winston Churchill's Kent home, Chartwell, was transformed from a cosy country pile to an informal Home Office, as the politician invited influential guests to co...
24 Sep 202435min
Henry VII: life of the week
Henry VII has gone down in history as the miserable miser who, rightly or wrongly, seized the English Crown from the hands of Richard III at the battle of Bosworth. But, according to historian and aut...
23 Sep 202456min
Tokyo 1946: the war crime trial that shaped Japan's future
In 1946, as Japan stood in ruins at the end of the Second World War, an international trial was launched in Tokyo. It was a mammoth legal and political undertaking that lasted more than two years, as ...
22 Sep 202446min
The Stuarts: everything you wanted to know
What do we know about James I's sexuality? How did Charles I squander his throne? How successful was the 'Glorious Revolution'? And why is the turbulence of the 17th century still overshadowed by the ...
21 Sep 202439min
