Ghosts, grief and the paranormal

Hannah Skoda and Rana Mitter look back at the history behind some of the year's biggest news stories in this special episode of our monthly series From the rise of AI to a plethora of elections and l...

24 Dec 202442min

From a sunken Tudor flagship brought back to life by the wonders of osteoarchaeology, to the tales of bravery and endurance surrounding the tragic fate of WW2's SS Gairsoppa, shipwrecks can reveal far...

23 Dec 202450min

Radical rabble-rousers, trusted bankers and conscientious objectors; the Quakers have been viewed in many different ways down the centuries. Their non-conformist origins and unique religious principle...

22 Dec 202442min

Did Oliver Cromwell ban mince pies? When did people first give Christmas presents? And why does Santa wear red? Speaking to Ellie Cawthorne in this episode first aired in 2020, George Goodwin, histori...

21 Dec 202447min

Think of the transportation of convicts, and your mind probably goes to the arrival of the First Fleet in Australia in 1788. But, as historian Clare Anderson reveals in this episode, convict transport...

20 Dec 202437min

The English Reformation and the dissolution of the monasteries were major milestones in 16th-century England, shaking the very foundations of Tudor religious belief. But while the nation moved back an...

19 Dec 202447min

Churches were central to life in the Middle Ages. But with the Reformation wreaking havoc on religious buildings, nowadays it's hard to get a sense of what a medieval church would actually have looked...

18 Dec 202424min

From the fall of Granada to the issuing of the Alhambra decree, Isabella of Castile's reign was one that saw an extraordinary amount of history-altering events and, as such, has earned her a complex l...

17 Dec 202444min