In Our Time: History
Episodes
Margaret Beaufort
02 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the woman who, as a child bride, became mother to the boy who would eventually become the first king in the Tudor dyna...
The Columbian Exchange
26 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the exchange of cultures and biology across the Atlantic and Pacific after 1492. That was when Columbus reached the Ba...
The Code of Hammurabi
12 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the laws that Hammurabi (c1810 - c1750 BC), King of Babylon, had carved into a black basalt pillar in present day Iraq...
The Roman Arena
26 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the countless venues across the Roman Empire which for over five hundred years drew the biggest crowds both in the Rep...
Paul von Hindenburg
19 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and role of one of the most significant figures in early 20th Century German history. Paul von Hindenburg (18...
The Korean Empire
29 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Korea's brief but significant period as an empire as it moved from the 500-year-old dynastic Joseon monarchy towards m...
The Battle of Clontarf
08 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the best known events and figures in Irish history. In 1014 Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, defeated the Hib...
The Gracchi
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus whose names are entwined with the end of Rome's Republic and the rise of the ...
Cyrus the Great
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests explore the history and reputation of the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great. Cyrus the Second of Persia as he was known then was b...
Catherine of Aragon
13 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536), the youngest child of the newly dominant Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella. When...
The Battle of Valmy
13 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most consequential battles of recent centuries. On 20th September 1792 at Valmy, 120 miles to the east of P...
Plutarch's Parallel Lives
16 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek biographer Plutarch (c46 AD-c120 AD) and especially his work 'Parallel Lives' which has shaped the way succe...
The Hanoverian Succession
26 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the intense political activity at the turn of the 18th Century, when many politicians in London went to great lengths ...
The Antikythera Mechanism
12 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 2000-year-old device which transformed our understanding of astronomy in ancient Greece. In 1900 a group of spong...
The Venetian Empire
28 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable rise of Venice in the eastern Mediterranean. Unlike other Italian cities of the early medieval period, ...
The Haymarket Affair
31 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the notorious attack of 4th of May 1886 at a workers rally in Chicago when somebody threw a bomb that killed a policem...
Benjamin Disraeli
17 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the major figures in Victorian British politics. Disraeli (1804 -1881) served both as Prime Minister twice and,...
The Orkneyinga Saga
04 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Saga of the Earls of Orkney, as told in the 13th Century by an unknown Icelander. This was the story of arguably t...
Marsilius of Padua
27 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the canonical figures from the history of political thought. Marsilius of Padua (c1275 to c1343) wrote 'Defenso...
Empress Dowager Cixi
20 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the woman who, for almost fifty years, was the most powerful figure in the Chinese court. Cixi (1835-1908) started ou...
Napoleon's Hundred Days
16 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Napoleon Bonaparte's temporary return to power in France in 1815, following his escape from exile on Elba . He arrive...
Julian the Apostate
18 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the last pagan ruler of the Roman Empire. Fifty years after Constantine the Great converted to Christianity and intro...
The Mokrani Revolt
04 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the revolt that broke out in 1871 in Algeria against French rule, spreading over hundreds of miles and countless towns...
The Sack of Rome 1527
21 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the infamous assault of an army of the Holy Roman Emperor on the city of Rome in 1527. The troops soon broke through t...
The Hanseatic League
29 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Hanseatic League or Hansa which dominated North European trade in the medieval period. With a trading network that...
Nefertiti
15 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the woman who inspired one of the best known artefacts from ancient Egypt. The Bust of Nefertiti is multicoloured and ...
Tiberius
11 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman emperor Tiberius. When he was born in 42BC, there was little prospect of him ever becoming Emperor of Rome. ...
Marguerite de Navarre
21 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Marguerite, Queen of Navarre (1492 – 1549), author of the Heptaméron, a major literary landmark in the French Renai...
The Theory of the Leisure Class
14 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most influential work of Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929). In 1899, during America’s Gilded Age, Veblen wrote The Th...
The Barbary Corsairs
07 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the North African privateers who, until their demise in the nineteenth century, were a source of great pride and wealt...
The Federalist Papers
09 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay's essays written in 1787/8 in support of the new US Constitution. They ...
The Economic Consequences of the Peace
26 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In an extended version of the programme that was broadcast, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential book John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1919 aft...
Louis XIV: The Sun King
22 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1661 the 23 year-old French king Louis the XIV had been on the throne for 18 years when his chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, died. Louis is report...
The Shimabara Rebellion
08 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Christian uprising in Japan and its profound and long-term consequences. In the 1630s, Japan was ruled by the Toka...
The Battle of Crécy
11 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the brutal events of 26 August 1346, when the armies of France and England met in a funnel-shaped valley outside the t...
Cnut
04 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Danish prince who became a very effective King of England in 1016. Cnut inherited a kingdom in a sorry state. The...
Solon the Lawgiver
20 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Solon, who was elected archon or chief magistrate of Athens in 594 BC: some see him as the father of Athenian democrac...
Mercantilism
13 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how, between the 16th and 18th centuries, Europe was dominated by an economic way of thinking called mercantilism. Th...
Megaliths
30 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss megaliths - huge stones placed in the landscape, often visually striking and highly prominent. Such stone monuments in...
Chartism
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On 21 May 1838 an estimated 150,000 people assembled on Glasgow Green for a mass demonstration. There they witnessed the launch of the People’s Char...
Tycho Brahe
02 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the pioneering Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546 – 1601) whose charts offered an unprecedented level of accuracy.I...
The Great Stink
26 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the stench from the River Thames in the hot summer of 1858 and how it appalled and terrified Londoners living and work...
The Irish Rebellion of 1798
05 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the momentum behind rebellion in Ireland in 1798, the people behind the rebellion and the impact over the next few yea...
Demosthenes' Philippics
15 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the speeches that became a byword for fierce attacks on political opponents. It was in the 4th century BC, in Athens, ...
The Morant Bay Rebellion
01 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rebellion that broke out in Jamaica on 11th October 1865 when Paul Bogle (1822-65) led a protest march from Stony ...
The Knights Templar
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the military order founded around 1119, twenty years after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem. For almost 200 years the ...
Angkor Wat
21 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the largest and arguably the most astonishing religious structure on Earth, built for Suryavarman II in the 12th Centu...
Comenius
16 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Czech educator Jan Amos Komenský (1592-1670) known throughout Europe in his lifetime under the Latin version of h...
The Davidian Revolution
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the impact of David I of Scotland (c1084-1153) on his kingdom and on neighbouring lands. The youngest son of Malcolm ...
Olympe de Gouges
19 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the French playwright who, in 1791, wrote The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen. This was ...
Homo erectus
12 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of our ancestors, Homo erectus, who thrived on Earth for around two million years whereas we, Homo sapiens, emerge...
The Arthashastra
31 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ancient Sanskrit text the Arthashastra, regarded as one of the major works of Indian literature. Written in the st...
Peter Kropotkin
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Russian prince who became a leading anarchist and famous scientist. Kropotkin (1842 - 1921) was born into privile...
The Temperance Movement
03 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the momentum behind teetotalism in 19th Century Britain, when calls for moderation gave way to complete abstinence in ...
The Gold Standard
20 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the system that flourished from 1870 when gold became dominant and more widely available, following gold rushes in Cal...
The Hittites
23 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the empire that flourished in the Late Bronze Age in what is now Turkey, and which, like others at that time, mysterio...
The May Fourth Movement
09 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the violent protests in China on 4th May 1919 over the nation's humiliation in the Versailles Treaty after World War O...
The Battle of Trafalgar
02 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the events of 21st October 1805, in which the British fleet led by Nelson destroyed a combined Franco-Spanish fleet in...
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
14 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the republic that emerged from the union of the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 14th Century. At...
The Manhattan Project
07 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the race to build an atom bomb in the USA during World War Two. Before the war, scientists in Germany had discovered...
Herodotus
23 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek writer known as the father of histories, dubbed by his detractors as the father of lies. Herodotus (c484 to ...
Edward Gibbon
17 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of one of the great historians, best known for his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Emp...
Booth's Life and Labour Survey
10 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Charles Booth's survey, The Life and Labour of the People in London, published in 17 volumes from 1889 to 1903. Booth...
The Interregnum
27 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the period between the execution of Charles I in 1649 and the unexpected restoration of his son Charles II in 1660, kn...
The Second Barons' War
06 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the years of bloody conflict that saw Simon de Montfort (1205-65) become the most powerful man in England, with Henry ...
Ovid
29 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso (43BC-17/18AD) who, as he described it, was destroyed by 'carmen et error', a poem...
The Franco-American Alliance 1778
22 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the treaties France entered into with the United States of America in 1778, to give open support to the USA in its rev...
Pierre-Simon Laplace
08 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Laplace (1749-1827) who was a giant in the world of mathematics both before and after the French Revolution. He addres...
The Russo-Japanese War
01 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the conflict between Russia and Japan from February 1904 to September 1905, which gripped the world and had a profound...
David Ricardo
25 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most influential economists from the age of Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus. Ricardo (1772 -1823) reputedly ...
Marcus Aurelius
25 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the man who, according to Machiavelli, was the last of the Five Good Emperors. Marcus Aurelius, 121 to 180 AD, has lon...
The Plague of Justinian
21 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the plague that broke out in Constantinople 541AD, in the reign of Emperor Justinian. According to the historian Proc...
The Cultural Revolution
17 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Chairman Mao and the revolt he led within his own party from 1966, setting communists against each other, to renew the...
The Zong Massacre
26 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the notorious events off Jamaica in 1781 and their background. The British slave ship Zong, having sailed across the ...
Maria Theresa
22 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Maria Theresa (1717-1780) who inherited the Austrian throne in 1740 at the age of 23. Her neighbours circled like wol...
Cave Art
24 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas about the Stone Age people who created the extraordinary images found in caves around the world, from hand outli...
Pericles
17 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Pericles (495-429BC), the statesman who dominated the politics of Athens for thirty years, the so-called Age of Peric...
The Covenanters
12 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the bonds that Scottish Presbyterians made between themselves and their monarchs in the 16th and 17th Centuries, to ma...
The Valladolid Debate
20 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the debate in Valladolid, Spain in 1550, over Spanish rights to enslave the native peoples in the newly conquered land...
Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
13 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great Roman military disaster of 9 AD when Germanic tribes under Arminius ambushed and destroyed three legions und...
Alcuin
30 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alcuin of York, c735-804AD, who promoted education as a goal in itself, and had a fundamental role in the renaissance ...
The Siege of Paris 1870-71
16 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war and the social unrest that followed, as the French capital was cut o...
Tutankhamun
26 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the discovery in 1922 of Tutankhamun's 3000 year old tomb and its impact on the understanding of ancient Egypt, both a...
Coffee
12 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history and social impact of coffee. From its origins in Ethiopia, coffea arabica spread through the Ottoman Empi...
Lawrence of Arabia
05 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss T.E. Lawrence (1888 – 1935), better known as Lawrence of Arabia, a topic drawn from over 1200 suggestions for our Li...
Li Shizhen
28 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of Li Shizhen (1518-1593) whose compendium of natural medicines is celebrated in China as the most ...
Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem
21 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most powerful woman in the Crusader states in the century after the First Crusade. Melisende (1105-61) was born an...
The Treaty of Limerick
07 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 1691 peace treaty that ended the Williamite War in Ireland, between supporters of the deposed King James II and th...
Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow
19 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how, in September 1812, Napoleon captured Moscow and waited a month for the Russians to meet him, to surrender and why...
Doggerland
27 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the people, plants and animals once living on land now under the North Sea, now called Doggerland after Dogger Bank, i...
The Mytilenaean Debate
20 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why Athenians decided to send a fast ship to Lesbos in 427BC, rowing through the night to catch one they sent the day...
The Inca
13 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how the people of Cusco, in modern Peru, established an empire along the Andes down to the Pacific under their supreme...
President Ulysses S Grant
30 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the impact of Grant's presidency on Americans in the years after the Civil War in which he, with Lincoln, had led the ...
The Gordon Riots
02 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most destructive riots in London's history, which reached their peak on 7th June 1780 as troops fired on the crowd...
Nero
25 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life of Nero (37-68 AD) who became Emperor at the age of 16. At first he was largely praised for his generosity ye...
The Great Irish Famine
04 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why the potato crop failures in the 1840s had such a catastrophic impact in Ireland. It is estimated that one million...
The Danelaw
28 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the effective partition of England in the 880s after a century of Viking raids, invasions and settlements. Alfred of ...
William Cecil
07 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the impact on the British Isles of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, the most poweful man in the court of Elizabeth I...
Antarah ibn Shaddad
28 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life, works, context and legacy of Antarah (525-608AD), the great poet and warrior. According to legend, he was b...
Owain Glyndwr
31 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life of the Welsh nobleman, also known as Owen Glendower, who began a revolt against Henry IV in 1400 which was at...