History Podcast
Historical themes, events and key individuals from Akhenaten to Xenophon.
Episodes to download
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The Battle of Crécy
Thu 13 Apr 2023
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 1346 conflict between the armies of France and England
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Cnut
Thu 6 Apr 2023
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Dane who became a powerful King of England in 1016.
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Solon the Lawgiver
Thu 23 Mar 2023
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the statesman who transformed Athens in the 6th century BC
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Mercantilism
Thu 16 Mar 2023
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea which dominated European economies for 300 years.
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Megaliths
Thu 2 Mar 2023
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what we know about ancient stones placed in the landscape.
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Chartism
Thu 9 Feb 2023
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 19th-century campaign for greater democracy.
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Tycho Brahe
Thu 2 Feb 2023
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 16th-century astronomer, renowned for his accuracy.
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The Great Stink
Thu 29 Dec 2022
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 1858 crisis from the flow of sewage into the Thames.
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The Irish Rebellion of 1798
Thu 8 Dec 2022
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the causes and early consequences of the 1798 rebellion.
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Demosthenes' Philippics
Thu 17 Nov 2022
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the speeches that set the standard for political attacks.
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The Morant Bay Rebellion
Thu 3 Nov 2022
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the events in Jamaica in 1865 and their consequences.
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The Knights Templar
Thu 6 Oct 2022
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rise and abrupt fall of the famous military order.
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Angkor Wat
Thu 23 Jun 2022
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great Cambodian temple complex, begun 900 years ago.
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Comenius
Thu 19 May 2022
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 17th-century Czech educator committed to toleration.
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The Davidian Revolution
Thu 5 May 2022
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the lasting impact of David I, King of Scotland c1084-1153
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Olympe de Gouges
Thu 21 Apr 2022
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of The Declaration of the Rights of Woman, 1791
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Homo erectus
Thu 14 Apr 2022
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the two-million-year span of our most adaptable ancestor.
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The Arthashastra
Thu 3 Mar 2022
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ancient Indian Sanskrit text the Arthashastra.
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Peter Kropotkin
Thu 24 Feb 2022
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the prominent Russian anarchist and his idea of Mutual Aid
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The Temperance Movement
Thu 3 Feb 2022
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the enthusiasm in Britain for abstaining from alcohol.
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The Gold Standard
Thu 20 Jan 2022
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what happened when world currencies were tied to gold
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The Hittites
Thu 23 Dec 2021
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great powers of the Late Bronze Age.
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The May Fourth Movement
Thu 9 Dec 2021
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas and protests in 1919 that shaped modern China.
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The Battle of Trafalgar
Thu 2 Dec 2021
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Nelson's famous victory and death on 21 October 1805.
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The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Thu 14 Oct 2021
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Europe's largest republic, before its partition in 1772.
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The Manhattan Project
Thu 7 Oct 2021
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the race to build an atom bomb before anyone else in WW2
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Herodotus
Thu 23 Sep 2021
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek writer known as the father of history.
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Edward Gibbon
Thu 17 Jun 2021
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
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Booth's Life and Labour Survey
Thu 10 Jun 2021
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Charles Booth's landmark survey of London's poor and rich.
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The Interregnum
Thu 27 May 2021
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the upheavals of 1649-60 in the British Isles
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