List of In Our Time programmes

Last updated

In Our Time is a radio discussion programme exploring a wide variety of historical, scientific, cultural, religious and philosophical topics, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in the United Kingdom since 1998 and hosted by Melvyn Bragg. Since 2011, all episodes have been available to download as individual podcasts. [1]

Contents

Programmes

1998–1999

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors and positions held at time of broadcast
15 October 1998 War in the 20th Century
22 October 1998 Politics in the 20th Century
29 October 1998 Science's Revelations
5 November 1998 Science in the 20th century
12 November 1998 The City in the 20th Century
19 November 1998 The Brain and Consciousness
26 November 1998 Work in the 20th Century
3 December 1998 History's relevance in the 20th century
  • Simon Schama, Old Dominion Professor of Humanities, Columbia University in New York and currently filming a 16-part series for BBC Television on the history of Britain
  • Lady Antonia Fraser, historian, writer and author of biographies of Mary Queen of Scots, Cromwell and Charles II
10 December 1998 Cultural rights in the 20th Century
17 December 1998 The American Century
24 December 1998 Neuroscience in the 20th Century
31 December 1998 The British Empire's Legacy
7 January 1999 Feminism
14 January 1999 Genetic Engineering
21 January 1999 Modern Culture
28 January 1999 Ageing
4 February 1999 Psychoanalysis and its Legacy
11 February 1999 Language and the Mind
18 February 1999 Space in Religion and Science
25 February 1999 The Avant Garde's Decline and Fall in the 20th Century
4 March 1999 Shakespeare and Literary Criticism
11 March 1999 History as Science
18 March 1999 Animal Experiments and Rights
25 March 1999 Architecture in the 20th Century
1 April 1999 Good and Evil
8 April 1999 Writing and Political Oppression
15 April 1999 Evolution
22 April 1999 Fundamentalism
29 April 1999 Artificial Intelligence
  • Igor Aleksander, professor, Imperial College London and inventor of Magnus – a neural computer which he says is an artificially conscious machine
  • John Searle, Professor of Philosophy, University of California and one of only two people in the world to invent an argument, the Chinese Room Argument, which destroys the plausibility of the idea of conscious machines
6 May 1999 Mathematics
13 May 1999 Multiculturalism
20 May 1999 The Universe's Origins
27 May 1999 Memory and Culture
3 June 1999 Just War
10 June 1999 The Monarchy
17 June 1999 The Great Disruption
24 June 1999 Capitalism
1 July 1999 Intelligence
8 July 1999 Africa
15 July 1999 Truth, Lies and fiction
  • Elena Lappin, novelist and author of an investigative essay published in Granta called "Truth and Lies", where she questions the veracity of the account of the Holocaust in the book Fragments by Binjamin Wilkomirski
  • Nick Groom, lecturer in English, University of Exeter
22 July 1999 Pain

1999–2000

From 6 April 2000, with the discussion on "The Natural Order", the programme moved from 30 minutes to a 45-minute format.

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
23 September 1999 Genetic Determinism
30 September 1999 Maths and Storytelling
7 October 1999 Utopia
14 October 1999 The Nation State
21 October 1999 The Individual
28 October 1999 Atrocity in the 20th Century
4 November 1999 Education
11 November 1999 The Novel
18 November 1999 Progress
25 November 1999 Consciousness
2 December 1999 Tragedy
9 December 1999 Childhood
16 December 1999 Medical Ethics
23 December 1999 Prayer
30 December 1999 Time
6 January 2000 Climate change
13 January 2000 Information Technology
  • Charles Leadbeater, Demos Research Associate and author of Living on Thin Air: The New Economy
  • Ian Angell, Professor of Information Systems, London School of Economics and author of The New Barbarian Manifesto: How to Survive the Information Age
20 January 2000 Masculinity in Literature
27 January 2000 Economic Rights
3 February 2000 Republicanism
  • Sarah Barber, lecturer in the Department of History, Lancaster University and author of Regicide and Republicanism: Politics and Ethics in the English Revolution 1646–1659
  • Andrew Roberts, historian, journalist, conservative thinker and author of Salisbury: Victorian Titan
10 February 2000 Goethe and the Science of the Enlightenment
17 February 2000 Reading
24 February 2000 Grand Unified Theory
2 March 2000 Metamorphosis
9 March 2000 The Age of Doubt
  • A. N. Wilson, novelist, biographer, journalist and author of God's Funeral
  • Victoria Glendinning, author, journalist and biographer of Anthony Trollope and Jonathan Swift
16 March 2000 Lenin
23 March 2000 Materialism and the Consumer
30 March 2000 History and Understanding the Past
6 April 2000 The Natural Order
  • Colin Tudge, writer, scientist and author of The Variety of Life: A Survey and a Celebration of all the Creatures that Have Ever Lived
  • Sandy Knapp, Research Botanist, Department of Botany, Natural History Museum, London
  • Henry Gee, Senior Editor of Nature and author of Deep Time: Cladistics, the Revolution in Evolution
13 April 2000 New Wars
20 April 2000 Englishness
27 April 2000 Human Origins
4 May 2000 Death
11 May 2000 Shakespeare's Work
18 May 2000 The Wars of the Roses
25 May 2000 Chemical elements
1 June 2000 The American Ideal
8 June 2000 The Renaissance
15 June 2000 Inspiration and Genius
22 June 2000 Biography
29 June 2000 Imagination and Consciousness

2000–2001

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
28 September 2000 London
5 October 2000 Hitler in History
12 October 2000 The Romantics
19 October 2000 Laws of Nature
26 October 2000 The Tudor State
2 November 2000 Evolutionary Psychology
9 November 2000 Psychoanalysis and Literature
16 November 2000 Nihilism
4 January 2001 Gothic
11 January 2001 Mathematics and Platonism
18 January 2001 The Enlightenment in Britain
25 January 2001 Science and Religion
1 February 2001 Imperial Science
8 February 2001 Humanism
15 February 2001 The Restoration
22 February 2001 Quantum Gravity
1 March 2001 Money
15 March 2001 Shakespeare's Life
22 March 2001 Fossils
29 March 2001 The Philosophy of Love
5 April 2001 The Roman Empire's Collapse in the 5th century
12 April 2001 Black Holes
19 April 2001 The Glorious Revolution
26 April 2001 Literary Modernism
3 May 2001 Evil
14 June 2001 The French Revolution's Legacy
21 June 2001 The Sonnet
28 June 2001 Existentialism
5 July 2001 The Earth's Origins
12 July 2001 Dickens
19 July 2001 Byzantium

2001–2002

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
18 October 2001 Democracy
25 October 2001 Napoleon and Wellington
1 November 2001 Confucius
8 November 2001 The British Empire
15 November 2001 Surrealism
22 November 2001 Oceanography
29 November 2001 Third Crusade
6 December 2001 Oscar Wilde
13 December 2001 Genetics
20 December 2001 Rome and European Civilization
27 December 2001 Food
3 January 2002 Sensibility
10 January 2002 Nuclear Physics
17 January 2002 Catharism
24 January 2002 Happiness
31 January 2002 Yeats and Mysticism
7 February 2002 The Universe's Shape
14 February 2002 Anatomy
  • Harold Ellis, Clinical Anatomist, School of Biomedical Sciences, King's College, London
  • Ruth Richardson, historian and author of Death, Dissection and the Destitute, Phoenix Press
  • Andrew Cunningham, Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in the History of Medicine, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University
21 February 2002 The Celts
28 February 2002 Virtue
7 March 2002 Milton
14 March 2002 The Buddha
21 March 2002 Marriage
28 March 2002 The Artist
4 April 2002 Extra Terrestrials
11 April 2002 Bohemia
25 April 2002 Tolstoy
2 May 2002 The Physics of Reality
9 May 2002 The Examined Life
16 May 2002 Chaos Theory
23 May 2002 Drugs
  • Richard Davenport-Hines, historian and author of The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics
  • Sadie Plant, author of Writing on Drugs
  • Mike Jay, historian and author of Emperors of Dreams: Drugs in the Nineteenth Century
30 May 2002 The Grand Tour
6 June 2002 The Soul
13 June 2002 The American West
20 June 2002 Wagner
27 June 2002 Cultural Imperialism
4 July 2002 Freedom
11 July 2002 Psychoanalysis and democracy
18 July 2002 Heritage

2002–2003

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
17 October 2002 Slavery and Empire
24 October 2002 The Scientist
31 October 2002 Architecture and Power
7 November 2002 Human Nature
14 November 2002 Victorian Realism
21 November 2002 Muslim Spain
  • Tim Winter, a convert to Islam and lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University
  • Martin Palmer, Anglican lay preacher and theologian and author of The Sacred History of Britain
  • Mehri Niknam, executive director of the Maimonides Foundation, a joint Jewish-Muslim Interfaith Foundation in London
28 November 2002 Imagination
5 December 2002 The Enlightenment in Scotland
12 December 2002 Man and Disease
19 December 2002 The Calendar
6 February 2003 The Epic
13 February 2003 Chance and Design
20 February 2003 The Lindisfarne Gospels
  • Richard Gameson, Reader in Medieval History at Kent University and editor of St Augustine and the Conversion of England
  • Clare Lees, Professor of Medieval Literature at King's College London and author of Tradition and Belief: Religious Writing in Late Anglo-Saxon England
  • Michelle Brown, Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library and author of A Guide to Western Historical Scripts
27 February 2003 The Aztecs
6 March 2003 Meteorology
13 March 2003 Redemption
20 March 2003 Originality
27 Mar 2003 The Life of Stars
3 April 2003 The Spanish Civil War
17 April 2003 Proust
24 April 2003 Youth
1 May 2003 Roman Britain
8 May 2003 The Jacobite Rebellion
15 May 2003 The Holy Grail
22 May 2003 Blood
29 May 2003 Memory
5 June 2003 The Lunar Society
12 June 2003 The Art of War
19 June 2003 The Aristocracy
26 June 2003 The East India Company
3 July 2003 Vulcanology
10 July 2003 Nature
17 July 2003 The Apocalypse

2003–2004

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
2 October 2003 Maxwell
9 October 2003 Bohemianism
16 October 2003 The Schism
23 October 2003 Infinity
30 October 2003 Robin Hood
6 November 2003 Sensation
13 November 2003 Duty
20 November 2003 Ageing the Earth
27 November 2003 St Bartholomew's Day Massacre
4 December 2003 Wittgenstein
11 December 2003 The Devil
18 December 2003 The Alphabet
26 December 2003 Lamarck and Natural Selection
29 January 2004 Cryptography
5 February 2004 Thermopylae
12 February 2004 The Sublime
19 February 2004 Rutherford
26 February 2004 The Mughal Empire
4 March 2004 Dreams
11 March 2004 The Norse Gods
25 March 2004 Theories of Everything
1 April 2004 China's Warring States period
8 April 2004 The Fall
15 April 2004 The Later Romantics
22 April 2004 Hysteria
  • Juliet Mitchell, Professor of Psychoanalysis and Gender Studies at the University of Cambridge and author of Mad Men and Medusas: Reclaiming Hysteria and the Effects of Sibling Relations on the Human Condition
  • Rachel Bowlby, Professor of English at the University of York who has written the introduction to the latest Penguin translation of Sigmund Freud and Joseph Breuer's Studies in Hysteria
  • Brett Kahr, Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Psychotherapy and Mental Health at the Centre for Child Mental Health in London
29 April 2004 Tea
6 May 2004 Heroism
13 May 2004 Zero
20 May 2004 Toleration
27 May 2004 The Planets
3 June 2004 Babylon
10 June 2004 Empiricism
17 June 2004 Renaissance Magic
24 June 2004 Washington and the American Revolution

2004–2005

In 2005 listeners were invited to vote in a poll for the greatest philosopher in history. The winner was the subject of the final programme before the summer break. The result of the vote was: [2]

  1. Karl Marx (with 27.9% of the votes)
  2. David Hume (12.7%)
  3. Ludwig Wittgenstein (6.8%)
  4. Friedrich Nietzsche (6.5%)
  5. Plato (5.6%)
  6. Immanuel Kant (5.6%)
  7. Thomas Aquinas (4.8%)
  8. Socrates (4.8%)
  9. Aristotle (4.5%)
  10. Karl Popper (4.2%)
Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
2 September 2004 Pi
9 September 2004 The Odyssey
16 September 2004 Agincourt
23 September 2004 The Origins of Life
30 September 2004 Politeness
7 October 2004 Sartre
14 October 2004 The Han Synthesis
21 October 2004 Witchcraft
28 October 2004 Rhetoric
4 November 2004 Electrickery
11 November 2004 Zoroastrianism
18 November 2004 Higgs Boson
25 November 2004 The Venerable Bede
2 December 2004 Jung
  • Brett Kahr, Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Psychotherapy and Mental Health at the Centre for Child Mental Health in London and a practising Freudian
  • Ronald Hayman, writer and biographer of Jung
  • Andrew Samuels, Professor of Analytical Psychology at the University of Essex and a Jungian analyst in clinical practice
9 December 2004 Machiavelli and the Italian City States
16 December 2004 The Second Law of Thermodynamics
23 December 2004 Faust
30 December 2004 The Roman Republic
6 January 2005 Tsar Alexander II's assassination
13 January 2005 The Mind/Body Problem
17 February 2005 The Cambrian Period
24 February 2005 Alchemy
3 March 2005 Stoicism
10 March 2005 Modernist Utopias
17 March 2005 Dark Energy
24 March 2005 Angels
31 March 2005 John Ruskin
7 April 2005 Alfred and the Battle of Edington
14 April 2005 Archaeology and Imperialism
21 April 2005 The Aeneid
28 April 2005 Perception and the Senses
5 May 2005 Abelard and Heloise
19 May 2005 Beauty
26 May 2005 The French Revolution's Reign of Terror
2 June 2005 Renaissance Maths
9 June 2005 The Scriblerus Club
16 June 2005 Paganism in the Renaissance
23 June 2005 The KT Boundary
30 June 2005 Merlin
7 July 2005 Marlowe
14 July 2005 Marx

2005–2006

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
29 September 2005 Magnetism
6 October 2005 The Field of the Cloth of Gold
13 October 2005 Mammals
20 October 2005 Cynicism
27 October 2005 Johnson
3 November 2005 Asteroids
10 November 2005 Greyfriars and Blackfriars
17 November 2005 Pragmatism
24 November 2005 The Graviton
1 December 2005 Hobbes
8 December 2005 Artificial Intelligence
15 December 2005 The Peterloo Massacre
22 December 2005 Heaven
29 December 2005 The Oresteia
5 January 2006 The Oath
12 January 2006 Prime Numbers
19 January 2006 Relativism
26 January 2006 Seventeenth Century Print Culture
2 February 2006 The Abbasid Caliphs
9 February 2006 Chaucer
16 February 2006 Human Evolution
23 February 2006 Catherine the Great
2 March 2006 Friendship
9 March 2006 Negative numbers
16 March 2006 Don Quixote
23 March 2006 The Royal Society
30 March 2006 The Carolingian Renaissance
6 April 2006 Goethe
13 April 2006 The Oxford Movement
20 April 2006 Immunisation
27 April 2006 The Great Exhibition of 1851
4 May 2006 Astronomy and Empire
11 May 2006 Fairies
18 May 2006 Mill
25 May 2006 Mathematics and Music
1 June 2006 The Heart
8 June 2006 Uncle Tom's Cabin
15 June 2006 Carbon
22 June 2006 The Spanish Inquisition
29 June 2006 Galaxies
6 July 2006 Pastoral Literature
13 July 2006 Comedy in Ancient Greek Theatre

2006–2007

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
28 September 2006 Humboldt
5 October 2006 Averroes
12 October 2006 The Diet of Worms
19 October 2006 The Needham Question
26 October 2006 The Encyclopédie
2 November 2006 The Poincaré conjecture
9 November 2006 Pope
16 November 2006 The Peasants' Revolt
23 November 2006 Altruism
30 November 2006 The Speed of Light
7 December 2006 Anarchism
14 December 2006 Indian Mathematics
21 December 2006 Hell
28 December 2006 Constantinople Siege and Fall
4 January 2007 Jorge Luis Borges
11 January 2007 Mars
18 January 2007 The Jesuits
25 January 2007 Archimedes
1 February 2007 Genghis Khan
8 February 2007 Popper
15 February 2007 Heart of Darkness
22 February 2007 Wilberforce This programme was a documentary rather than a discussion. The programme can be streamed rather than downloaded.
1 March 2007 Optics
8 March 2007 Microbiology
15 March 2007 Epistolary Literature
22 March 2007 Bismarck
29 March 2007 Anaesthetics
5 April 2007 St Hilda
12 April 2007 The Opium Wars
19 April 2007 Symmetry
26 April 2007 Greek and Roman Love Poetry
3 May 2007 Spinoza
10 May 2007 Victorian Pessimism
17 May 2007 Gravitational Waves
24 May 2007 The Siege of Orléans
31 May 2007 Ockham's Razor
7 June 2007 Siegfried Sassoon
14 June 2007 Renaissance Astrology
21 June 2007 Common Sense Philosophy
28 June 2007 The Permian-Triassic Boundary
5 July 2007 The Pilgrim Fathers
12 July 2007 Madame Bovary

2007–2008

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
27 September 2007 Socrates
4 October 2007 Antimatter
11 October 2007 The Divine Right of Kings
18 October 2007 The Arabian Nights
25 October 2007 Taste
1 November 2007 Guilt
8 November 2007 Avicenna
15 November 2007 Oxygen
22 November 2007 The Prelude
29 November 2007 The Fibonacci Sequence
6 December 2007 Genetic Mutation
13 December 2007 The Sassanid Empire
20 December 2007 The Four Humours
27 December 2007 The Nicene Creed
3 January 2008 Camus
10 January 2008 The Charge of the Light Brigade
17 January 2008 The Fisher King
24 January 2008 Plate Tectonics
31 January 2008 Rudolph II
7 February 2008 The Social Contract
14 February 2008 The Statue of Liberty
21 February 2008 The Multiverse
28 February 2008 Lear
6 March 2008 Ada Lovelace
13 March 2008 The Greek Myths
20 March 2008 Kierkegaard
27 March 2008 The Dissolution of the Monasteries
3 April 2008 The Laws of Motion
10 April 2008 The Norman Yoke
17 April 2008 Yeats and Irish Politics
24 April 2008 Materialism
1 May 2008 The Enclosures of the 18th Century
8 May 2008 The Brain
15 May 2008 The Library at Nineveh
22 May 2008 The Black Death
29 May 2008 Probability
5 June 2008 Lysenkoism
12 June 2008 The Riddle of the Sands
19 June 2008 The Music of the Spheres
26 June 2008 The Arab Conquests
3 July 2008 The Metaphysical Poets
10 July 2008 Tacitus and the Decadence of Rome

2008–2009

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
25 September 2008 Miracles
2 October 2008 The Translation Movement
9 October 2008 Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems
16 October 2008 Vitalism
23 October 2008 Dante's Inferno
30 October 2008 Bolivar
6 November 2008 Aristotle's Politics
13 November 2008 Neuroscience
20 November 2008 The Baroque Movement
27 November 2008 The Great Reform Act
4 December 2008 Heat
11 December 2008 The Fire of London
18 December 2008 The Physics of Time
1 January 2009 The Consolations of Philosophy
5 January 2009 Darwin: On the Origins of Charles Darwin
6 January 2009 Darwin: The Voyage of the Beagle
7 January 2009 Darwin: On the Origin of Species
8 January 2009 Darwin: Life After Origins
15 January 2009 Thoreau and the American Idyll
22 January 2009 History of History
29 January 2009 Swift's A Modest Proposal
5 February 2009 The Brothers Grimm
12 February 2009 Carthage's Destruction
19 February 2009 The Observatory at Jaipur
26 February 2009 The Waste Land and Modernity
5 March 2009 The Measurement problem in Physics
12 March 2009 The Library of Alexandria
19 March 2009 The Boxer Rebellion
26 March 2009 The School of Athens
2 April 2009 Baconian Science
9 April 2009 Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
16 April 2009 Suffragism
23 April 2009 The Building of St Petersburg
30 April 2009 The Vacuum of Space
7 May 2009 The Magna Carta
14 May 2009 The Siege of Vienna
21 May 2009 The Whale - A History
28 May 2009 St Paul
4 June 2009 The Trial of Charles I
11 June 2009 The Augustan Age
18 June 2009 Elizabethan Revenge
25 June 2009 Sunni and Shia Islam
2 July 2009 Logical Positivism
9 July 2009 Ediacara Biota

2009–2010

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
17 September 2009 St Thomas Aquinas
24 September 2009 Calculus
1 October 2009 Akhenaten
8 October 2009 The Dreyfus Affair
15 October 2009 The Death of Elizabeth I
22 October 2009 The Geological Formation of Britain
29 October 2009 Schopenhauer
5 November 2009 The Siege of Munster
12 November 2009 Radiation
19 November 2009 Sparta
26 November 2009 Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
3 December 2009 The Silk Road
10 December 2009 Pythagoras
24 December 2009 The Samurai
31 December 2009 Mary Wollstonecraft
4 January 2010 The Royal Society and British Science: Episode 1Documentary format
5 January 2010 The Royal Society and British Science: Episode 2Documentary format
6 January 2010 The Royal Society and British Science: Episode 3Documentary format
7 January 2010 The Royal Society and British Science: Episode 4Documentary format
14 January 2010 The Frankfurt School
21 January 2010 The Glencoe Massacre
28 January 2010 Silas Marner
4 February 2010 Ibn Khaldun
11 February 2010 The Unintended Consequences of Mathematics
18 February 2010 The Indian Mutiny
25 February 2010 Calvinism
4 March 2010 The Infant Brain
11 March 2010 Boudica
18 March 2010 Munch and The Scream
25 March 2010 The City - a history, part 1
1 April 2010 The City - a history, part 2
8 April 2010 William Hazlitt
15 April 2010 The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation
22 April 2010 Roman Satire
29 April 2010 The Great Wall of China
6 May 2010 The Cool Universe
13 May 2010 William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience
20 May 2010 The Cavendish Family in Science
27 May 2010 Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists
3 June 2010 Edmund Burke
10 June 2010 Al-Biruni
17 June 2010 The Neanderthals
24 June 2010 Antarctica
1 July 2010 Athelstan
8 July 2010 Pliny's Natural History

2010–2011

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
23 September 2010 Imaginary numbers
30 September 2010 The Delphic Oracle
7 October 2010 The Spanish Armada
14 October 2010 Sturm und Drang
21 October 2010 Logic
28 October 2010 The Unicorn
4 November 2010 Women and Enlightenment Science
11 November 2010 The Volga Vikings
18 November 2010 Foxe's Book of Martyrs
25 November 2010 History of Metaphor
2 December 2010 Cleopatra
9 December 2010 Thomas Edison
16 December 2010 Daoism
23 December 2010 The Industrial Revolution
30 December 2010 Consequences of the Industrial Revolution
6 January 2011 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
13 January 2011 Random and Pseudorandom
20 January 2011 The Mexican Revolution
27 January 2011 Aristotle's Poetics
3 February 2011 The Battle of Bannockburn
10 February 2011 The Nervous System
17 February 2011 Maimonides
24 February 2011 The Taiping Rebellion
3 March 2011 The Age of the Universe
10 March 2011 Free Will
(500th programme)
17 March 2011 The Medieval University
24 March 2011 The Iron Age
31 March 2011 The Bhagavad Gita
7 April 2011 Octavia Hill
14 April 2011 The Neutrino
21 April 2011 The Pelagian Controversy
28 April 2011 Cogito Ergo Sum
5 May 2011 Islamic Law and its Origins
12 May 2011 The Anatomy of Melancholy
19 May 2011 Custer's Last Stand
26 May 2011 Xenophon
2 June 2011 The Battle of Stamford Bridge
9 June 2011 The Origins of Infectious Disease
16 June 2011 Wyclif and the Lollards
  • Anthony Kenny, Philosopher and former Master of Balliol College, Oxford
  • Anne Hudson, Emeritus Professor of Medieval English at the University of Oxford
  • Rob Lutton, Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Nottingham
23 June 2011 Malthusianism
30 June 2011 Tennyson's In Memoriam
7 July 2011 The Minoan Civilisation

2011–2012

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
15 September 2011 The Hippocratic Oath
22 September 2011 Shinto
29 September 2011 The Etruscan Civilisation
6 October 2011 David Hume
13 October 2011 The Ming Voyages
20 October 2011 Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People
27 October 2011 The Siege of Tenochtitlan
3 November 2011 The Moon
10 November 2011 The Continental-Analytic Split
17 November 2011 Ptolemy and Ancient Astronomy
24 November 2011 Judas Maccabeus
1 December 2011 Christina Rossetti
8 December 2011 Heraclitus
15 December 2011 The Concordat of Worms
22 December 2011 Robinson Crusoe
29 December 2011 Macromolecules
2 January 2012 The Written World: Episode 1Documentary format
3 January 2012 The Written World: Episode 2Documentary format
4 January 2012 The Written World: Episode 3Documentary format
5 January 2012 The Written World: Episode 4Documentary format
6 January 2012 The Written World: Episode 5Documentary format
12 January 2012 The Safavid dynasty
19 January 2012 1848: Year of Revolution
26 January 2012 The Scientific method
2 February 2012 The Kama Sutra
9 February 2012 Erasmus
16 February 2012 The An Lushan Rebellion
23 February 2012 Conductors and Semiconductors
1 March 2012 Benjamin Franklin
8 March 2012 Lyrical Ballads
15 March 2012 Vitruvius and De Architectura
22 March 2012 Moses Mendelssohn
29 March 2012 The Measurement of Time
5 April 2012 George Fox and the Quakers
12 April 2012 Early Geology
19 April 2012 Neoplatonism
26 April 2012 The Battle of Bosworth Field
3 May 2012 Voltaire's Candide
10 May 2012 Game Theory
17 May 2012 Clausewitz and On War
24 May 2012 Marco Polo
31 May 2012 The Trojan War
7 June 2012 King Solomon
14 June 2012 James Joyce's Ulysses
21 June 2012 Annie Besant
28 June 2012 Al-Kindi
5 July 2012 Scepticism
12 July 2012 Hadrian's Wall

2012–2013

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
13 September 2012 The Cell
20 September 2012 The Druids
27 September 2012 The Ontological Argument
4 October 2012 Gerald of Wales
11 October 2012 Hannibal
18 October 2012 Caxton and the Printing Press
25 October 2012 Fermat's Last Theorem
1 November 2012 The Anarchy
8 November 2012 The Upanishads
15 November 2012 Simone Weil
22 November 2012 The Borgias
29 November 2012 Crystallography
6 December 2012 Bertrand Russell
13 December 2012 Shahnameh of Ferdowsi
20 December 2012 The South Sea Bubble
27 December 2012 The Cult of Mithras
10 January 2013 Le Morte d'Arthur
17 January 2013 Comets
24 January 2013 Romulus and Remus
31 January 2013 The War of 1812
7 February 2013 Epicureanism
14 February 2013 Ice ages
21 February 2013 Decline and Fall
28 February 2013 Pitt Rivers
7 March 2013 Absolute Zero
14 March 2013 Chekhov
21 March 2013 Alfred Russel Wallace
28 March 2013 Water
4 April 2013 Japan's Sakoku Period
11 April 2013 The Amazons
18 April 2013 The Putney Debates
25 April 2013 Montaigne
2 May 2013 Gnosticism
9 May 2013 Icelandic Sagas
16 May 2013 Cosmic rays
23 May 2013 Lévi-Strauss
30 May 2013 Queen Zenobia
6 June 2013 Relativity
13 June 2013 Prophecy
20 June 2013 The Physiocrats
27 June 2013 Romance of the Three Kingdoms
4 July 2013 The Invention of Radio

2013–2014

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
19 September 2013 Pascal
26 September 2013 The Mamluks
3 October 2013 Exoplanets
10 October 2013 Galen
17 October 2013 The Book of Common Prayer
24 October 2013 The Corn Laws
31 October 2013 The Berlin Conference
7 November 2013 Ordinary language philosophy
14 November 2013 The Tempest
21 November 2013 Pocahontas
28 November 2013 The Microscope
5 December 2013 Hindu Ideas of Creation
12 December 2013 Pliny the Younger
19 December 2013 Complexity
26 December 2013 The Medici
3 January 2014 Plato's Symposium
16 January 2014 The Battle of Tours
23 January 2014 Sources of Early Chinese History
30 January 2014 Catastrophism
6 February 2014 The Phoenicians
13 February 2014 Chivalry
20 February 2014 Social Darwinism
  • Adam Kuper, Centennial Professor of Anthropology at the LSE, University of London
  • Gregory Radick, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds
  • Charlotte Sleigh, Reader in the History of Science at the University of Kent
27 February 2014 The Eye
6 March 2014 Spartacus
13 March 2014 The Trinity
20 March 2014 Bishop Berkeley
27 March 2014 Weber's The Protestant Ethic
3 April 2014 States of Matter
10 April 2014 Strabo's Geographica
17 April 2014 The Domesday Book
24 April 2014 Tristram Shandy
1 May 2014 The Tale of Sinuhe
8 May 2014 The Sino-Japanese War
15 May 2014 Photosynthesis
22 May 2014 The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
29 May 2014 The Talmud
5 June 2014 The Bluestockings
12 June 2014 Robert Boyle
19 June 2014 The Philosophy of Solitude
26 June 2014 Hildegard of Bingen
3 July 2014 Mrs Dalloway
10 July 2014 The Sun

2014–2015

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
25 September 2014 e
2 October 2014 Julius Caesar
9 October 2014 The Battle of Talas
16 October 2014 Rudyard Kipling
23 October 2014 The Haitian Revolution
30 October 2014 Nuclear Fusion
6 November 2014 Hatshepsut
13 November 2014 Brunel
20 November 2014 Aesop
27 November 2014 Kafka's The Trial
4 December 2014 Zen
11 December 2014 Behavioural ecology
18 December 2014 Truth
15 January 2015 Bruegel's The Fight Between Carnival and Lent
22 January 2015 Phenomenology
29 January 2015 Thucydides
5 February 2015 Ashoka the Great
12 February 2015 The Photon
19 February 2015 The Wealth of Nations
26 February 2015 The Eunuch
5 March 2015 Beowulf
12 March 2015 Dark matter
19 March 2015 Al-Ghazali
26 March 2015 The Curies
2 April 2015 The California Gold Rush
9 April 2015 Sappho
16 April 2015 Matteo Ricci and the Ming dynasty
23 April 2015 Fanny Burney
30 April 2015 The Earth's core
7 May 2015 Rabindranath Tagore
14 May 2015 The Lancashire Cotton Famine
21 May 2015 Josephus
28 May 2015 The Science of Glass
4 June 2015 Prester John
11 June 2015 Utilitarianism
18 June 2015 Jane Eyre
25 June 2015 Extremophiles
2 July 2015 Frederick the Great
9 July 2015 Frida Kahlo

2015–2016

From the start of 2016 (Saturn) the podcast version of the programme started to include a few minutes of unbroadcast extra material, which would generally be prompted by the question So, what did we miss?

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
24 September 2015 Perpetual motion
1 October 2015 Alexander the Great
15 October 2015 Holbein at the Tudor Court
22 October 2015 Simone de Beauvoir
29 October 2015 The Empire of Mali
5 November 2015 P v NP
12 November 2015 The Battle of Lepanto
19 November 2015 Emma
29 November 2015 The Salem Witch Trials
3 December 2015 Voyages of James Cook
10 December 2015 Chinese Legalism
17 December 2015 Circadian rhythms
25 December 2015 Michael Faraday
31 December 2015 Tristan and Iseult
14 January 2016 Saturn
21 January 2016 Thomas Paine's Common Sense
28 January 2016 Eleanor of Aquitaine
4 February 2016 Chromatography
11 February 2016 Rumi's Poetry
18 February 2016 Robert Hooke
25 February 2016 Mary Magdalene
3 March 2016 The Dutch East India Company
10 March 2016 The Maya Civilization
17 March 2016 Bedlam
24 March 2016 Aurora Leigh
31 March 2016 Agrippina the Younger
7 April 2016 The Sikh Empire
14 April 2016 The Neutron
21 April 2016 1816, the Year Without a Summer
28 April 2016 Euclid's Elements
5 May 2016 Tess of the d'Urbervilles
12 May 2016 Titus Oates and his 'Popish Plot'
19 May 2016 The Muses
26 May 2016 The Gettysburg Address
2 June 2016 Margery Kempe and English Mysticism
9 June 2016 Penicillin
16 June 2016 The Bronze Age Collapse
John Bennet, Director of the British School at Athens and Professor of Aegean Archaeology at the University of Sheffield
23 June 2016 Songs of Innocence and of Experience
30 June 2016 Sovereignty
7 July 2016 The Invention of Photography

2016–2017

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
22 September 2016 Zeno's paradoxes
29 September 2016 Animal Farm
6 October 2016 Lakshmi
13 October 2016 Plasma
20 October 2016 The 12th Century Renaissance
27 October 2016 John Dalton
3 November 2016 Epic of Gilgamesh
10 November 2016 The Fighting Temeraire
17 November 2016 Justinian's Legal Code
24 November 2016 Baltic Crusades
1 December 2016 Garibaldi and the Risorgimento
8 December 2016 Harriet Martineau
15 December 2016 The Gin Craze
21 December 2016 Four Quartets
29 December 2016 Johannes Kepler
12 January 2017 Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality
19 January 2017 Mary, Queen of Scots
26 January 2017 Parasitism
2 February 2017 Hannah Arendt
9 February 2017 John Clare
16 February 2017 Maths in the Early Islamic World
23 February 2017 Seneca the Younger
2 March 2017 The Kuiper belt
9 March 2017 North and South
16 March 2017 The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum
23 March 2017 The Battle of Salamis
30 March 2017 Hokusai
6 April 2017 Pauli's exclusion principle
13 April 2017 Rosa Luxemburg
20 April 2017 Roger Bacon
27 April 2017 The Egyptian Book of the Dead
4 May 2017 The Battle of Lincoln 1217
11 May 2017 Emily Dickinson
18 May 2017 Louis Pasteur
25 May 2017 Purgatory
1 June 2017 Enzymes
8 June 2017 Christine de Pizan
15 June 2017 The American Populists
22 June 2017 Eugene Onegin
29 June 2017 Plato's Republic
6 July 2017 Bird migration

2017–2018

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
21 September 2017 Kant's Categorical Imperative
28 September 2017 Wuthering Heights
5 October 2017 Constantine the Great
12 October 2017 Aphra Behn
19 October 2017 The Congress of Vienna
26 October 2017 Feathered dinosaurs
2 November 2017 Picasso's Guernica
  • Mary Vincent, Professor of Modern European History at the University of Sheffield
  • Gijs van Hensbergen, Historian of Spanish Art and Fellow of the LSE Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies
  • Dacia Viejo Rose, Lecturer in Heritage in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, Fellow of Selwyn College
9 November 2017 The Picts
16 November 2017 Germaine de Staël
23 November 2017 Thebes
30 November 2017 Carl Friedrich Gauss
7 December 2017 Moby Dick
14 December 2017 Thomas Becket
21 December 2017 Ludwig van Beethoven
28 December 2017 Hamlet
11 January 2018 The Siege of Malta, 1565
18 January 2018 Anna Akhmatova
25 January 2018 Cicero
1 February 2018 Cephalopods
9 February 2018 Frederick Douglass
15 February 2018 Fungi
22 February 2018 Rosalind Franklin
1 March 2018 Sun Tzu and The Art of War
8 March 2018 The Highland Clearances
15 March 2018 Augustine's Confessions
22 March 2018 Tocqueville: Democracy in America
5 April 2018 Roman Slavery
11 April 2018 George and Robert Stephenson
  • Michael Bailey, Railway historian and editor of the most recent biography of Robert Stephenson
  • Julia Elton, Past President of the Newcomen Society for the History of Engineering and Technology
  • Colin Divall, Professor Emeritus of Railway Studies at the University of York
18 April 2018 Middlemarch
26 April 2018 The Proton
3 May 2018 The Almoravid Empire
10 May 2018 The Mabinogion
17 May 2018 The Emancipation of the Serfs
25 May 2018 Margaret of Anjou
31 May 2018 Henrik Ibsen
7 June 2018 Persepolis
14 June 2018 Montesquieu
21 June 2018 Echolocation
28 June 2018 The Mexican-American War
5 July 2018 William Morris

2018–2019

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
13 September 2018 The Iliad
20 September 2018 Automata
27 September 2018 Dietrich Bonhoeffer
4 October 2018 Edith Wharton
11 October 2018 Is Shakespeare History? The Plantagenets
18 October 2018 Is Shakespeare History? The Romans
25 October 2018 The Fable of the Bees
1 November 2018 Free Radicals
8 November 2018 Marie Antoinette
15 November 2018 Horace
22 November 2018 Hope
29 November 2018 The Long March
6 December 2018 The Thirty Years War
13 December 2018 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
20 December 2018 The Poor Laws
27 December 2018 Venus
10 January 2019 Papal Infallibility
17 January 2019 Samuel Beckett
24 January 2019 Emmy Noether
31 January 2019 Owain Glyndŵr
7 February 2019 Aristotle's biology
14 February 2019 Judith beheading Holofernes
  • Susan Foister, Curator of Early Netherlandish, German and British Painting at the National Gallery
  • John Gash, Senior Lecturer in History of Art at the University of Aberdeen
  • Ela Nutu Hall, Research Associate at the Sheffield Institute for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies, at the University of Sheffield
21 February 2019 Pheromones
28 February 2019 Antarah ibn Shaddad
7 March 2019 William Cecil
14 March 2019 Authenticity
21 March 2019 Gerard Manley Hopkins
28 March 2019 The Danelaw
4 April 2019 The Great Irish Famine
11 April 2019 The Evolution of Teeth
18 April 2019 A Midsummer Night's Dream
25 April 2019 Nero
2 May 2019 The Gordon Riots
9 May 2019 Bergson and Time
16 May 2019 Frankenstein
23 May 2019 Kinetic Theory
30 May 2019 President Ulysses S Grant
6 June 2019 Sir Thomas Browne
13 June 2019 The Inca
20 June 2019 The Mytilenaean Debate
27 June 2019 Doggerland
4 July 2019 Lorca

2019–2020

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
19 September 2019 Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow
26 September 2019 The Rapture
3 October 2019 Dorothy Hodgkin
10 October 2019 Rousseau on Education
17 October 2019 The Time Machine
24 October 2019 Robert Burns
31 October 2019 Hybrids
7 November 2019 The Treaty of Limerick
14 November 2019 Crime and Punishment
21 November 2019 Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem
28 November 2019 Li Shizhen
5 December 2019 Lawrence of Arabia
  • Hussein Omar, Lecturer in Modern Global History, University College Dublin
  • Catriona Pennell, Associate Professor of Modern History and Memory Studies, University of Exeter
  • Neil Faulkner, Director of Military History Live and Editor of the magazine Military History Matters
12 December 2019 Coffee
19 December 2019 Auden
26 December 2019 Tutankhamun
11 January 2020 Catullus
16 January 2020 The Siege of Paris (1870-71)
23 January 2020 Solar Wind
30 January 2020 Alcuin
6 February 2020 George Sand
13 February 2020 Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
20 February 2020 The Valladolid Debate
27 February 2020 The Evolution of Horses
5 March 2020 Paul Dirac
12 March 2020 The Covenanters

The 2019–2020 series was truncated because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

2020–2021

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
17 September 2020 Pericles
24 September 2020 Cave Art
1 October 2020 Macbeth
8 October 2020 Deism
15 October 2020 Alan Turing
22 October 2020 Maria Theresa
29 October 2020 Piers Plowman
5 November 2020 Mary Astell
12 November 2020 Albrecht Dürer
26 November 2020 The Zong Massacre
3 December 2020 Fernando Pessoa
10 December 2020 John Wesley and Methodism
17 December 2020 The Cultural Revolution
31 December 2020 Eclipses
14 January 2021 The Great Gatsby
21 January 2021 The Plague of Justinian
28 January 2021 Saint Cuthbert
4 February 2021 Emilie du Châtelet
11 February 2021 The Rosetta Stone
18 February 2021 Medieval Pilgrimage
25 February 2021 Marcus Aurelius
4 March 2021 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
11 March 2021 The Late Devonian Extinction
18 March 2021 The Bacchae
25 March 2021 David Ricardo
1 April 2021 The Russo-Japanese War
8 April 2021 Pierre-Simon Laplace
15 April 2021 Arianism
22 April 2021 The Franco-American Alliance 1778
29 April 2021 Ovid
6 May 2021 The Second Barons' War
13 May 2021 Longitude
20 May 2021 Journey to the West
27 May 2021 The Interregnum
3 June 2021 Kant's Copernican Revolution
10 June 2021 Booth's Life and Labour Survey
17 June 2021 Edward Gibbon
24 June 2021 Shakespeare's Sonnets

2021–2022

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
16 September 2021 The Evolution of Crocodiles
23 September 2021 Herodotus
30 September 2021 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
7 October 2021 The Manhattan Project
14 October 2021 The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
21 October 2021 Iris Murdoch
28 October 2021 Corals
4 November 2021 The Song of Roland
11 November 2021 William and Caroline Herschel
18 November 2021 The Decadent Movement
25 November 2021 Plato's Gorgias
2 December 2021 The Battle of Trafalgar
  • James Davey, Lecturer in Naval and Maritime History at the University of Exeter
  • Marianne Czisnik, Independent researcher on Nelson and editor of his letters to Lady Hamilton
  • Kenneth Johnson, Research Professor of National Security at Air University, Alabama
9 December 2021 The May Fourth Movement
16 December 2021 A Christmas Carol
23 December 2021 The Hittites
30 December 2021 Fritz Lang
13 January 2022 Thomas Hardy's Poetry
20 January 2022 The Gold Standard
27 January 2022 Colette
3 February 2022 The Temperance Movement
10 February 2022 Walter Benjamin
17 February 2022 Romeo and Juliet
24 February 2022 Peter Kropotkin
3 March 2022 The Arthashastra
10 March 2022 Seismology
17 March 2022 Charisma
24 March 2022 Antigone
31 March 2022 The Sistine Chapel
07 April 2022 Polidori's The Vampyre
14 April 2022 Homo erectus
21 April 2022 Olympe de Gouges
28 April 2022 Early Christian Martyrdom
5 May 2022 The Davidian Revolution
12 May 2022 Tang Era Poetry
19 May 2022 Jan Amos Komenský
26 May 2022 Hegel's Philosophy of History
9 June 2022 The Death of Stars
16 June 2022 Dylan Thomas
23 June 2022 Angkor Wat
  • Piphal Heng, postdoctoral scholar at the Cotsen Institute and the Programme for Early Modern Southeast Asia at University of California, Los Angeles
  • Ashley Thompson, Hiram W Woodward Chair of Southeast Asian Art at SOAS University of London
  • Simon Warrack, stone conservator who has worked extensively at Angkor Wat
30 June 2022 John Bull

2022–2023

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors
and positions held at time of broadcast
15 September 2022 Nineteen Eighty-Four
22 September 2022 Plato's Atlantis
29 September 2022 The Electron
6 October 2022 The Knights Templar
13 October 2022 Berthe Morisot
20 October 2022 The Fish-Tetrapod Transition
27 October 2022 Wilfred Owen
3 November 2022 The Morant Bay Rebellion
10 November 2022 Bauhaus
17 November 2022 Demosthenes' Philippics
24 November 2022 The Challenger Expedition 1872-1876
1 December 2022 The Nibelungenlied
8 December 2022 The Irish Rebellion of 1798
15 December 2022 Citizen Kane
22 December 2022 Persuasion
29 December 2022 The Great Stink
12 January 2023 John Donne
19 January 2023 Rawls' Theory of Justice
26 January 2023 Superconductivity
2 February 2023 Tycho Brahe
9 Feb 2023 Chartism
16 Feb 2023 Stevie Smith
23 Feb 2023 Paul Erdős
2 Mar 2023 Megaliths
9 March 2023 The Ramayana
16 March 2023 Mercantilism
23 March 2023 Solon the Lawgiver
30 March 2023 A Room of One's Own
6 April 2023 Cnut
13 April 2023 The Battle of Crécy
20 April 2023 Linnaeus
27 April 2023 Walt Whitman
4 May 2023 The Dead Sea Scrolls
11 May 2023 The Shimabara Rebellion
18 May 2023 Virgil's Georgics
25 May 2023 Louis XIV: The Sun King
01 June 2023 Mitochondria
08 June 2023 Oedipus Rex
15 June 2023 Death in Venice
22 June 2023 Elizabeth Anscombe
29 June 2023 Jupiter

2023–2024

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors and positions held at time of broadcast
14 September 2023 Albert Einstein
21 September 2023 The Seventh Seal

(1000th program)

21 September 2023 Melvyn Bragg talks to Mishal Husain
28 September 2023 The Economic Consequences of the Peace
05 October 2023 Plankton
12 October 2023 The Federalist Papers
19 October 2023 Julian of Norwich
26 October 2023 Germinal
02 November 2023 Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
09 November 2023 The Barbary Corsairs
16 November 2023 The Theory of the Leisure Class
23 November 2023 Marguerite de Navarre
30 November 2023 Edgar Allan Poe
07 December 2023 Karl Barth
14 December 2023 Tiberius
21 December 2023 Vincent van Gogh
28 December 2023 Twelfth Night, or What You Will
11 January 2024 Condorcet
18 January 2024 Nefertiti
25 January 2024 Panpsychism
1 February 2024 The Hanseatic League
8 February 2024 Hormones
15 February 2024 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
22 February 2024 The Sack of Rome 1527
29 February 2024 Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
07 March 2024 The Mokrani Revolt
14 March 2024 The Waltz
21 March 2024 Julian the Apostate
28 March 2024 The Kalevala
04 April 2024 Nikola Tesla
11 April 2024 Lysistrata
18 April 2024 Napoleon's Hundred Days
25 April 2024 Bertolt Brecht
02 May 2024 Mercury
09 May 2024 Sir Thomas Wyatt
16 May 2024 Philippa Foot
23 May 2024 Empress Dowager Cixi
30 May 2024 Marsilius of Padua
06 June 2024 The Orkneyinga Saga
13 June 2024 Fielding's Tom Jones
20 June 2024 Karma
27 June 2024 Monet in England
04 July 2024 Bacteriophages

2024–2025

Broadcast date
Listen again
TitleContributors and positions held at time of broadcast
19 September 2024 Benjamin Disraeli
26 September 2024 Wormholes
3 October 2024 The Haymarket Affair
10 October 2024 Robert Graves
17 October 2024 Hayek's The Road to Serfdom
24 October 2024 Little Women
31 October 2024 The Venetian Empire
07 November 2024 George Herbert
14 November 2024 The Antikythera Mechanism
21 November 2024 Italo Calvino
28 November 2024 The Hanoverian Succession
05 December 2024 Nizami Ganjavi
12 December 2024 The Habitability of Planets
19 December 2024 Plutarch's Parallel Lives
26 December 2024 Vase-mania
02 January 2025 Slime Moulds


Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BBC World Service</span> International radio division of the BBC

The BBC World Service is an international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcasts radio news, speech and discussions in more than 40 languages to many parts of the world on analogue and digital shortwave platforms, internet streaming, podcasting, satellite, DAB, FM, LW and MW relays. In 2024, the World Service reached an average of 450 million people a week. In November 2016, the BBC announced that it would start broadcasting in additional languages including Amharic and Igbo, in its biggest expansion since the 1940s.

<i>The Archers</i> British radio soap opera (1951–present)

The Archers is a British radio soap opera currently broadcast on BBC Radio 4, the corporation's main spoken-word channel. Broadcast since 1951, it was famously billed as "an everyday story of country folk" and is now promoted as "a contemporary drama in a rural setting". Having aired over 20,000 episodes, it is the world's longest-running present-day drama by number of episodes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BBC Radio 4</span> British national radio station

BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasting House, London. Since 2019, the station controller has been Mohit Bakaya. He replaced Gwyneth Williams, who had been the station controller since 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Attenborough</span> British broadcaster and naturalist (born 1926)

Sir David Frederick Attenborough is a British broadcaster, biologist, natural historian, and writer. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Studios Natural History Unit, the nine nature documentary series forming the Life collection, a comprehensive survey of animal and plant life on Earth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Partridge</span> British comedy character

Alan Gordon Partridge is an English comedy character portrayed by Steve Coogan. A parody of British television personalities, Partridge is a tactless and inept broadcaster with an inflated sense of celebrity. Since his debut in 1991, he has appeared in media including radio and television series, books, podcasts and film.

<i>Today</i> (BBC Radio 4) BBC Radio 4s long-running early morning news and current affairs programme

Today, colloquially known as the Today programme, is BBC Radio 4's long-running morning news and current-affairs radio programme. Broadcast on Monday to Saturday from 06:00 to 09:00, it is produced by BBC News and is the highest-rated programme on Radio 4 and one of the BBC's most popular programmes across its radio networks. In-depth political interviews and reports are interspersed with regular news bulletins, as well as Thought for the Day. It has been voted the most influential news programme in Britain in setting the political agenda, with an average weekly listening audience around 6 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ricky Gervais</span> British comedian (born 1961)

Ricky Dene Gervais is a British comedian, actor, writer, producer, director and musician. He co-created, co-wrote, and acted in the British television sitcoms The Office (2001–2003), Extras (2005–2007), and Life's Too Short (2011–2013) with Stephen Merchant. He also created, wrote and starred in Derek (2012–2014) and After Life (2019–2022).

Desert Island Discs is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942.

Classic FM is one of the United Kingdom's three Independent National Radio stations and is owned and operated by Global Media & Entertainment (Global). The station broadcasts classical music and was launched in 1992.

<i>Test Match Special</i> Long-running cricket radio programme

Test Match Special is a British sports radio programme, originally, as its name implies, dealing exclusively with Test cricket matches, but currently covering any professional cricket. The programme is available on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra (digital) and on BBC Sounds to the United Kingdom and the rest of the world. TMS provides ball-by-ball coverage of most Test cricket, One Day International, and Twenty20 matches and tournaments involving the England cricket team.

<i>Digital Planet</i> Radio show

Digital Planet was a radio programme broadcast on the BBC World Service presented by Gareth Mitchell. Alternating as contributors are Bill Thompson, Ghislaine Boddington and Angelica Mari, who comment on items in the programme and discuss them with Mitchell. The show, broadcast weekly, covered technology stories and news from around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Mayo</span> English radio presenter and author

Simon Andrew Hicks Mayo is an English radio presenter and author who worked for BBC Radio from 1982 until 2022.

<i>In Our Time</i> (radio series) Live BBC radio discussion series

In Our Time is a BBC Radio 4 discussion series and podcast exploring a wide variety of historical, scientific and philosophical topics, presented by Melvyn Bragg, since 15 October 1998. It is one of Radio 4's most successful discussion programmes, acknowledged to have "transformed the landscape for serious ideas at peak listening time".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fi Glover</span> British journalist and presenter (born 1969)

Fiona Susannah Grace "Fi" Glover is a British journalist and presenter who currently hosts a two hour show for Times Radio and the Off Air podcast, for The Times. Before joining The Times in October 2022, Glover worked for the BBC for almost thirty years, most recently presenting the Fortunately podcast, with Jane Garvey, The Listening Project for BBC Radio 4 and My Perfect Country for the BBC World Service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Maitlis</span> British journalist (born 1970)

Emily Maitlis is a British journalist and former newsreader for the BBC. She was the lead anchor of the BBC Two news and current affairs programme Newsnight until the end of 2021. She has since been a presenter of the daily podcast The News Agents on LBC Radio.

<i>Saturday Live</i> (radio series) BBC radio programme

Saturday Live is a BBC Radio 4 magazine programme, first broadcast on 16 September 2006. It combines contributions from studio guests with real-life stories and short features, as well as the musical segment known as "Inheritance Tracks", in which famous people share memories about two music tracks, one that they consider they inherited from a previous generation and one they would recommend to future generations. Since 2013, following the example of a particular listener experience that resonated with the audience, it has featured a segment called "Thank You", consisting of voice messages from listeners who received acts of kindness from those strangers who were not, or could not be, thanked properly at the time. These messages sometimes refer to accidents, or amusing incidents, that happened decades earlier, and occasionally the kind stranger is found, and their response is then also shared.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fearne Cotton</span> English television and radio presenter (born 1981)

Fearne Cotton is an English broadcaster and author. She began her career in the late 1990s as a children’s television presenter for GMTV, CITV and CBBC. She went on to present various television shows, including Top of the Pops (2004–2020), Love Island (2006), The Xtra Factor (2007), and Interior Design Masters (2019). Cotton was a regular co-presenter of the Children in Need annual telethons from 2005 to 2015, with the exception of 2009. From 2008 to 2018, she was a team captain on the ITV2 comedy panel show Celebrity Juice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Finnemore</span> British comedy writer and actor (born 1977)

John David Finnemore is a British comedy writer and actor. He wrote and performed in the radio series Cabin Pressure, John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, and John Finnemore's Double Acts, and frequently features in other BBC Radio 4 comedy shows such as The Now Show. Finnemore has won more Comedy.co.uk awards than any other writer, and two of his shows appear in the top ten of the Radio Times' list of greatest ever radio comedies.

<i>Kermode and Mayos Film Review</i> Radio programme

Kermode and Mayo's Film Review was a radio programme with Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo, broadcast on BBC Radio 5 Live on Friday afternoons. The show was self-described as the BBC's "flagship film programme" and featured film reviews from Kermode, interviews with actors and other guests, and listeners' emails. The programme's Twitter handle, "Wittertainment", was a nickname for the programme itself.

The Reunion is a radio discussion series presented by Kirsty Wark which reunites a group of people involved in a moment of modern history. It has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 since July 2003, with 163 episodes presented by the first presenter, Sue MacGregor.

References

  1. "The complete in Our Time now available as podcasts". Radio Times . 15 September 2011. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
  2. "In Our Time's Greatest Philiosopher Vote". BBC Radio 4. Archived from the original on 13 February 2021. Retrieved 18 February 2023.