2018

January

  • Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the event of which Voltaire, two hundred years later, said ‘nothing was more well known’.
    940 History of Europe
  • Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work, ideas and life of the Russian poet whose work was celebrated in C20th both for its quality and for what it represented, written under censorship in the Stalin years.
    890 Other literatures
  • Cicero 25 Jan
    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas developed by Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43BC) to support and reinvigorate the Roman Republic when, as it transpired, it was in its final years, threatened by civil wars, the rule of Julius Caesar and the triumvirates that followed.
    930 History of the Ancient World

February

  • Cephalopods 1 Feb
    The octopus, the squid, the nautilus and the cuttlefish are some of the most extraordinary creatures on this planet, intelligent and yet apparently unlike other life forms.
    590 Animals (Zoology)
  • Fungi 15 Feb
    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss fungi.
    570 Biology
  • Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the pioneering scientist Rosalind Franklin (1920 - 1958).
    500 Science

March

April

May

  • Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Berber people who grew to dominate the western Maghreb, founded Marrakesh and took control of Al-Andalus.
    900 History
  • Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the eleven stories of Celtic mythology and Arthurian romance known as The Mabinogion, most of which were told and retold for generations before being written down in C14th.
    390 Customs, etiquette and folklore
  • Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 1861 declaration by Tsar Alexander II that serfs were now legally free of their landlords.
    940 History of Europe
  • Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most remarkable queens of the Middle Ages who took control when her husband, Henry VI, was incapable.
    940 History of Europe
  • Henrik Ibsen 31 May
    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great Norwegian playwright and poet, best known for his middle class tragedies such as The Wild Duck, Hedda Gabler, A Doll’s House and An Enemy of the People.
    830 German and related literatures

June

  • Persepolis 7 Jun
    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the role of the great ‘City of the Persians’ founded by Darius I as the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire that stretched from the Indus Valley to Egypt and the coast of the Black Sea.
    930 History of the Ancient World
  • Montesquieu 14 Jun
    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas of Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brede et de Montesquieu (1689-1755) whose works on liberty, monarchism, despotism, republicanism and the separation of powers were devoured by intellectuals across Europe and New England in the eighteenth century, transforming political philosophy and influencing the American Constitution.
    320 Political science
  • Echolocation 21 Jun
    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how some bats, dolphins and other animals emit sounds at high frequencies to explore their environments, rather than sight.
    590 Animals (Zoology)
  • Melvyn and guests discuss the 1846-48 conflict after which the United States of Mexico lost half its territory to the United States of America.
    970 History of North America

July

September

  • The Iliad 13 Sep
    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great epic poem attributed to Homer, telling the story of an intense episode in the Trojan War.
    880 Classical and modern Greek literatures
  • Automata 20 Sep
    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of real and imagined machines that appear to be living, and the questions they raise about life and creation.
    600 Technology
  • Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas and life of the German theologian, born in Breslau/Wroclaw in 1906 and killed in the Flossenburg concentration camp on 9th April 1945.
    230 Christianity

October

November

December

  • Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the war in Europe which begain in 1618 and continued on such a scale and with such devastation that its like was not seen for another three hundred years.
    940 History of Europe
  • The Poor Laws 20 Dec
    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how, from 1834, poor people across England and Wales faced new obstacles when they could no longer feed or clothe themselves, or find shelter.
    360 Social problems and social services
  • Venus 27 Dec
    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the planet Venus which is both the morning star and the evening star, rotates backwards at walking speed and has a day which is longer than its year.
    520 Astronomy