2023

January

February

  • Tycho Brahe 2 Feb
    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the pioneering Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546 - 1601) whose charts offered an unprecedented level of accuracy.
    520 Astronomy
  • Chartism 9 Feb
    On 21 May 1838 an estimated 150,000 people assembled on Glasgow Green for a mass demonstration.
    320 Political science
  • Stevie Smith 16 Feb
    In 1957 Stevie Smith published a poetry collection called Not Waving But Drowning - and its title poem gave us a phrase which has entered the language.
    820 English and Old English literatures
  • Paul Erdős 23 Feb
    Paul Erdos (1913 - 1996) is one of the most celebrated mathematicians of the 20th century.
    510 Mathematics

March

April

May

  • Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the revelatory collection of Biblical texts, legal documents, community rules and literary writings.
    220 The Bible
  • Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Christian uprising in Japan and its profound and long-term consequences.
    200 Religion
  • In the year 29 BC the great Roman poet Virgil published these lines: Blessed is he who has succeeded in learning the laws of nature’s working, has cast beneath his feet all fear and fate’s implacable decree, and the howl of insatiable Death.
    870 Latin and Italic literatures
  • 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.
    940 History of Europe