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The Poor Laws

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Poor Law of 1834 and the rise of the workhouse

• 50 mins

Venus

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the planet closest to Earth, sometimes called Earth's twin

• 50 mins

Papal Infallibility

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that Popes cannot err in exercise of their office

• 51 mins

Samuel Beckett

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the playwright and novelist, author of Waiting for Godot

• 48 mins

Emmy Noether

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas of one of the great 20th-century mathematicians.

• 48 mins

Owain Glyndwr

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the fight for Welsh independence in the early 15th century

• 48 mins

Aristotle's Biology

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the scientific study of life, originated by Aristotle.

• 50 mins

Judith beheading Holofernes

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how this Bible story has inspired artists for centuries.

• 49 mins

Pheromones

A discussion of the chemicals that animals use in order to affect others of their species.

• 49 mins

Antarah ibn Shaddad

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry and context of this pre-Islamic Arabian knight

• 49 mins

William Cecil

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most powerful man in the court of Elizabeth I.

• 51 mins

Authenticity

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what it means to be oneself

• 50 mins

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 'the only influential poet of the Victorian age'.

• 47 mins

The Danelaw

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Danish impact on England in 9th and 10th centuries.

• 50 mins

The Great Irish Famine

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the causes and consequences of the Famine of 1845-49.

• 57 mins

The Evolution of Teeth

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how teeth evolved in our toothless ancestors - and why.

• 49 mins

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's comedy, one of his most popular plays

• 54 mins

Nero

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most notorious rulers of ancient Rome.

• 51 mins

The Gordon Riots

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the causes of the violence of June 1780 and repercussions.

• 50 mins

Bergson and Time

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Henri Bergson's ideas about our experience of time passing

• 51 mins

Frankenstein

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mary Shelley's Gothic story of a monster brought to life

• 55 mins

Kinetic Theory

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how we know gas molecules move rather than keep still.

• 51 mins

President Ulysses S Grant

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Grant's role in reconstructing the USA after the Civil War

• 55 mins

Sir Thomas Browne

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the physician with a curious mind in dangerous times

• 52 mins

The Inca

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the advanced Andean empire, dominant until Pizarro arrived

• 52 mins

The Mytilenaean Debate

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Athenians' change of mind in the Peloponnesian War.

• 54 mins

Doggerland

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Stone Age human habitats now covered by the North Sea.

• 54 mins

Lorca

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Spanish poet and playwright's work, life and death.

• 53 mins

Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why Napoleon's apparent victory turned to defeat in 1812.

• 54 mins

The Rapture

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that believers will vanish from the world.

• 51 mins