History Today

In this episode we travel back 50 years to 1969 and the Apollo 11 moon landing. Kassia St Clair discusses the intriguing story behind the space suits, quiet wonders of technology made using traditional techniques.

‘What’s the most important lesson history has taught me? That the same arguments come around again and again.’

This episode takes us back to the tense and dramatic days of 8-10 May 1940. Chamberlain suffers humiliation in the House of Commons and Churchill becomes prime minister. 

In this episode we travel to the summer of 1947 to witness the chaotic, catastrophic sequence of events surrounding Indian independence and the subsequent Partition.

A mythical turning point in the history of Europe.

Four historians consider the desirability of profound political change and the methods used to attain it.

In this episode meet Socrates and Aspasia: the philosopher who changed the way we think about the world and the woman who changed him.

‘I’d be disappointed if I didn’t meet Emperor Claudius in the afterlife.’

In this episode, writer and Gardeners' Question Time panellist Matthew Biggs travels to 1905 to watch the plant hunter George Forrest begin an ill-omened expedition into the mountains of Yunnan.