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Mount Vesuvius' eruption in the autumn of AD79 remains one of the deadliest and best-known in history. The plume of super-heated volcanic gases spewed skyward formed a cloud 21 miles high, with the vo...
· 46 min 10 sec
Charles de Gaulle was a war hero in the First World War, and, having refused to accept his government’s armistice with Nazi Germany, became the voice of the French Resistance during the Second World W...
· 41 min 48 sec
May 1968 saw underlying tensions reach a climax in France, resulting in a period of civil unrest coloured by rioting, general strikes, and the occupation of universities and factories. Join Tom and Do...
· 46 min 23 sec
A city which played a fundamental role in the Dutch Golden Age and in the birth of the Dutch monarchy, Amsterdam has also stood in the avant-garde of European liberalism since the Second World War. Jo...
· 55 min 34 sec
A city built on water, Amsterdam has often set the tone of European modernity. It first gained prominence as a miraculous centre for pilgrimage, and then stood out for its relationship with the Reform...
· 41 min 11 sec
With the French and Spanish siding with George Washington’s revolutionaries, the game is up for the British, and it seems time for them to cut their losses. Following the surrender of General Cornwall...
· 1 hr 53 sec
“O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth!” The U.S. Congress votes for independence on the 2nd of July 1776, and George Washington reads the Decl...
· 51 min 8 sec
“Last night three cargos of tea were emptied into the sea. This morning a man of war sails. This is the most magnificent movement of all. There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effor...
· 1 hr 34 sec
“America, late the strength, now the foe to Britain, dismembered, torn, I fear forever lost to England, whence she sprung.”The American Revolution came about due to growing tensions between the Americ...
· 1 hr 45 sec
“Who drinks the water I shall give him, will have a spring inside him welling up for eternal life.” A deeply mysterious object which doesn’t appear in the Bible, was the Holy Grail really the chalice...
· 57 min 22 sec
The most important object in the universe, but also a somewhat invisible presence in the Bible, the Ark of the Covenant has fuelled stories for millennia, whether as a weapon of mass destruction, an e...
· 1 hr 47 sec
Following the use of the atomic bomb in Japan and the end of the Second World War, Oppenheimer pushes for an international approach to nuclear power. This attitude towards nuclear secrets, alongside h...
· 56 min 9 sec
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” This was J. Robert Oppenheimer’s reaction to the first atomic bomb test in July 1945, marking the beginning of the nuclear age. Oppenheimer, an Americ...
· 58 min 8 sec
It’s 1895, and with the libel case brought against the Marquess of Queensbury having collapsed, Oscar Wilde is now arrested and charged with committing acts of “gross indecency”. With former lovers, h...
· 48 min 41 sec
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” As his most popular work, "The Importance of Being Earnest", hints at, Oscar Wilde’s life was a complicated one. Perhaps the most famous gay martyr in hist...
· 53 min 35 sec
A mysterious death on the Nile, an unconventional love affair, a Roman-Greek hero turned God - the story of Hadrian and Antinous is full of intrigue. Join Tom and Dominic as they delve into the world...
· 52 min 2 sec
The Easter Rising began in Dublin's General Post Office on Easter Monday, 24th April 1916, with Patrick Pearse’s dramatic proclamation of the Irish Republic. Led by republicans opposed to British rule...
· 1 hr 4 min 21 sec
The year is 1912. The bitter arguments about Home Rule for Ireland are reaching boiling point. But with Ulster in uproar, the Tories encouraging mutiny and thousands of rifles pouring into Ireland, is...
· 1 hr 5 min 26 sec
At the start of the 19th century, the kingdoms of Britain and Ireland were officially 'united' with the Acts of Union. Historian Paul Rouse continues our sweep through the Anglo-Irish relationship, in...
· 54 min 23 sec
“In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms.” The proclamation of t...
· 58 min 45 sec