Thomas Becket

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life, murder and impact of Thomas Becket (c 1118-1170)

• 52 mins

Beethoven

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and influence of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

• 50 mins

Hamlet

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's best known, longest and most quoted play.

• 52 mins

The Siege of Malta, 1565

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Ottoman attack on the Knights Hospitaller in Malta.

• 49 mins

Anna Akhmatova

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of the celebrated Russian poet.

• 48 mins

Cicero

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the political philosophy of Marcus Tullius Cicero.

• 49 mins

Cephalopods

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the biology of squid, octopus, cuttlefish and nautilus.

• 47 mins

Frederick Douglass

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of Frederick Douglass, born to slavery.

• 52 mins

Fungi

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss fungi.

• 48 mins

Rosalind Franklin

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the pioneering scientist Rosalind Franklin.

• 49 mins

Sun Tzu and The Art of War

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential ancient Chinese work on military strategy.

• 48 mins

The Highland Clearances

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss evictions and migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries.

• 51 mins

Augustine's Confessions

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss St Augustine's account of his conversion to Christianity.

• 47 mins

Tocqueville: Democracy in America

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alexis de Tocqueville's analysis of American democracy.

• 50 mins

Roman Slavery

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the relationship between slavery and the power of Rome.

• 50 mins

George and Robert Stephenson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George and Robert Stephenson and the birth of railways.

• 50 mins

Middlemarch

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George Eliot's greatest novel, published 1871-72.

• 51 mins

The Proton

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Proton, found in the nuclei of all elements.

• 49 mins

The Almoravid Empire

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great empires of the Islamic west.

• 49 mins

The Mabinogion

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the medieval Welsh stories of Celtic mythology.

• 48 mins

The Emancipation of the Serfs

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the freeing of a third of Russians from serfdom in 1861.

• 49 mins

Margaret of Anjou

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Queen of England at the start of the Wars of the Roses

• 50 mins

Henrik Ibsen

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the playwright and his tragedies of middle-class life.

• 49 mins

Persepolis

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Achaemenid Empire's great ceremonial capital.

• 51 mins

Montesquieu

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss republicanism, despotism and the separation of powers.

• 49 mins

Echolocation

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how some animals sense their world with sound not sight.

• 51 mins

The Mexican-American War

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 1846-48 war that cost Mexico half its territory.

• 49 mins

William Morris

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a great cultural figure of the 19th century.

• 53 mins

The Iliad

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the epic poem on the wrath of Achilles in the Trojan War.

• 48 mins

Automata

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of machines imitating living beings.

• 52 mins