Accessibility links

Skip to content
Accessibility Help

Home
News
Sport
Weather
iPlayer
Sounds
Bitesize
CBeebies
CBBC
Food

Home
News
Sport
Business
Innovation
Culture
Travel
Earth
Video
Live

Home
News
Sport
Weather
iPlayer
Sounds
Bitesize
CBeebies
CBBC
Food

Home
News
Sport
Business
Innovation
Culture
Travel
Earth
Video
Live

.sc-c-sounds-nav { position: relative; } .sc-c-sounds-nav__menu-button { display: none; } .sc-c-sounds-nav__items { max-height: 500px; visibility: visible; position: static; } .sc-c-sounds-nav__overlay { display: none; } @media screen and (max-width: 659px) { .sc-c-sounds-nav__wrapper { padding-bottom: 0px; } .sc-c-sounds-nav__wordmark-link { padding-bottom: 18px; } }

Sounds home page

Home
Music
Podcasts
My Sounds

In Our Time - The Plague of Justinian - BBC Sounds

In Our Time - The Plague of Justinian - BBC Sounds

The Plague of JustinianThe Plague of Justinian

Released On: 21 Jan 2021

Available for over a year

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the scale and impact of the plague that raged in 541AD.

Programme Website

Coming Up Next

now playing
In Our Time
The Plague of Justinian
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the scale and impact of the plague that raged in 541AD.
48 mins
In Our Time
Saint Cuthbert
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life of one of England's most revered saints.
56 mins
In Our Time
Emilie du Châtelet
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss an astonishing mathematician of the French Enlightenment.
49 mins
In Our Time
The Rosetta Stone
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the deciphering of hieroglyphs, secret for 1,500 years.
47 mins
In Our Time
Medieval Pilgrimage
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Christian pilgrimage in Europe in the Middle Ages.
50 mins
In Our Time
Marcus Aurelius
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and meditations of 'the last good Roman emperor'.
52 mins
In Our Time
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Coleridge's famous poem of a sailor who shot an albatross.
53 mins
In Our Time
The Late Devonian Extinction
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the five major extinction events on Earth so far.
49 mins
In Our Time
The Bacchae
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the revenge of Dionysus on Thebes in Euripides' tragedy.
52 mins
In Our Time
David Ricardo
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Ricardo's argument on free trade after the Napoleonic wars
49 mins
In Our Time
The Russo-Japanese War
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 1904-5 clash of Japanese and Russian empires.
48 mins
In Our Time
Pierre-Simon Laplace
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great French mathematician behind metrication.
48 mins
In Our Time
Arianism
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss an orthodox form of Christianity that became a heresy.
50 mins
In Our Time
The Franco-American Alliance 1778
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the French fight against Britain in America and its impact
50 mins
In Our Time
Ovid
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most influential poets of Rome's Augustan Age.
49 mins
In Our Time
The Second Barons' War
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Simon de Montfort's fatal struggle with Henry III's forces
56 mins
In Our Time
Longitude
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea of longitude and the race to calculate it at sea.
50 mins
In Our Time
Journey to the West
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great novel from the Ming Era, with its heroic Monkey.
51 mins
In Our Time
The Interregnum
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the upheavals of 1649-60 in the British Isles
52 mins
In Our Time
Kant's Copernican Revolution
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Kant's insight into how we relate to the world around us.
53 mins
In Our Time
Booth's Life and Labour Survey
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Charles Booth's landmark survey of London's poor and rich.
48 mins
In Our Time
Edward Gibbon
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
52 mins
In Our Time
Shakespeare's Sonnets
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss some of the greatest and most challenging poems in English
52 mins
In Our Time
The Evolution of Crocodiles
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the land animals of the Triassic that dominated dinosaurs.
53 mins
In Our Time
Herodotus
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek writer known as the father of history.
52 mins
In Our Time
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Anne Bronte's novel of a woman's fight for independence.
49 mins
In Our Time
The Manhattan Project
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the race to build an atom bomb before anyone else in WW2
48 mins
In Our Time
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Europe's largest republic, before its partition in 1772.
48 mins
In Our Time
Iris Murdoch
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the philosophy of the celebrated author of The Bell.
54 mins
In Our Time
Corals
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the simple animals which form the now-threatened reefs.
51 mins
In Our Time
The Song of Roland
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a masterpiece of French epic poetry from the 12th century.
51 mins

Cymraeg
Gaeilge
Gàidhlig

BBC Sounds Help
Contacts, Privacy and Information
Help with Signing In
Newsletter

Explore the BBC

Home
News
Sport
Weather
iPlayer
Sounds
Bitesize
CBeebies
CBBC
Food

Home
News
Sport
Business
Innovation
Culture
Travel
Earth
Video
Live

Terms of Use
About the BBC
Privacy Policy
Privacy Policy
Cookies
Cookies
Accessibility Help
Parental Guidance
Contact the BBC
Make an editorial complaint
BBC emails for you
Advertise with us

Copyright © 2025 BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.