Machiavelli, master of power

The life and reputation of Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince

• 39 mins

X-rays: New ways of seeing

The discovery of X-rays in 1895 and how it transformed our world

• 39 mins

Aramaic: An imperial language without an empire

A history of one of the oldest living languages in the world

• 39 mins

Falconry: The history of hunting with birds of prey

From nomads to nobles, the working relationship between humans and raptors

• 39 mins

The Wizard of Oz: A homegrown American fairy tale

The magical story of Dorothy, a plucky American heroine who follows the yellow brick road

• 39 mins

Tracing the roots of ancient trees

What can we learn from the oldest trees on earth?

• 39 mins

Emile Berliner, inventor of the gramophone

How mass-produced audio discs transformed our sound world

• 40 mins

Rain or shine? A short history of the weather forecast

A century and a half of scientific meteorology

• 39 mins

Ida Pfeiffer: 19th Century globetrotter

The eccentric traveller and collector who circumnavigated the globe twice

• 39 mins

The Panama Canal: The real story behind the engineering triumph

The Canal that joined up the Atlantic and Pacific oceans but how did it impact Panama?

• 39 mins

Ibn Sina: The Persian polymath

Best known for his Canon of Medicine, Avicenna helped shape modern science

• 26 mins

Inside the mind of crime writer Patricia Highsmith

A 20th century master of the psychological thriller

• 42 mins

Sailing by the stars: The pioneering voyages of David Lewis

One man's intrepid quest to revive ancient navigation

• 39 mins

A radiant light: The Indonesian poet Amir Hamzah

The romantic works and tragic life of a noble writer from Sumatra

• 39 mins

Mars: A history of the Red Planet

When might we send humans to one of our closest neighbours in our solar system?

• 39 mins

Luigi Pirandello: Italian dramatist who brought chaos to the stage

The radical, convention-breaking plays of an architect of modern 20th century theatre

• 39 mins

Louder! How the electric guitar conquered popular music

The origins and early years of making the guitar electric

• 39 mins

Algorithms: From the ancients to the internet

The 4,000-year history of the mathematical operations that now govern our daily lives.

• 39 mins

Toni Morrison: The legacy of a literary legend

How her influence as a writer extends across the globe

• 39 mins

Sushi: The Japanese dish with an ancient tradition

Sushi originally started in East Asia as a means of preserving fish

• 39 mins

The story of Evita

The life, work and remarkable afterlife of Eva Peron

• 39 mins

A dirty history of diamonds

The complex and sometimes shocking story of the diamond industry throughout history

• 39 mins

Sarah Bernhardt: Queen of stage and screen

The 19th Century French actress who defined modern celebrity

• 39 mins

A focus on spectacles

Looking at the history of an invention many of us take for granted

• 39 mins

The Devils: Dostoevsky’s novel of political evil

Dostoevsky’s study of terrorism and poisoned ideals in pre-revolutionary Russia

• 40 mins

The Malayan Emergency

One of the earliest Cold War conflicts in Asia

• 39 mins

Mary Somerville: The queen of 19th-Century science

The 19th-Century polymath who popularised science for generations of readers

• 39 mins

Laskarina Bouboulina, the mother of modern Greece

An intrepid sea captain who commanded daring naval attacks with her own fleet of ships

• 39 mins

The original Goths

How did a Germanic tribe come to inspire an architectural style and a global subculture?

• 39 mins

Algae: Slime life

The evolution of life’s original alchemists

• 39 mins