William Cobbett: Champion of rural workers

William Cobbett: Industrialization and its impact on England’s rural population

• 39 mins

How the paparazzi transformed photojournalism

Why 1950s Rome was the birthplace of the paparazzi

• 39 mins

Süleyman the Magnificent: longest-reigning Ottoman sultan

The 16th century Ottoman sultan who shaped a vast empire across three continents

• 39 mins

From straw poll to opinion poll

Exploring the past, present and future of opinion polling

• 39 mins

The end of civilisation: Bronze Age collapse

One of the earliest examples of globalisation, and why it came crashing down

• 41 mins

Moths: The story of the butterfly of the night

The much maligned moth – pest or saviour?

• 39 mins

Uruguay 1930: The first football World Cup

How FIFA's global sporting spectacle began

• 43 mins

The Epic of Gilgamesh: A quest for immortality

One of the oldest works of literature can speak to us even today

• 39 mins

Alice Guy: The first female movie mogul

The pioneer of early cinema who was overlooked by history

• 39 mins

Margaret Sanger: Mother of birth control

The controversial campaigner who founded Planned Parenthood and helped develop the pill

• 39 mins

Belarus: The crossroads of Eastern Europe

History of Belarus from the Middle Ages to Lukashenka

• 39 mins

Calories: How to fuel a human

The invisible force that shapes the way we feed ourselves

• 43 mins

The Cynics: Counter-culture from Ancient Greece

Itinerant philosophers who advocated leading radically simplified lives.

• 39 mins

Forugh Farrokhzad: A trailblazing voice for women in Iran

How the courage and audacity of an Iranian writer continues to inspire

• 39 mins

Why do we have a seven-day week?

How this unnatural cycle came to organise our lives

• 45 mins

The writer Rachel Carson who fought insecticide wars

How Silent Spring, a book about DDT use, changed the way we think about the environment

• 39 mins

When money died: The world's worst inflation

Hungary, 1946, where prices doubled every 15 hours

• 43 mins

How we work: Redesigning the office

The concept of the office is being reimagined. What can we learn from its history?

• 39 mins

Cavalry and code-breaking: The Polish-Soviet war

Little-known conflict that shaped Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the First World War

• 39 mins

Neanderthals: Meet the relatives

Recent scientific breakthroughs have overturned received wisdom about our ancient cousins

• 39 mins

How the shipping container changed the world

How standardising the humble shipping container revolutionised world trade

• 39 mins

Tropicália: the movement that defied Brazil’s dictatorship

The story of Brazil’s counter-cultural push of the late 1960s

• 42 mins

Rituals: Our anchors in a changing world

Why rituals and ceremonies enthral us and endure through the ages

• 48 mins

Alexander the Great or not so great?

One of the world’s most astonishing military leaders, but was he brilliant or brutal?

• 39 mins

The dam builders

The politics, power and engineering behind monumental dams

• 39 mins

How the mobile phone changed everything

Charting the seismic transformation of our lives caused by mobile communications

• 48 mins

A deep dive into deepfakes

Misinformation spread by faked images is almost as old as film itself

• 49 mins

Global mass tourism

Has tourism lost its way?

• 49 mins

The evolution of teenagers

Why do humans have such a prolonged adolescence?

• 49 mins

Pets and us

A scamper through the social history of our best friends

• 48 mins