Elagabalus The Raunchy, Racy High Priest Who ...

Words are everywhere -- and we're grateful, because we can't do this show without them. But all words were, at some point, just made up. So how does society decide what counts as a "real" word? In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max dive into the history of language, and the oddly ...  Show more

What if you could hop from France to New York in less than four hours? Traveling twice the speed of sound, with caviar, lobster, champagne and cigars? This was the pitch of the Concorde jet -- a revolutionary, utterly ridiculous and brilliant craft that promised to fundamentally ...  Show more

Ryan speaks with Anthony Everitt about his book Nero: Matricide, Music, and Murder in Imperial Rome, how Rome would have been different if Nero were free to become a musician, why Nero’s overbearing ...

The story of the Roman emperor Heliogabalus is filled with sex, death, decadence and religious extremism, but it also touches on some key questions about imperial Rome. What were the limits of political power? How far should a ruler intervene in the life of his subjects? And what ...  Show more

The Pax Romana has long been shorthand for the empire’s golden age. Stretching from Caledonia to Arabia, Rome ruled over a quarter of the world’s population. It was the wealthiest and most formidable state in the history of humankind.

Today we are speaking with Tom Holland ...  Show more

Shushma Malik discusses some of the most admired and reviled Roman emperors, and considers whether the legends surrounding them stand up to scrutiny   In the latest in our series tackling the big questions on major historical topics, historian Shushma Malik responds to your quest ...  Show more