Zheng Yi Sao

Greg Jenner is joined by Professor Yangwen Zheng and comedian Hugh Dennis to learn about the global history of tea, and how it became Britain’s national drink. Despite its popularity in the UK, much of our tea is grown in India and Kenya, while the tea plant itself is native to C ...  Show more

Greg Jenner is joined in ancient Rome by Professor Lucy Grig and comedian Ivo Graham to learn all about Emperor Constantine the Great and the Christianisation of the Roman empire. Born not in Rome but in the Balkans, Constantine’s life was shaped by the turbulent politics of the ...  Show more

Yo-ho, a pirate’s life for she! Legends of Blackbeard and movie buccaneers like Captain Jack Sparrow give us the impression that piracy was a man’s world. But historians and the Nat Geo book Pirate Queens: Dauntless Women Who Dared to Rule the High Seas are righting the ship. Joi ...  Show more

At its height, the Red Flag Confederation taxed, policed, and protected the coast of Guangdong rather better than the Qing Empire managed to – 20,000 men , 1,800 hulls, and a woman from a Canton floating brothel who ran the whole enterprise on paperwork. Then Canton went looking ...  Show more

Ching Shih was the terror of the seas during the Qing Dynasty in China. Although she was the most powerful and successful pirate in history, most of her story is yet to be fully discovered. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 

It’s November 28th, 1809. The Imperial fleet in Tung Chung Bay is aflame. But the crew of Zheng I Sao’s ship watch on and cheer. This is the greatest victory of the Pirate Queen, scourge of the South China Sea. At its peak, her fleet was more than twice the size of the Spanish Ar ...  Show more