The Cyrus Cylinder

He is one of the most famous rulers of the ancient world, remembered for leading a vast Persian invasion of Greece. Yet Xerxes the Great was far more than just a battlefield king.In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by friend of the show Professor Lloyd Llewe ...  Show more

396 BC. The city of Veii lies in ruins, destroyed by Rome in a brutal act of early imperial expansion. Yet just six years later, Rome itself would face devastation at the hands of invading Gauls, a shock that would shape the city’s identity for generations.In this episode of The ...  Show more

Born the son of a khan, a tribal chieftain, Cyrus would go on to be a titanic figure of world history. He took Persia from being a minor regional power to the first superpower the world has ever seen. Conquering all of modern day Iran, then Turkey, and finally defeating the power ...  Show more

From his modest beginnings in southern Iran, the Persian king Cyrus II went on to conquer three of the dominant kingdoms of the ancient Near East those of the Medians, the Lydians, and the Babylonians and establish the first world empire. In Discovering Cyrus: The Persian Conquer ...  Show more

What was life really like in Tudor England? This was a society where monarchy was under strain, the church was in crisis and contending with war, rebellion, plague and poverty was a fact of daily life. Yet it was also an age rich in ideas and ideals, where women asserted their ...

The British Empire was one of the most influential and far-reaching empires in history. Dan and his guest journalist and author Sathnam Sanghera remember school lessons on the small island that rose to global dominance. From the 16th century to the 20th century, the British Em ...