The British Empire

What did it take to rule an empire that was never meant to have an emperor?In this second episode of our series on the Roman Empire, we're joined by classicist Mary Beard to trace how Roman leadership evolved over a thousand years - from the competitive power-sharing of the Repub ...  Show more

Exile, mercenary, Viking king. Harald Hardrada, 'Thunderbolt of the North', fought his way from Norway to Byzantium, from the streets of Constantinople to the battlefields of Sicily. He married a princess, blinded an emperor, and nearly conquered England.Today, Dr Wayne Bartlett ...  Show more

The ancient Persian ruler who founded the Achaemenid Empire, known for his benevolent governance and conquests - Cyrus the Great was a giant of history. History remembers him as someone who conquered numerous lands, established a legendary empire, respected local customs, and ...

How much did Britain and its allies know about the Holocaust? Could the Bengal Famine of 1943 have been helped? And was Elizabeth I really the Virgin Queen? 

Lynsey Calver is a history teacher, and in this episode, she helps us to fill in some of the ga ...

Sathnam Sanghera discusses where we can see the legacy of imperialism in Britain today – from politics and education to museums and multiculturalism    Journalist and author Sathnam Sanghera discusses his new book Empireland, which interrogates everything from the objects in our ...  Show more

67 million people currently inhabit the United Kingdom - but what do we know about the original, first Britons? It's no secret when looking back into pre-history that it was a time of mass migration for animals and people alike, but who were our early inhabitants, and what can ...