Helen Rappaport, "In Search of Mary Seacole: ...

Even before we get to introduce ourselves by name, our hair has already started to tell stories about who we are, where we are from and where we are at. Our hair is tangled up in the interplay of race, gender, class, nationality, sexuality, power and beauty. It is an avid storyte ...  Show more

Following the outbreak of World War I, tens of thousands of men from the British Caribbean volunteered as soldiers to fight on behalf of the British Empire. Despite living far from the bloody battlefields of Europe, these men enlisted for a variety of reasons—to affirm their masc ...  Show more

Greg Jenner is joined by Prof Gretchen Gerzina and comedian Nathan Caton to delve into the extraordinary life and adventures of the 19th-century celebrity, Mary Seacole. Mary was born and raised in Jamaica and rose to fame as a businesswoman and a volunteer nurse during the Crime ...  Show more

Mary Seacole (1805-1881) was a 19th century healer who was ahead of her time. This self taught nurse used her own money to sail across the world and set up shelter for wounded Crimean War soldiers. This month, we’re talking about adventurers – women who refused to be confined. Th ...  Show more

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. We hear about Althea McNish, the Trinidadian artist who designed fabric for Queen Elizabeth II.

Former Vogue editor Suzy Menkes on the success of the fashion celebratio ...

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life of Pocahontas, the Native American woman who to English eyes became a symbol of the New World. During the colonisation of Virginia in the first years of the seventeenth century, Pocahontas famously saved the life of an English prisoner ...  Show more