Why were the Romantics obsessed with Mount Ve...

She led “a life that really, in many ways, shouldn't have been possible”. So says historian Paul Gillingham of Juana Inés de la Cruz. This 17th-century polymath and nun challenged a host of social conventions – earning, through her extraordinary books and poems, a place in the pa ...  Show more

While the crusades raged across the Holy Land in the southern Levant, the kingdoms of central and northern Europe were engaged in their own battle to extend Christendom. Speaking to James Osborne, Aleks Pluskowski details how and when the Baltic crusades – or Northern crusades – ...  Show more

This episode contains references to scenes that some listeners may find distressing

In 79 AD, ancient armageddon hit Pompeii: Mount Vesuvius erupted, freezing in time a town and its inhabitants.

Nearly 2000 years on, Pompeii's story continues. In t ...

In 1848, Europe was wracked by a series of revolutions that turned the established political order on its head. Across the continent populations erupted in revolt, and the shockwaves of these revolutions rippled across the globe. But these uprisings hold a strange place in Eur ...

16 January 27 BC is a date sometimes associated with the beginning of the Roman Empire. It was on that day that Octavian received the name Augustus, effectively becoming the first emperor of Rome. Augustus ordered the gates of Janus to be closed, marking an end to the period o ...

Known as the Eternal City, ancient Rome was one of the greatest civilisations in human history, but how did it come about?

With a turbulent history of Kings, civil wars and imperial desires - Rome has an incredible history. But who founded it? Were Romulus and Remus ...