How nuclear testing changed politics in Frenc...

During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese VietCong guerrillas built a vast network of tunnels in the south of the country as part of the insurgency against the South Vietnamese government and their American allies. The tunnel network was a key base and shelter for the North Vietna ...  Show more

In May 1986, a new airport opened in Knock in the west of Ireland. It was the dream of an Irish priest, Monsignor James Horan, who raised millions to have it built. The location for the airport seemed impossible – set in the boggy, foggy hills of rural County Mayo. However, Knock ...  Show more

This episode contains strong language

Millions of people have taken to the streets in France to protest a government effort to raise the retirement age to 64, from 62, bringing the country more in line with its European neighbors.

Today, as Parliament holds ...

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war and the social unrest that followed, as the French capital was cut off from the rest of the country and food was scarce. When the French government surrendered Paris to the Prussians, power gravitat ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war and the social unrest that followed, as the French capital was cut off from the rest of the country and food was scarce. When the French government surrendered Paris to the Prussians, power gravitat ...  Show more

Charles de Gaulle was a war hero in the First World War, and, having refused to accept his government’s armistice with Nazi Germany, became the voice of the French Resistance during the Second World War. But how did France’s largest uprising since the Paris Commune come to happen ...  Show more