The Printing Press

Charlemagne remains one of the towering figures of European history. He created for himself a vast territory that covered most of modern-day France and Germany, encompassing the Low Countries, areas in northern Spain, and parts of Italy. His imperial coronation on Christmas Day 8 ...  Show more

In the early nineteenth century, engineers discovered that steam power and iron rails could be combined to move people and goods faster than any horse or ox could. Within a few decades, railways had spread across every continent. Cities were reorganised around stations, clocks we ...  Show more

A long time ago, people had to copy books by hand, which took a very long time. Then, Johannes Gutenberg invented a special machine called the printing press. It helped make books much faster and cheaper, so more people could read and learn new things. His invention changed the w ...  Show more

How did the Bible transform from a guarded manuscript read in secret to a book accessible to millions?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Professor Bruce Gordon to uncover the revolutionary impact of Gutenberg's printing press and Erasmus's bold Greek New Testa ...

In 1984, Ethiopia suffered one of its worst ever famines. A BBC news report from the area shocked the world - and led to a huge global fundraising campaign.In 2014, Lucy Burns spoke to Dawit Giorgis, who was in charge of Ethiopia's internal relief effort during the crisis.Eye-wit ...  Show more

When King Alfonso VI of León took Toledo from the Arabs in 1085, the history of western christendom changed forever. Within the city existed a number of texts full of the ideas that we would call Arabic numerals, but that originated in India. From the libraries of Toledo these we ...  Show more