Truly a modern wonder of the world, the Hoover Dam is one of the great feats of human ingenuity. Its creation was a saga of large-scale ambition and engineering genius executed by a labour force of thousands working in gruelling conditions. The project involved the rerouting of a ...Show more
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley is best known today as the author of Frankenstein, a Gothic novel widely considered the first work of science fiction. As demonstrated by her Swiss sojourn with the married Percy Shelley and the scandalous Lord Byron, Mary's own life was as sensational and tragic as ...Show more
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the race to build an atom bomb in the USA during World War Two. Before the war, scientists in Germany had discovered the potential of nuclear fission and scientists in Britain soon argued that this could be used to make an atom bomb, against which ...Show more
Often referred to as the father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer's work in the field of theoretical physics changed the world as we knew it. Working in Los Alamos, New Mexico during the Second World War, the Manhattan Project and the scientific advancements achieved ther ...Show more
In Spring of 1943, hundreds of scientists and technicians moved to a remote location in the mountains of New Mexico to work at a secret laboratory. Under the guidance of their leader, J. Robert Oppenheimer, they rushed to figure out how to channel the power of an atomic chain rea ...Show more
A top-secret military program changed the world in August 1945. Today we’re examining the Manhattan Project’s official story: its key figures, its developments, its spies… And breaking open the conspiracy theories it inspired around extraterrestrials, a fluoride cover-up, and a p ...Show more