Making History

Helen Castor is joined by Professor Mark Bailey from the University of East Anglia and Dr Eloise Moss from the University of Manchester to discuss the Black Death and Victorian tabloids.Tom Holland is in Lincolnshire where Professor Carenza Lewis explains why pottery is telling us so much more about the Black Death. Her new research, working with volunteers across East Anglia, shows the pan-European epidemic of the mid-fourteenth century had an 'eye-watering impact' with communities losing up to 70% of their population.Dr Bob Nicholson and former newspaper editor Roy Greenslade leaf through the pages of one of the most scurrilous tabloid publications ever, the tamely titled Illustrated Police News.And we invite listeners to suggest characters from the past for the Making History plinth.Producer: Nick Patrick A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

Tom Holland is joined by Rebecca Rideal and Dr Tom Lorman to discuss armed revolt, fire and a secret war.Helen Castor meets up with a witness to the Hungarian Revolution of sixty-years ago and we discuss the changing attitudes to refugees.In London, Dr Tom Charlton is joined by Professor Vanessa Harding and Professor Justin Champion in what became the 17th century equivalent of the Calais 'jungle' - a refugee camp created by the Great Fire of 1666 which was occupied for years.And Lord Paddy Ashdown makes the case for a forgotten hero to be remembered on the Making History plinth - the wartime SOE's Roger Landes.Producer: Nick Patrick A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

Tom Holland and guests discuss the stories that are Making History.Helen Castor is joined by Stephen Chalke and former Sussex cricket captain John Barclay to discuss the origins and rather odd structure of English (and Welsh) county cricket.Iszi Lawrence heads to North Yorkshire to hear a story of divorce and betrayal from the 1st century and the forgotten queen who was central to both.And the former head of Friends of the Earth, Tony Juniper, takes us to South America to remind us of the achievements of the nineteenth century scientist and explorer Johann Baptist von Spix.Producer: Nick Patrick A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

Helen Castor is joined by Professor Ted Vallance from the University of Roehampton and Dr Alex Woolf from the University of St Andrews.On the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London, Dr Tom Charlton heads to St Paul's to learn how preparatory work by Sir Christopher Wren and the storage of printers manuscripts fuelled the inferno. Afterwards, the building lay in ruins and accusations flew freely - many suspecting the destruction of the historic church was the work of Catholics. After an outbreak of the plague and war with the Dutch, these were difficult times for Charles II and the restored monarchy. Tom Holland visits Glasgow where archaeologists are working on the newly discovered ruins of what they believe to be a twelfth century bishop's palace. The find is shedding more light on the history of the kingdom of Strathclyde, which stretched from the Clyde into modern Cumbria and played a part in fighting Athelstan's attempts to bring all of Britain under his rule in the tenth century. The English king

Tom Holland is joined by Dr Lucy Robinson from the University of Sussex to consider jazz in the trenches, woad and the women behind the Notting Hill Carnival.Helen Castor meets Dr Michael Hammond, Associate Professor at the University of Southampton, to hear about Blues in the Trenches. Dr Hammond argues that 'the blues' as a musical tradition was brought to the trenches of the Great War by African-American soldiers from all parts of the US and they shared different performance styles and traditions - creating cross-pollinations that foreshadow the country blues recordings of the 1920s and 30s by Charley Patton, Furry Lewis, Bukka White, Geechie Wiley, Ma Rainey, Elvey Thomas, Blind Willie Johnson and notable others. Closer to home, on the banks of the River Thames, Iszi Lawrence traces the origins of today's craze for tattoos and body art back to the Celts, when she learns to make woad.On the eve of the Notting Hill Carnival, comic Ava Vidal nominates the activist, feminist, socialist and founder of the Carn

Helen Castor is joined by the architectural writer and cultural commentator Travis Elborough and garden historian Deborah Trentham.Tom Holland takes a ride on Brighton's new attraction, the British Airways i360, and is joined at 450 feet by Professor Fred Gray to gain new insight into the history of seaside attractions. Surprisingly, the new doughnut on a stick (as locals are describing it), offers similar experiences and challenges to those of the West Pier which opened 150 years ago.In Norfolk, Radio 4's organic gardening legend Bob Flowerdew gets to grips with a character who, on the face of it, is his horticultural opposite. Lancelot 'Capability' Brown was born 300 years ago and Bob visits one of his masterpieces - Kimberley Hall - to ask landscape historian Professor Tom Williamson where the neatness and order of the English country house came from and what it was supposed to do for those who lived with it.We continue our series of forgotten history heroes as food writer William Sitwell nominates the man

Tom Holland considers historical revelations with a resonance today. He's joined by two archaeologists - Professor Carenza Lewis from the University of Lincoln and David Miles, the former Director of Archaeology and Chief Archaeologist at English Heritage.As combine harvesters tear into Britain's corn crops, David Miles takes us back to the birth of farming and the transformational period that was the Neolithic.Iszi Lawrence changes into her running gear to recreate the Battle of Marathon - in Salford. Can historians and sports' scientists work together to solve a mystery surrounding this famous victory of the Greeks over the Persians which continues to puzzle historians?Think British steel and its places such as Middlesborough, Sheffield and Port Talbot that come to mind. So why is Helen Castor in Clerkenwell? Professors Chris Evans and David Green give her a guided tour of one of Britain's earliest and most important centres of steel production.And Professor Simon Schaffer at the University of Cambridge tel

In the first in a new series of the topical history programme Helen Castor is joined by the historian of women in medieval Ireland, Dr Gillian Kenny and Dr Jennifer Redmond who lectures in Twentieth Century Irish History and is President of the Women's History Association of Ireland.Tom Holland is in Northern Ireland, close to to the border with the Republic near Enniskillen. There are no customs officials or soldiers these days but will Brexit change that? Tom meets the historian Seamas McCannay and geographer Bryonie Reid to ask whether the 95 year-old history of a border between North and South can help us understand what the future for Britain's only physical connection with Europe might be.Dr Bob Nicholson of Edge Hill University heads to Liverpool on the lookout for Bosom Caressers, Corpse Revivers and a real Eye Opener. These are all cocktails, described in a Victorian song which Bob has discovered in his research and which has led him to question our perception of the Victorian middle class as abstemi

Helen is joined in the studio by BBC New Generation Thinker Danielle Thom from the V&A in London and Dr Gillian Kenny from Trinity College in Dublin.Dr Tom Charlton uncovers some surprising evidence that the original Darby and Joan were 17th Century radical pamphleteers. He heads to the first Darby and Joan club, which was opened in 1942 in Streatham, South London, and talks to Professor Ted Vallance at the University of Roehampton.Maurice Casey joins us from Cambridge to discuss new evidence that Bolsheviks visited the scene of the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 to find out more about the Republicans' tactics.Tom Holland is in Oxford to ask why there are memorials to Nazis in some of the colleges.And Dominic Sandbrook takes us back to the oil crisis of 1973, which he feels is a pivotal year in history.Producer: Nick Patrick A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

Tom Holland is joined by Dr Nick Beech from Queen Mary University of London and Professor Emma Griffin from the University of East Anglia.We're in Toxteth, Liverpool, to find out more about the history of the terraced house. Christian Wolmar joins us from King's Cross railway station where he asks whether the Flying Scotsman deserves to be so famous. And we explore the history of Easter with the Bishop of Norwich who explains why it moves around the calendar. Helen Castor catches up with Dr Oleg Benesch at the University of York who argues that the Samurai of the nineteenth century borrowed heavily from the Victorian notion of chivalry. Finally, the author Jenny Uglow shares with us her favourite year - 1798.Producer Nick Patrick A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

Helen Castor is joined by Dr Jane Hamlett from Royal Holloway University of London and the critic and writer Kate Maltby.Tom Holland travels to Thetford, the ancient capital of East Anglia, to hear evidence that the Iceni were speaking a form of English in the years before the Romans arrived. Dr Daphne Nash Briggs and Dr Sam Newton have examined coins of the period to reveal that the people of Norfolk had as strong a relationship with the Continent as they did with the rest of Britain - and, as well as speaking the Celtic Brittonic language, would also have conversed with their trading partners in the Germanic languages that would eventually become English. If true, this thesis completely changes our ideas that our language came with the Anglo-Saxons after the Romans left these shores.We travel to Liverpool to try out some Victorian jokes. Its all part of research being carried out by Dr Bob Nicholson at Edge Hill University. Stand-up comic Iszi Lawrence finds out more.This week's favourite year is 1453, put

Tom Holland is joined by Professor Louise Jackson from the University of Edinburgh and journalist Sarah Ditum.Dr Naomi Paxton explores how sex trafficking and moral panic thed to the birth of the Women's Police Service in 1914.Dr Fiona Watson explains why 1302 is her favourite year in history - and, in particular, one day when, at a battle on the Continent, the mounted knight was rumbled.Helen Castor explores the origins of Marriage Banns and Dr John Gallagher argues that historians should be concerned about style as well as substance.Producer Nick Patrick A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

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