In June 1940 Nazi Germany overran France and forced the British army to evacuate at Dunkirk. Severely lacking in military equipment, Britain and its Empire now stood alone against Adolf Hitler's forces. But new Prime Minister Winston Churchill refused to agree to peace terms, forcing Hitler to plan an invasion - codenamed Operation Sea Lion. To stand any chance of crossing the English Channel, Germany would have to crush the Royal Air Force and gain control of the skies during that summer. The Battle of Britain, the first major battle to be decided entirely by air power, had begun.
The last great battle of the Second World War was fought on the island of Okinawa. After 83 blood-soaked days, almost a quarter of a million people lost their lives. The death toll included thousands of civilians lost to mass suicide - convinced to do so by Japanese propaganda. I invited Saul Dav...
Dan chats to Volker Wiedermann, a German writer and literary critic, about the Bavarian Soviet Republic. The Republic, established in the aftermath of the First World War, was an unlikely formation and was quickly attacked from all sides, especially as it tried to propagate radical ideas about go...
Dr Helen Farr is leading a team looking at prehistoric wrecks in the Black Sea. Dan chats to her about how the Black Sea's anaerobic waters have preserved ancient ships for many centuries, including a Greek ship very similar to one on an urn in the British Library.
