In 1649 Britain was engulfed by revolution. Charles I was executed for treason and within weeks the English monarchy had been abolished and the House of Lords discarded. The people, it was announced, were now the sovereign force in the land. What did this mean for the decade that would follow?

A...

According to Greek myth, Pandora was the first human woman - moulded from the earth by Hephaestus on the instruction of Zeus himself.

We've all heard of Pandora's box, but in actual fact it was no such thing. Instead it was a jar containing all the evils of humanity, but even these contents of t...

From the 16th to the 19th centuries, European slave traders forcibly uprooted millions of African people and shipped them across the Atlantic in conditions of great cruelty. Today, on the bottom of the world’s oceans lies the lost wrecks of ships that carried enslaved people from Africa to the Am...

Described as the "most important piece of prehistoric art to be found in Britain in the last 100 years", an elaborately decorated 5000 year-old chalk cylinder, discovered buried with 3 child skeletons in Yorkshire and as old as the first phase of Stonehenge, is going on display at the British Mus...

Agincourt is a name which conjures an image of plucky English archers taking on and defeating the arrogant and aristocratic knights of the French court. But was it really the David and Goliath struggle often depicted on stage and screen?

In this episode of the podcast, Dan is joined by Mike Loa...

It’s Mental Health Awareness Week this month, and Jimmy will be joined by a selection of guests who will tell us how nature can have an impact our bodies and our minds.

First up, it’s gardener and psychiatrist Sue Stuart-Smith, author of the bestselling book, The Well Gardened Mind.

Gardening h...

The rise of Christianity in the first few centuries AD is one of the most significant stories in world history. But it’s also an incredibly turbulent one. It’s a story filled with (in)famous episodes of conflict with the Roman state. It’s a story of co-existence, but also one of intolerance and o...

John Donne (1572-1631) lived myriad lives. Sometime religious outsider and social disaster, sometime celebrity preacher and establishment darling, John Donne was incapable of being just one thing. He was a scholar of law, a sea adventurer, an MP, a priest, the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral – and pe...

The Falkland Islands lie 8000 miles from Britain making the Falklands War a particularly tricky one to fight; it required some seriously innovative thinking. No story from the Falklands better tells the story of that innovation than Operation Blackbuck which ran from the 30th of April 1982 to the...

In Norse mythology, the Valkyries determine who lived and who died on the battlefield. Translated as “Chooser of the Fallen” in Old Norse, they’re often depicted as supernatural women who guide the souls of deceased soldiers worthy enough of a place in Valhalla, to feast with the god Odin.

Today...

On this day 40 years ago the HMS Conqueror, a British nuclear submarine, propelled silently through the South Atlantic stalking the Argentinian light cruiser the ARA General Belgrano

in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands. At 2.57 pm Conqueror was given the order to torpedo the enemy warship. W...

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 - January 6, 1919), was an American politician, conservationist and writer. After the assassination of William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt unexpectedly became the 26th president of the United States in September 1901 - he won a second term in 1904 and ser...

Kale, Cod-liver oil, Goji-berries, Chia seeds...the list of so-called superfoods continues to grow. But how healthy are these wonder ingredients, and could they just be super-hyped?

Jimmy is joined by his Food Unwrapped co-host, Kate Quilton, on his farm today to talk about 'healthy' food and di...

Poetry, parables, and produce - how did someone live a healthy life in the ancient Greco-Roman world? Tristan is joined by author Mark Usher to talk about what we can learn from our ancient ancestors. Discussing the impact farming has on both physical and mental well-being, the role it played in ...

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, Henry ‘Chips’ Channon documented British High Society in eye-watering detail. His diaries are gossipy, sometimes vile, rude but always honest. Even after his death, his diaries struck fear into the British upper classes and it is only recently t...

We are told that modern science was invented in Europe, the product of great minds like Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein. But science has never been a uniquely European endeavour. Copernicus relied on mathematical techniques borrowed from Arabic and Persian te...

The 23rd of April marks St Georges day - but who are we actually celebrating? Is there any truth behind the myth of the man who slain the dragon and rescued the princess - and where does the Patron Saint of England actually come from? Spoiler alert - it's not where you think. In this episode Tris...

Histories of India usually concern themselves with events and invasions in the subcontinent’s North, while the rest of India’s rich story is often reduced down to little more than dry footnotes.

Now historian and Indian history podcast presenter Anirudh Kanisetti has brought to light the early ...

Just before midnight on January 20, 1936, King George V died at Sandringham, in Norfolk, England. The scandal of King George V’s reign would not be revealed publicly until 1986, in the diary of his physician, Lord Bertrand Dawson. Dawson had written about the night of January 20, detailing that h...

The term “Middle Ages” is commonly used but really only applies to a Western European view of history. It was created at the beginning of the Early Modern period in England to categorise what had gone before.

The acclaimed historian Peter Frankopan is widening the geographic focus to understan...

Award-winning writer Cal Flyn is On Jimmy’s Farm this week to chat about her journey around the world’s abandoned places, areas where nature has been allowed to take over again.

Hear about the surprising ecological discoveries in different places such as Chernobyl, a ghost town in Detroit, and a...

Since its foundation in 1824, the volunteers of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution have been braving the most savage of elements at sea to rescue sailors in distress. Their work has saved the lives of an estimated 143,000 people and helped many, many thousands more. Funded entirely by charit...

It’s 1943. The Allies are determined to break Hitler’s grip on occupied Europe and plan an all-out assault on Sicily, but they face an impossible challenge - how to protect a massive invasion force from a potential massacre. It falls to two remarkable intelligence officers, Ewen Montagu and Charl...

On November 30th, 2021, Josephine Baker, the French-American performer, second world war resistance hero, and activist became the first Black woman to enter France’s Panthéon mausoleum of revered historical figures. As one of the most remarkable figures of the 20th century, Baker risked her life ...