The pandemic has made us all rethink how we work. Where once millions of people used to travel into work in tall glass buildings in big cities every day, now our idea of the office has come to include the kitchen table or maybe even a coffee shop. Yet despite the temptation to shift permanently to remote working, many organisations say the events of the past few years have actually underlined the importance of offices as spaces that connect people. So what are offices for? We are delving back...

In the summer of 1946 inflation in Hungary reached 41.9 quadrillion per cent. That’s 41.9 followed by 14 zeros – the highest rate of inflation ever recorded anywhere in the world. It meant prices of everyday goods and services doubled, on average, every 15 hours. As the shattered country struggled to get to its feet after World War Two, weighed down by a Soviet occupation and punishing reparations, its government had little choice but to print more and more money, further fuelling the price...

Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring has probably done more than any other to raise concerns about the damage that uncontrolled use of chemicals can cause to the natural world. Carson imagined a ‘silent spring’ in a world where birds no longer sang, killed off by indiscriminate spraying of pesticides. Her plea for caution when using insecticides led to major changes in government regulation of agrochemicals both in the United States and elsewhere. So who was Rachel Carson? How did this...

Why do we divide our lives into 7-day chunks? Unlike the day, month or year, there’s no natural reason for this cycle, but nevertheless the week is now deeply ingrained in us and has proven very resistant to change. We explore the pagan, religious and early scientific roots of this man-made rhythm, the ideological battles fought over it, and the reason why the number seven came out on top. Our expert guests explain where the names of our days come from, why the weekend was born, and how the...

Forugh Farrokhzad burst into the public consciousness with a series of poems that sent shockwaves through Persian society in the mid-1950s. Her early poetry focused on the female experience and female desire, overturning – in the words of one biographer – 1,000 years of Persian literature. Her critics sought to dismiss her skills as a writer by seeing her poetry purely as a confessional outburst of a divorced woman. That attitude has tended to overshadow her achievements, although her...

Today’s counter-culture and alternative movements question mainstream norms, such as putting too much value on material possessions. The Cynics, practical philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, also rejected conventional desires to seek wealth, power and fame. They were not your usual kind of philosophers: rather than lecturing or writing about their ideas, they acted out their beliefs by denying themselves worldly possessions and tried to live as simply as possible. Their leader, Diogenes...

Calories are fundamental to the way many of us view food and our own bodies - you’ll find them on supermarket shelves, restaurant menus, and in cookbooks. But they didn’t start out that way. Originally coined during the study of steam engines and industrial energy, the term ‘calorie’ was transformed into a measurement of food as ‘fuel’ for humans, influencing industrial, public health and even foreign policies for more than 100 years. It’s also spawned a multi-billion dollar diet...

Belarusian lands have seen dramatic upheavals throughout the twentieth century and today, like its neighbour Ukraine to the south, Belarus finds itself on the cusp, in between the countries of the European Union on one side and Putin’s Russia on the other. While Belarus often features in the news, its history is less well known. So how far back does the story of Belarus go? How was its sense of national identity forged? And how did it survive the traumas and repressions that it has been...

Activist Margaret Sanger is responsible for one of the most significant medical and social changes of the 20th Century – giving women the means to control the size of their families. The former nurse, who’d witnessed the aftermath of backstreet abortions and her own mother’s premature death after 18 pregnancies, founded the birth control movement in the United States and helped to spread it internationally. She was also instrumental in developing the pill, now one of the world’s most...

In the late 19th Century, when the motion picture camera was invented and cinema was born, a young French woman called Alice Guy ended up becoming the first ever woman film-maker; rising from being a lowly young secretary to a prolific and pioneering director, producer and entrepreneur. Yet at her death in 1968, she was barely known, most of her thousand or so films had been lost and her crucial role in the history of the film industry was forgotten. In the past few decades, Alice Guy’s...

Unearthed from the ruins of ancient cities in modern-day Iraq, the reconstruction of the epic from fragments of clay tablets has been a labour of love for scholars of ancient Mesopotamia. This painstaking work has brought to life a sophisticated story of adventure, heroism and friendship, as well as a reflection on the human condition. Today, experts are uncovering additional fragments of cuneiform script and using artificial intelligence to decipher the text and fill in the gaps of this and...

As the spotlight falls on Qatar for the 2022 Fifa World Cup, we tell the story of how the world's biggest sporting spectacle began, in Uruguay in 1930. How did a small South American nation of just two million people, thousands of miles from football's centre of power in Europe, come to launch this major global competition? We discuss the fractious international relations, the political cunning, and the sporting excellence behind the successful bid. We learn how football helped shape a...

The moth is an insect that’s almost 200 million years old. Throughout human history, its attraction to light, its amazing ability to camouflage, and its nocturnal activity have given rise to myths, spiritual beliefs and been the inspiration for art and literature – especially the genres of horror and the supernatural. In the natural world, moths also play a hugely important role in promoting global diversity as prolific pollinators. Yet, this ancient insect is often regarded as little more...

More than 3,000 years ago a group of powerful and intricately connected Mediterranean kingdoms collapsed over the course of just a few decades. The palaces of Mycenaean Greece were destroyed, entire cities in Hittite Turkey were abandoned, and whole empires disintegrated. Some civilisations disappeared completely. But what caused the so-called Bronze Age collapse - climate change, trade breakdown, internal rebellion, or a mysterious group of invaders known as the ‘Sea Peoples'? Some...

Today, we can’t imagine an election without an opinion poll gauging public opinion on who’s leading, who’s won a debate or who’s more popular with a specific group of voters. Even our favourite chocolate bars and footballers are subject to a poll. But how did straw polls evolve into the scientific number crunching we know now? What is their purpose and impact? How differently are they used around the world? And just how reliable are they? Bridget Kendall is joined by economist and chairman...

The 46-year reign of Süleyman the Magnificent across central Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East was defined by territorial expansion and economic growth, as well as a flowering of art, architecture and culture. The epithet ‘magnificent’ invites us to believe the Ottoman sultan could do no wrong. But he broke with precedent on several occasions and his private life came in for criticism. So how much does he owe his reputation to his advisers? Bridget Kendall is joined by Gábor...

William Cobbett was a 19th century English writer, politician and campaigner, at a time when England was on the verge of riots and revolution, and many lived in extreme poverty. Born in 1763, Cobbett started off as a ploughboy, educated himself to run a best-selling newspaper, wrote beautifully accurate descriptions of the countryside which were to form his classic book Rural Rides, and later in life, even became a member of parliament. But it was for his sharp-tongued criticism of the...

They are the bane of every celebrity’s life: that pack of press photographers who stake out the homes, hotels and other haunts of the rich and famous in the hope of bagging a revealing and lucrative image to sell to newspapers and magazines around the world. Known as paparazzi, these photo journalists stop at nothing to catch their prey – climbing trees, hiding in cars and chasing after their quarry on motor scooters at high speed. But where does the term ‘paparazzi’ come from? When did...

The sun might not shape the pattern of our daily lives to the extent it did in the past. But understanding its behaviour is a focus of scientific research to grasp how activity on the surface of the sun - such as geomagnetic storms - can affect life on earth. "Space weather" can take out whole power networks, damage satellites and disrupt communication lines – the technology on which so many people rely. Bridget Kendall and guests examine the sun's impact throughout history, and discuss...

Eunice Newton Foote was the first person to suggest that an atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide would lead to a warmer planet, but her discovery was largely ignored and her name disappeared for more than 150 years. She fell into such obscurity that there’s no known picture of her. Bridget Kendall explores the life of this American scientist and inventor and asks why her ground-breaking research, carried out in the 1850s, was overlooked for so long. Discrimination against women, especially in...

The images, sensations and emotions we experience during sleep were once seen as the gateway to the gods and had the power to alter lives and even whole societies. Rajan Datar explores the way dreams, and their interpretation, have shaped beliefs and actions for thousands of years – from their role as a connection to the dead and the spirit world, to their ability to predict the future. We hear how these seemingly involuntary visions inspired key historical figures, changed the course...

Since his death in 2008, the impact of designer Yves Saint Laurent on women’s fashion remains undimmed. The pea coat, the trench, the trouser suit – many of his designs are now staples of the modern Western woman’s wardrobe. So how did this famously shy and retiring man achieve global success? And did his fashion innovations for women shape social change in the 1960s, or were they a response to his times? Bridget Kendall looks back at Saint Laurent’s life and legacy with former director of...

As Brazil celebrates 200 years of independence from Portugal, we look at the 17th-century community of people seeking freedom from slavery in the north-east of the country known as Palmares. It lasted longer and was larger than other settlements of this type and it withstood repeated attempts by European colonialists to destroy it. So how did Palmares keep going for over a century when so many other communities like it in Latin America vanished after a few years? Who were the inhabitants?...

It is rare in music history that scholars can point to the beginning of a particular style, but bluegrass would appear to be the exception to the rule. Mandolin player Bill Monroe from rural Kentucky had so much clout in the music business that some scholars have suggested that it was he who defined the sound which came to be known as bluegrass. He was certainly protective; Monroe is quoted as saying “the biggest job of bluegrass is to keep out what don’t belong in it.” Played initially in...

The Art of War is one of the most important military strategy texts ever written, and it has become just as influential, perhaps even more so, in the worlds of business, sport, and politics. Bridget Kendall learns what the 2,000-year-old treatise has to say about deception, spying, and ruthlessness, and asks why it has come to be viewed as a guide to success in life in general. But has it been misunderstood? We discuss whether it’s better viewed as a guide to avoiding war and conflict,...