Episode 15: Etruscans, Romans and a Modi...

In the second part of our look at the sound of English in the early 1600s, we continue to explore the letters of the alphabet and the sounds that each letter represents. We explore the letters K through Z and examine how the sounds represented by those letters have evolved over t ... Show More

Over the course of the 1500s, English spelling started to become standardized, but the pronunciation of the language continued to change. By the early 1600s, English scholars noticed that spellings no longer reflected the way words were pronounced, and they recommended phonetic r ... Show More

In the early 1600s, cotton fabrics made in India were in high demand throughout Asia and Africa. When the English and Dutch arrived in India and Japan, they realized how popular the fabric was, and they soon began to ship it back to northern Europe. In this episode, we explore ho ... Show More

146 BCE - 1204 CE - This is the story of the Balkan Peninsula from its post Classical Greek and Hellenistic period when it was conquered by the Roman Republic, through to the defeat of the Byzantine Empire by the Latins of the Fourth Crusade. 

Before Rome came the Etruscans - they were the dominant culture in ancient Italy in the centuries before Rome's imperial expansion. But how did they fall? In this episode of the Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by archeologist Lucy Shipley to chronicle the decline of this once ... Show More

In 9CE three Roman legions were walking through Germany when they were ambushed in what would become one of the most notorious defeats throughout Rome’s history. The loss of the legions were a crippling blow to Rome’s plans of expansion, and redrew the borders in the province. Gu ... Show More

It’s 146 BC. Fire rises high over the North African coast. The once-thriving port city of Carthage is burning. Thousands of Roman soldiers have breached the defences and swarmed into the city, intent on wiping this city from the face of the earth. This is the fall of Carthage. Tr ... Show More

Lasting from the ninth century BC right up until Roman conquest in the first century BC, the Etruscans were a powerful ancient civilisation who inhabited Etruria in ancient Italy, and rubbed shoulders with the other iconic ancient cultures of their day. Often painted as a mysteri ... Show More

March 15th, 44BC. Despite ill omens, Julius Caesar approaches the Theatre of Pompey. But the men inside have sworn an oath. To save the Republic from the hands of this self-styled ‘perpetual dictator', Caesar must die. But where did the Republic start? How did it transform Rome f ... Show More

HISTORY A TO Z (6) - Concluding our two parter on subjects beginning with the letter D, we discuss the Roman Emperor Diocletian, the Domesday Book, Sir Francis Drake and D-Day. 

While the Roman Republic was still in its infancy, the Greek city-state of Athens rose from the ruins of war with the Persians to become the most beautiful and powerful in the region. During this Golden Age, many Athenian citizens enjoyed unprecedented freedoms in the world’s fir ... Show More

43 AD. A large Roman armada sails across the perilous English Channel intent on conquest. It is the dawn of one of the most seminal moments in Britain’s ancient history. In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by archeologist Duncan Mackay to follow in the foots ... Show More