During the Second World War, six talented mathematicians were brought together to make history. These women had one mission: to program the world’s first and only supercomputer. Speaking with Rachel Dinning, Kathy Kleiman explores the vital but overlooked role the “Eniac 6” played in the history of computing during and after the Second World War.
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Today
Magna Carta: king v barons
In the early 13th century, England was a kingdom under pressure, as the challenges posed by King John’s reign had left the realm restless. By 1215, tensions had reached boiling point. What began as isolated grumblings among nobles soon evolved into an organised challenge to royal ... Show More
44m 29s
Feb 6
Untold LGBTQ stories of the National Trust
In 1895, when the National Trust was founded, homosexual acts of ‘gross indecency’ were still illegal in Britain. And yet, as Michael Hall reveals in his new book, A Queer Inheritance: Alternative Histories in the National Trust, the organisation had queer connections from its ve ... Show More
33m 30s
Feb 4
Why Greenwich is the home of time
Why is a small observatory in south east London so important to the story of how we tell the time? Speaking to Elinor Evans, Emily Akkermans, Curator of Time at the Royal Museums Greenwich, shares the history behind Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). From 17th-century efforts to solve th ... Show More
35m 42s
Jun 2018
SYMHC Classics: Alan Turing, Codebreaker
<p>This is a revisit of a Sarah and Deblina episode on Alan Turing, who conceived of computers decades before anyone was building one. He also acted as a top-secret code breaker during World War II. Despite his accomplishments, he was prosecuted as a homosexual by the British gov ... Show More
20m 33s
Jun 2023
Female Spies of World War Two
During World War Two, dozens of British-trained women were deployed as spies and saboteurs, to infiltrate behind enemy lines in Nazi-controlled France. Ranging from housewives to countesses, they were trained as secret agents, and played critical roles to aid the war effort. But ... Show More
52m 53s
Jul 2017
Introducing Tides of History
<p>History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme, said Mark Twain. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the rise of the modern world: history ebbs and flows over the centuries, driven by great tides of economic, social, political, religious, and cultural change that shap ... Show More
1m 49s