Over the past few years, much has been written and created around Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project, but little attention is paid to those whose lives were ended or forever changed when the bombs dropped in Japan.
In this episode, we delve into...
Sep 29
Romans Quarried Marble, Cathars Hid in Caves, and Nazis Built Tank Turrets in These Same Mountains
The Pyrenees stretch 270 miles from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, separating France from Spain, and most people think of them as a natural barrier: remote, barren, and largely untouched. They would be wrong. These mountains sit at the edge of where early humans were supposed ... Show More
45m 38s
Sep 24
The Roman Emperor Who Spread Christianity Most Was Arguably Augustus (Even Though He Died in 14 AD)
Rome seemed fundamentally opposed to Christianity in the first century. After all, the empire fed Christians to lions, taxed their communities, and crucified their followers, making Rome look like the natural enemy of everything the new faith stood for. Christians returned the ho ... Show More
52m 8s
Sep 22
5,000 Years of Punctuation: Why It Terrified Roman Scholars and Started a Russian Revolution
The first punctuation mark was a triangular symbol pressed into clay somewhere in Mesopotamia. Spaces between words were unknown for millennia, until a group of Irish monks pioneered them in the eighth century. Flash forward 1200 years, and in 1905, Moscow's typesetters went on s ... Show More
51m 9s
Aug 2025
Hiroshima: in the shadow of the bomb
At 8.15am on 6 August 1945, an atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima. It was an event that changed the course of history, but it was also one driven by individuals. Here, in conversation with Spencer Mizen, Iain MacGregor tells this story through the eyes of people whose lives were ... Show More
43m 36s
Oct 2025
Hiroshima's atomic plague
In the wake of the nuclear attacks on Japan, the official Allied line was that radiation sickness was not a danger. Yet, as this Long Read written by Steve O'Hagan reveals, the first Western journalist to witness the effects on the people of Hiroshima told a very different story. ... Show More
16m 31s
Aug 2020
75 Years On: Remembering Hiroshima
75 years ago this week, a devastating atomic bomb changed world history. What can we learn from these events? Guest:Koko Kondo, Hiroshima bomb survivor and peace campaigner.Host: Manveen Rana. Clips used: NBC, Imperial War Museum, US Army.You can hear more first-hand memories of ... Show More
27m 58s
Aug 2024
Atomic Bomb Literature—Kyoko Hayashi and "Masks of Whatchamacallit"
This episode is marked mature.In this episode, we take a look at Japanese writing about the American bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that killed as many as 215,000 people in August 1945. We’ll start with the history of the atomic bomb, its use, and its effects on the hibakusha ... Show More
59m 28s