037- Go East Young Man

In 63 BC an embittered two-time consular candidate named Catiline conspired to overthrow the Roman government. He was stopped by Rome's greatest politician and orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero. 

Julius Caesar had an eventful career on his way up the Cursus Honorum. He won the Civic Crown in Asia, was captured by pirates on his way to Rhodes, and served as Governor of Hispania Ulterior. 

In 59 BC Julius Caesar served a controversial year in the consulship. He pressed for land and administrative reforms the conservative Senate opposed. 

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the event of which Voltaire, two hundred years later, said 'nothing was more well known'. In 1565, Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman leader, sent a great fleet west to lay siege to Malta and capture it for his empire. Victory would mean control ... Show More

701 BCE - Assyria under the rule of Sennacherib needed to subjugate the Kingdom of Judah under the rule of Hezekiah.  Sennacherib wanted the Judean capital city of Jerusalem, but first he would need to take the city of Lachish. 

Soldiers from both sides on the battle for Jerusalem; plus Robert Kennedy's assassination, the child who fought slavery in Pakistan, and the cousin of Anne Frank Photo:Israeli forces advancing in the Sinai desert during the Six-Day War, June 1967. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton A ... Show More

<p>1037 – 1194 - From humble beginnings in the lands of the Oghuz Turks, Seljuk traveled east to become Islamised and start a movement which would conquer the lands of the Middle East and directly permanently influence the politics of Eurasia and religion.</p> 

THE STORY:  (43 minutes)   Operation Trojan Storm needs the craft and cunning of Odysseus, Greece’s most clever man.  But Odysseus has mysteriously vanished.  Agamemnon puts his best man, Palamedes, on the case.  “Find Odysseus; bring him to me, one way or another”, Agamemnon com ... Show More

<p>5330000 BCE - today - We condense the history of the Mediterranean island of Crete into one episode, plotting the ages of the Minoans, Mycenaeans, Etocretans, Romans, Aghlabids, Venetians, Ottomans and Nazi Germans, as well as the ultimate mother culture of Greece itself.</p> 

<p>This week&#39;s journey back in time will take us to the iconic Crusader Battle of Arsuf, the apogees of the Umayyad Caliphate and the Roman Empire and to the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge.</p> 

Back in Baghdad, al Ma’mun finally began to play an active role in running the Abbasid state. The five years he spent in Khurasan were rough on the rest of the caliphate, but especially disastrous for Iraq. The caliph now had to restore peace and central control to practically ev ... Show More

<p>1242 - Paganism remained dominant in the north-east corner of Europe, but the race to convert the natives brought the Western Catholic Crusaders into conflict with the Eastern Orthodox Russians. The resulting conflict took place on the surface of a frozen lake.</p> 

In this episode, we discuss Spartan imperial policy at home and abroad in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War at Sparta from 404-396 BC, including their war with Elis, the imperial ambitions of Lysander and the ascension of Agesilaos, Kinadon's foiled socio-political revolutio ... Show More