Syriac-The Best Language for Conquering ...

When medieval historian Peter Jones found himself spiraling into depression while teaching at a frigid Siberian university with icicles sprouting from his eyelashes, he asked himself what a medieval sufferer would do—and discovered something shocking: the Middle Ages, for all its ... Show More

In August 1863, as Lee's army retreated from Gettysburg and Vicksburg fell to Grant, the Union's Anaconda Plan deployed hundreds of ships to strangle 3,500 miles of Confederate coastline, triggering hyperinflation and economic collapse as the South lost its ability to export King ... Show More

Pompeii's story is usually told through the lens of catastrophe—perfectly preserved bodies frozen in ash, a civilization erased in hours, sort of like a Roman version of the Chicxulub impactor that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago —but the real tragedy isn't just that Mo ... Show More

<p>Language is fundamental to how people experience the world, but how can we know what languages people spoke in the distant past? By 1200 BC, the linguistic outlines of the world were becoming a bit clearer, thanks to an explosion in written texts. Follow along as we go on a hi ... Show More

<p>Language is one of the foundational pieces of being human, but in the absence of writing, what can we know about it in the deep past? Historical linguistics and the comparative method shed valuable light on these long-lost languages, and uncover the roots of some of today's mo ... Show More

<p>Where do you begin to understand the origins of Chinese civilization? Located near the Yangtze River, the treasures of the Liangzhu culture can be found, a civilisation that dates back to the Neolithic. Today, Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr. Yijie Zhuang from University Colleg ... Show More

In the latest in our series tackling the big questions on major historical topics, Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, an expert in ancient history, responds to listener questions and popular internet search queries on the Persian empire. Once the largest empire the world had ever s ... Show More

One of the most widely spoken languages in the world is Chinese.  In addition to being one of the most popular languages in the world, it also has some of the oldest roots and, in many respects, is completely different from every other language spoken today.  But when we refer to ... Show More

<p>About one in every five people alive on the planet today speaks a language belonging to the Bantu family, and Bantu-speaking peoples have shaped the history of Africa in profound ways. But how did they expand from their original homeland, and how can we tell? Professor Kathryn ... Show More

In 1799, French soldiers in Egypt unearthed what would become one of the world’s most famous artefacts. After a desperate race to decipher its symbols, the Rosetta Stone provided the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs, casting new light on the culture and history of this l ... Show More