Travels Through Time

Peter and Artemis in the pub (2019)

It's Christmas and TTT is one year-old! For this episode of Travels Through Time we went to the pub for a pint to celebrate.
One year, twenty six brilliant time travels, the best historians and tens of thousands of downloads from all corners of the world! We thought that all of this was worth celebrating with something a little different to usual. So we decided to toast TTT's first birthday with a drink.
In this episode you'll hear Peter and Artemis chatting about the idea for the format, revealing a little bit more about themselves and picking some favourite moments from the last year. At the very end we have some lines of wintry poetry from Sir Michael Palin.
Thank you to all of our wonderful interviewees over the past year and to History Today for partnering with us. We'll be back with the usual format on Tuesday 7 January, 2020.
Till then, a Merry Christmas to you all from us.
Show notes:
In the pub; Peter Moore and Artemis Irvine
Not speaking but in the pub too: Maria the Producer

Sara Cockerill: Eleanor of Aquitaine (1199)

In this captivating episode of Travels Through Time, we venture back to the year 1199 to see Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the great operators of the High Middle Ages, at the peak of her powers.
Eleanor is a remarkable character. She was queen of France and England and the mother of two English kings. One chronicler, describing her in late life, asserted that she was, “a matchless woman, beautiful yet chaste, powerful and modest, meek yet eloquent … whose power was the admiration of her age.”
But how much of this was reputation and what was the reality?
Our quest to answer this riddle begins in early spring 1199 when Eleanor’s son King Richard I, “the Lionheart”, is struck in the shoulder by a stray shotgun arrow. Richard’s wound swiftly becomes gangrenous. With death imminent, and the fate of his kingdom uncertain, Richard sends for his mother.
Today’s guest Sara Cockerill guides us, in three scenes, through the dramatic and uncertain sequence of events that follows.
Show notes:
Scene one: 6 April 1199, near Limousin, France. Deathbed of Richard the Lionheart
Scene two: 20 July 1199 Tours. Eleanor at the age of 65 performing homage to Philip Augustus.
Scene three: Autumn 1199. Fontevraud, Aquitaine. Eleanor burying her daughter Joanna.
Memento: A gold ring with a sapphire inset, inscribed with the letters R A.
Sara Cockerill’s book, Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen of France, Queen of England, Mother of Empires is available in hardback now.
People / Social
Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: Sara Cockerill
Producer: Maria Nolan
Digital Production: John Hillman
Titles: Jon O.

William Dalrymple: East India Company (1764)

In this episode of Travels Through Time we join one of the world’s leading historians, William Dalrymple, who takes us on a tour of 1764 to try and explain how the East India Company became “An empire within an empire”
The history of the East India Company is astonishing.
Leo Tolstoy once wondered: How could a commercial company from London manage to enslave a nation comprising 200 million people on the other side of the world? 
With the battlefields of the Seven Years War still smouldering across the globe, we journey to the edges of the Moghul Empire along the banks of the Ganges to visit 1764, a year of bloodshed and confusion; a year that would change the history of India forever.
William Dalrymple is a British historian and writer, as well as an award-winning broadcaster and critic. His books have won numerous awards and prizes, including the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize, the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award, the Hemingway, the Kapuściński and Wolfson Prizes.
He has been five times longlisted and once shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. He is also one of the co-founders and co-directors of the annual Jaipur Literature Festival.
His latest work, discussed here, has been described by the Guardian as:
“…not just informative but as colourful as a Maratha army in full battle array, as boisterous as a Calcutta boarding house in 1750, and as entertaining as an evening of poetry and music in a Delhi palace.”
Show notes:
Scenes:
February, 1764, Avadh. After years of being played against each other and picked off by the East India Company, Mir Qasim, Shah Alam and Shuja ud-Daula meet in Avadh to unite forces against the Company.
3 May, 1764. The combined forces of the army reach the fortified walls of Patna, an ancient city on the banks of the Ganges. The army of 150,000 warriors comes face to face with 19,000 East India Sepoys.
22 October 1764: The Battle of Buxar, a pivotal moment in history, between the forces under the command of the British East India Company, led by Hector Munro, and the combined armies.
Memento: One of Mir Qasim’s treasure chests, abandoned on the fields of Buxar.
People / Social
Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: William Dalrymple
Producer: Maria Nolan
Editorial: Artemis Irvine
Digital Production: John Hillman
Titles: Jon O.

Violet Moller: Map of Knowledge (529)

The passage of knowledge between the Ancient World and today’s modern one, has not been smooth. In many cases only a fraction of what was once known has reached us today. Just seven out of around eighty plays by Aeschylus survive, seven out of the hundred and twenty written by Sophocles and a similar proportion of those by Euripides.
Often knowledge was lost at specific moments of conflict or tumult in the human story. In this episode of Travels Through Time the historian Dr Violet Moller takes us back to one of the most crucial years of all: 529, when the Roman Empire was in its latter days and a new Christian world was emerging.
Violet’s travels through the past takes us on a picaresque tour of this significant year. In Constantinople we see the last great Roman emperor. In Athens a “Golden Chain” of learning is about to be severed after many centuries. And on a rocky hill in central Italy, a new monastic order that will have a spectacular future, is founded.
Dr Violet Moller is the author of The Map of Knowledge, winner of the Royal Society for Literature’s Jerwood Prize. The Daily Telegraph called it “popular intellectual history at its best.”
Show notes:
Scenes:
Constantinople where Justinian is rebuilding the city, rewriting the legal code and issuing proclamations limiting the practice of Pagan faiths and philosophy.
Athens, the Neoplatonist Academy is closing thanks to Justinian’s proclamation, breaking a tradition of learning stretching back hundreds of years. The philosophers pack up their books and leave for Persia where they would be protected by the Sassanid King Khosrow I.
Montecassino where St Benedict is building a monastery on the site of an ancient Temple of Apollo, establishing the most important religious order of the Middle Ages.
Memento: A crate of books, saved from the Neoplatonic Academy
People / Social
Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: Dr Violet Moller
Producer: Maria Nolan
Editorial: Artemis Irvine
Digital Production: John Hillman
Titles: Jon O.

Simon Heffer: Total War (1916)

This poignant episode of Travels Through Time takes us back to 1916, a year of strife and stoicism at the heart of World War One.
The mood across Britain at the end of 1915 was one of disbelief. A war that many had predicted would be over in months was only intensifying. There was stalemate on the Western Front. Newspaper columns were filled with examples of German “frightfulness”, such as the execution of Edith Cavell, and there was growing doubts in Westminster about Prime Minister Herbert Asquith’s ability to lead the country.
This was the backdrop to 1916, a year that brought debates over conscription, fears of a general strike and the military fiasco at the Battle of the Somme. The year ended in December with David Lloyd George replacing Asquith in Downing Street and with Britain having embraced entirely the policy of Total War.
In this episode of Travels Through Time, the journalist and historian Simon Heffer guides us through the events of this traumatic year. He shows us a Britain on the brink of crisis, yet still oddly resilient to the trials it faces.
Show notes: 
Scene One: 27 January 1916, Labour Conference in Bristol for the vote on the party’s conscription policy.
Scene Two: 12 July 1916, Belfast. The first news of the Battle of the Somme reaches Belfast on the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne.
Scene Three: 5 December 1914, Cynthia Asquith dining with her father in-law the prime minister at 10 Downing Street.
Memento: A Tommy
Staring at God: Britain in the Great War by Simon Heffer is published by Random House books
People/Social 
Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: Simon Heffer
Producer: Maria Nolan
Titles: Jon O.

Dr Thomas Waters: Cursed Britain (1862)

Witches, spells, black magic and shape-shifting combine in unsettling ways for this special Halloween episode of Travels Through Time.
Britain, 1862. An age of modernity characterised by pioneering projects like the world’s first underground railway in London; hot air balloons soaring to the top of the troposphere; scientists engaging in the new fad for weather “forecasting”. And in the Midlands a new football club, Notts County, are formed – later to become the oldest of all the association football clubs in the world.
Yet running in tandem with this thrilling new world was an older, persistent belief in hidden supernatural forces. It was more than a century since Parliament had repealed the laws against witchcraft but, rather than being eradicated by the Enlightenment, folklore remained an active and potent force in everyday life. 
This is where we join Dr Thomas Waters, who takes us on a tour through 1862 to see examples of all of this: from the isolated Scottish islands, to the heart of Imperial London. In doing so he provides a striking and memorable portrait of a lesser-known side to the Victorian world.
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Show notes: 
Scene One: Spring, 1862. On the tiny Scottish Western Isle of Gigha. James Smith watches as Catherine McGougan “shapeshifts”Scene Two: 13th April 1862, 31 Charles Street, Westminster. 74-year-old Mary King is attacked by her grandson.Scene Three: A little terrace house in Ancoats, Manchester, 1862. A fortune-teller named Alice is doing a consultation for a client, waxing lyrical about mystical things
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People/Social 
Presenter: Peter MooreGuest: Dr Thomas WatersEditorial: Paul Lay / Artemis IrvineProduction: Maria Nolan / John Hillman

Thomas Penn: Richard III (1483)

Ruthlessness and Richard III: Thomas Penn (1483)
In this haunting episode of Travels Through Time, Thomas Penn guides us back to the blackest year of them all, 1483.
Richard Duke of Gloucester, has seized power. His rivals, the Woodville faction, have fled for their lives. And the uncrowned child Edward V has disappeared into the Tower of London, along with his younger brother. The two would never be seen again.
This was the year that Richard Duke of Gloucester conceived a ruthless plan to seize the throne for himself. His actions would make his reputation for cunning, opportunism and recklessness. In retrospect, Penn argues, this was the year that the powerful House of York began to consume itself.
The ‘Wars of the Roses’ saw the House of York ranged against their rivals in the House of Lancaster. The complex, long-running conflict played out in a succession of battles, betrayals and beheadings. It was a time when, as the historian Thomas Penn puts it, ‘necessity knew no law.’
So begins the final tragic act in the story of the House of York.
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Show notes:
Scene One: Northampton, the night of April 29/30, Richard and Buckingham’s plot
Scene Two: Council chamber, Tower of London, morning of Friday 13 June, Richard’s accusation/Hastings’ execution
Scene Three: Lincoln, Sunday 12 October, Richard’s response to news of Buckingham’s rebellion
Memento: Edward IV’s will.
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People / Social
Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: Thomas Penn
Producer: Maria Nolan
Editorial: Paul Lay / Artemis Irvine
Digital Production: John Hillman
Titles: Jon O.
 

Dr Patricia Fara: Women at War (1918)

Our latest episode of Travels Through Time explores a little-studied but revolutionary group of women at the heart of Dr Patricia Fara’s latest book, A Lab of One’s Own.
Patricia takes us back to 1918 where we find them working with great skill, energy and success, against the backdrop of one of the most brutal wars in world history. 
They were aircraft designers, surgeons, chemical researchers, military commanders and surveillance operatives. Their work contributed significantly to the British war effort.
Patricia is a Fellow of Clare College Cambridge, a prize-winning author and has recently served as President for the British Society for the History of Science.
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Scene One: 10th Jan 1918, House of Lords. The suffragist Ray Strachey watches them approve the 1918 Representation of the People Act
Scene Two: 26 March. Marie Stopes’s Married Love is published and she meets her future husband after he returns from the War with a broken ankle
Scene Three: 1 November, Vranje, Serbia. Dr Isabel Emslie takes over a military hospital. She stays there long after the Armistice
Memento: Dr Isabel Emslie’s Diary
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Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: Dr Patricia Fara
Producers: Maria Nolan & John Hillman
Editorial: Artemis Irvine
Titles: Jon O.
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Discover more fascinating episodes at Travels Through Time
Brought to you in partnership with History Today, the world's leading serious history magazine
 
 

Thomas Harding: Blackshirts (1934)

In this episode of our podcast Travels Through Time, bestselling author Thomas Harding takes us back to 1930s London and the sinister rise of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists.
We go on an extraordinary rags-to-riches journey, from the depths of the East End to the heights of Westminster, in the company of Isidore Salmon, a fascinating Jewish businessman and MP at the head of J. Lyons & Co, the famous catering and hotel empire.
This is the story of how Isidore took on Mosely and powerful fascist supporters such as Viscount Rothermere, proprietor of the Daily Mail, during the tumultuous summer of 1934.
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Scene One: Christmas 1933/1934. Opening of the Lyons' Cumberland Hotel, largest in Europe, royal visit, and then launch party with Viscount Rothermere and Isidore Salmon. J Lyons at its heyday.
Scene Two: 7 June 1934. Oswald Mosely’s infamous ‘Olympia Rally’
Scene Three: (Shortly after) Isidore Salmon confront Viscount Rothermere
Memento: The cup used by Viscount Rothermere to toast Isidore Salmon
Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: Thomas Harding
Producer: Maria Nolan
Titles: Jon O.
Digital Production: John Hillman
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Discover more fascinating episodes at Travels Through Time
Brought to you in partnership with History Today, the world's leading serious history magazine
 

Dan Jones: Crusaders (1147)

Travels Through Time launches season two with a blockbuster journey through the Crusades with New York Times bestselling historian Dan Jones.
Dan draws on his latest book Crusaders, an epic history of the wars for the Holy Land and broader Christendom, to guide us back to 1147 and the launch of the Second Crusade.
We discover how, contrary to popular myth, the Crusades drew hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life and all parts of Medieval Europe, into a religious conflict spanning five centuries and three continents. 
‘When it comes to rip-roaring Medieval narratives, Jones has few peers’ The Sunday Times
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Scene One: June 1147: Amid great pageantry Louis VII of France and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine set out from Paris towards the Holy Land.
Scene Two: July 1147: A month later in Mecklenburg - modern Germany - another crusading army marches in its entirety against the Slavic tribespeople known as the Wends.
Scene Three: October 1147: As Louis closes on Constantinople and the first assaults on the Wends wind down for the winter, in Lisbon another crusading army is about to score a major victory.
Memento: A shard of the True Cross.
Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: Dan Jones
Producer: Maria Nolan
Titles: Jon O.
Editorial: Artemis Irvine
Digital Production: John Hillman
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Discover more fascinating episodes at Travels Through Time
Brought to you in partnership with History Today, the World’s leading serious history magazine