31/12/2013

Available for over a year

Helen Castor is joined by Carenza Lewis from the University of Cambridge and Professor Emma Griffin from the University of East Anglia in the first of a new series of the programme in which listeners join with some of the world's leading researchers to discuss the latest work that is Making History. Over the next five weeks, historians and archaeologists will be helping us to understand more about the origins of the Welsh language, find out how French royalty escaped revolutionary persecution in Aylesbury, discover why the gloves are off in the nation's archives, and hear how some of our leading early socialists thought that the unemployed could do with a spell in a labour camp. Today, it's science versus history. Tom Holland is on the Wirral to hear a debate that's been rekindled by historian Michael Wood - where is Brunanburh, the site of the Great War of 937? Is it Bromborough near Birkenhead as place-name and DNA evidence might suggest or should we, as Wood argues, trust the historical sources and look across to the Humber and South Yorkshire? Maritime historian Sam Willis is in Devon to find out how an eighteenth century inventor from Ipswich turned to gambling to finance one of the world's first submarine journeys - to the bottom of Plymouth Sound. And we look ahead to a remarkable parliamentary anniversary, the Addled Parliament of 1614 - the only English parliament in which nothing got done. Contact the programme: [email protected] Producer: Nick Patrick A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.