History's Heroes

In 1950, a trial began for a gruesome murder, marking the first time a woman would lead a murder case in an English court. Can Rose Heilbron QC prove herself? Stories of bold voices, with brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Historian Alex von Tunzelmann shines a light on remarkable people from across history. A BBC Studios production. Producer: Georgina Leslie Written and presented by Alex...

Disaster strikes when Washington Roebling is building a landmark suspension bridge connecting Manhattan to Brooklyn. Can his wife Emily help him deliver an impossible engineering feat? Stories of bold voices, with brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Historian Alex von Tunzelmann shines a light on remarkable people from across history. A BBC Studios Audio production. Producer: Lorna Reader...

1849. The youngest queen of Sikh Emperor Ranjit Sing, Maharani Jindan was locked up in at Chunar fort, hundreds of miles from home. She was small, beautiful and powerful, and crucially she was the mother of 10-year-old Maharaja Duleep Singh. She had to be kept away from her kingdom in Punjab, and her young son, by order of the British East India company. But nothing would keep her from her son. St...

Alex von Tunzelmann meets Professor Keith Allen to discuss Margaret Cavendish’s remarkable legacy. Keith, who is professor of philosophy at the University of York, has been researching Margaret Cavendish and neurodiversity. He argues that Cavendish may have had one or more forms of neurodivergence, based on the descriptions she herself gave of her life and experience. Cavendish clung to the hope o...

In 17th Century Europe, a young woman escapes civil war and discovers a love of scientific learning and a remarkable literary talent. Stories of bold voices, with brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Historian Alex von Tunzelmann shines a light on remarkable people from across history. A BBC Studios production. Producer: Lorna Reader Written and presented by Alex von Tunzelmann Executive Pr...

In 1950s South Africa, under the system of apartheid, a powerful song catches fire among Black communities. But to sing it could result in imprisonment. Its author - the musician, poet and union organiser Vuyisile Mini - prepares to put his life on the line. Stories of bold voices, with brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Historian Alex von Tunzelmann shines a light on remarkable people fr...

In 19th Century France, a young woman escapes a life of drudgery, faces her fears and finds worldwide fame as an aeronaut. Sophie Blanchard performs for Napoleon and eventually becomes the official aeronaut of the Restoration. But as her hot air balloon shows become more and more ambitious, can she keep cheating death? Stories of bold voices, with brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Histor...

Alex von Tunzelmann meets Dr Eleanor Janega to discuss Eleanor of Aquitaine, the extraordinary medieval woman who became Queen of France, then Queen of England. Dr Janega is a broadcaster and historian who was named after the great queen. Looking at key moments in her life, Alex wants to better understand the queen’s real impact on history and, crucially, whether this medieval icon actually had ag...

Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine was in her 70s when disaster struck in the 1190s. Her sons were often at loggerheads and causing trouble. This time, her crusading son Richard the Lionheart had got into a spot of trouble and got himself kidnapped on his way back from the Holy Land. It was down to Eleanor to save her son, her dynasty and the realm. Stories of bold voices, with brave ideas and the courage...

When a nuclear programme threatens Eileen Kampakuta Brown's traditional land in Australia, she brings together a group of Aboriginal women to resist. Their campaign across the country in a two-door wagon will take them all the way to the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Stories of bold voices, with brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Historian Alex von Tunzelmann shines a light on remarkable people f...

For six days in thirteen eighty-one, Wat Tyler a mysterious, charismatic figure appears to hold the balance of power in England. Fired by a vision of social equality, he leads a peasants' revolt that threatens to overturn the ruling order. Stories of bold voices, with brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Historian Alex von Tunzelmann shines a light on remarkable people from across history....

Alex von Tunzelmann talks to Dominican American writer Julia Alvarez. Her 1994 novel In The Time of the Butterflies, tells the fictionalised account of the Mirabal Sisters, who lost their lives in standing up to the dictator Rafael Trujillo. Alvarez, who was awarded The National Medal of the Arts, spent her childhood years in the Dominican Republic and describes the Mirabals as her “shadow sisters...

At the height of a vicious regime in the Dominican Republic, Minerva Mirabal and her sisters risk everything to liberate their nation. How would their actions help topple the dictator Rafael Trujillo? Stories of bold voices, with brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Historian Alex von Tunzelmann shines a light on remarkable people from across history. A BBC Studios production. Producer: Mic...

In June 1865, the writer Charles Dickens was sitting in the first-class carriage of a train when it crashed outside of Kent. The horrific accident would require all his courage and threaten to reveal his most closely guarded secret. Stories of bold voices, with brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Historian Alex von Tunzelmann shines a light on remarkable people from across history. A BBC S...

Stories of bold voices, with brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Historian Alex von Tunzelmann shines a light on remarkable people from across history.

At the age of 70, does England’s greatest knight still have what it takes to save the realm from invasion? In History's Toughest Heroes, Ray Winstone tells ten true stories of adventurers, rebels and survivors who lived life on the edge. The young Sir William Marshal was handsome, charming, captain of the England Tourney team a sporting hero and right-hand man to many a king of England including H...

With lynchings of Black Americans on the rise, a reporter begins documenting the crimes, sending her on a dangerous journey through the violence of the Jim Crow South. In History's Toughest Heroes, Ray Winstone tells ten true stories of adventurers, rebels and survivors who lived life on the edge. After a humiliating standoff with a train conductor in the American South, the young Ida B Wells deci...

When European American settlers begin displacing the indigenous Lakota from their ancestral lands, one enigmatic warrior refuses to surrender. He gathers his people for an epic standoff with the military. In History's Toughest Heroes, Ray Winstone tells ten true stories of adventurers, rebels and survivors who lived life on the edge. In the depths of the Wild West Crazy, when tensions between Nati...

Margery Kempe always tells it like it is. But in Medieval England, such straight-talking can get a woman killed... In History's Toughest Heroes, Ray Winstone tells ten true stories of adventurers, rebels and survivors who lived life on the edge. Born in Kings Lynne in around 1373, Margery Kempe was destined for a typical medieval life. But after the birth of her first child, and a terrifying nine...

A Black soldier from the American South makes headlines when he fights off an entire German party in World War One. But his fame comes at a price. In History's Toughest Heroes, Ray Winstone tells ten true stories of adventurers, rebels and survivors who lived life on the edge. Growing up in as a Black man in North Carolina, where racism was enshrined in law and lynchings were horrifyingly common,...

The real-life Revenant who survived a savage bear mauling and crawled hundreds of miles across the American plains to confront the scoundrels who abandoned him. In History's Toughest Heroes, Ray Winstone tells ten true stories of adventurers, rebels and survivors who lived life on the edge. Immortalised by Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2015 blockbuster movie, the real-life Hugh Glass is still a bit of...

Constance Lytton was raised an aristocrat. But when she wakes up to women's suffrage, she goes undercover in solidarity, joining her working-class comrades in prison and staging a series of dangerous hunger strikes. In History's Toughest Heroes, Ray Winstone tells ten true stories of adventurers, rebels and survivors who lived life on the edge. As a lady, and part of the English upper-crust, when...

For an enslaved man like Robert Smalls during the American Civil War, there was only way out of Charleston: through the harbour and past hostile Confederate forts. He just needed a ship... In History's Toughest Heroes, Ray Winstone tells ten true stories of adventurers, rebels and survivors who lived life on the edge. Robert Smalls was born a slave in the American South. His one chance at escape a...

In the macho stunt world, a deaf woman is determined to push the limits. But as her stunts break records, can she keep cheating death? In History's Toughest Heroes, Ray Winstone tells ten true stories of adventurers, rebels and survivors who lived life on the edge. Kitty O’Neil was the stunt-woman behind wonder-woman - in tiny hotpants and a bustier. But she was also a speed demon, a land speed wo...

An arctic explorer is trapped in a snow drift the size of a coffin. How will he survive frostbite and make it out alive? In History's Toughest Heroes, Ray Winstone tells ten true stories of adventurers, rebels and survivors who lived life on the edge. Danish born Peter Freuchen looked like a Viking, 6ft 7, huge beard, massive furs. His life was one non-stop adventure. He started out as well-to-do...