The Forum

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek opened up a whole new world to us; he was the first to observe bacteria and other microscopic lifeforms which could not be seen by the naked eye. He is now regarded as the father of microbiology and yet he had neither scientific training nor university education, and spent his life first as a linen merchant and then a civil servant in a small Dutch city. To understand quite...

A man wakes up in the body of a verminous insect – this is the plot of one of the most celebrated short stories of all time – Franz Kafka’s 1915 novella The Metamorphosis. Dealing with the isolation and absurdity of modern existence, it has fascinated readers all over the world in its openness to varying interpretations, and the way it questions the very norms of society as well as literary form....

The story of Hugh Masekela’s life is intertwined with the history of South Africa itself. Born into a relatively privileged family in a mining town east of Johannesburg, Masekela was aware from an early age of the separatist and exploitative legacy of colonialism. As he grew up and discovered his love of music, it soon became clear to him that fulfilling his ambitions as a black musician would hav...

In this 200th year since his death, we look at the life and work of James Watt, the Scottish innovator whose ground-breaking ideas helped power the Industrial Revolution and lay the basis for much of the mechanised world we take for granted now. He wasn't the inventor of the first steam engine - that had existed before his time - but his improved steam engine was vastly more efficient than earlier...

The Bhagavad Gita didn't start life as an exclusively religious text but over the two thousand years since it was composed the verses have taken on many different layers of meaning. For millions of Hindus today, the Gita has a similar scriptural status to the Quran for Muslims or the Bible for Christians. In the 20th century, others have seen the Gita as a guide to management strategy, a tool for...

King Cnut the Great started life as a young Viking warrior, but quickly became one of the most successful kings in Anglo-Saxon history, reigning over a huge empire covering England, Denmark and Norway in the early 11th Century. For some, he was the perfect Christian king; for others, he was a ruthless warlord. Today in popular culture his name is associated with the tale of King Cnut and the waves...

The months between May and August 1919 were a crucial time for Afghanistan: it was the period of the Third Anglo-Afghan War followed by the declaration of Afghan independence from Britain. So how was modern Afghan national identity forged? Who were the leaders responsible? Why, in the 19th century, had the country become financially and politically dependent on Britain? And what, a century on, is...

Rasputin’s story is a familiar one – an illiterate Siberian peasant who managed to secure the confidence of the last Tsar and Tsarina of Russia, while indulging his legendary sexual appetite and love of hard drinking. Rasputin was so revered by his acolytes that they would collect his fingernail clippings, as if they were some kind of holy relic. When his extraordinary life was brought to an equal...

For as long as humans have gazed up at the moon it has been an object of fascination. From the Aztecs to the Romans to the Romantics, the moon has inspired everything from artistic outpourings to religious devotion. So how has our understanding of our nearest cosmic companion changed over the millennia? And, 50 years on from the Apollo 11 Moon landing, how has our relationship with the moon been c...

Pearls are the most chameleon-like of jewels: they can sell for millions or for just a few dollars, they have been used to symbolize both chastity and debauchery, they have been conspicuously worn by men and women. The production methods of both cultured and natural pearls have been fraught with controversy and their position as fashion and status symbols has waxed and waned over the centuries. Br...

Rajan Datar and guests explore the life and legacy of the American thinker Henry David Thoreau and his famous work 'Walden', which describes the young writer's experiment in living simply at Walden Pond in Massachusetts, for two years, two months and two days in the 1840s. A landmark text in American literature, ‘Walden’ has been enjoyed by generations for its insights into work and leisure, natur...

In its 200-year lifetime the Portuguese song known as fado has been intertwined with the country's politics. At first it was an expression of the woes of Lisbon's underclass, which perhaps explains its predominantly melancholy character. In the early 20th century when a military coup brought the fascist regime of António Salazar to power, fado was accused of being degenerate music and government o...

The 17th Century Queen Njinga was among the most successful of Africa's rulers in resisting European colonialism: she defied no fewer than 13 different Portuguese governors of modern-day Angola and ruled the kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba for over three decades. She was no ordinary person, the warrior Queen. She was a fearless fighter, a military strategist, often ruthless, a shrewd diplomat and a...

Leonardo da Vinci is best known for his paintings - creating masterpieces like the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. But through his notes and drawings we know him also to have been a sculptor, mathematician, botanist, palaeontologist, anatomist, architect and engineer, recording insights and inventions that were astonishingly ahead of their time. So what do his observations and experiments tell us a...

It’s been called the 'gymnasium of the mind', both mental exercise and a way to build self-esteem. Born some 1,500 years ago, the game of chess was one of the world’s first strategy board games, though little is still known about its origins. Was it first conceived to teach Indian army generals? Or devised to turn a tyrannical King into a virtuous ruler? Or was it a meditative diversion for Japane...

It is an all-time adventure classic, a novel by Jules Verne that started life in serialized form 150 years ago and has gripped readers ever since, making it one of the most translated works in publishing history (and yes, the original French title says 'seas' in plural). It also made a household name out of its main character, Captain Nemo, the troubled and enigmatic commander who transports us th...

The story of how an average-sized artillery officer from a small Mediterranean island came to dominate revolutionary France and become the international celebrity of his age is an extraordinary one. Born on Corsica in 1769, Napoleon Bonaparte appeared to avoid engaging with the military career for which he was destined. And yet within a decade, his ambition, ego and enormous talent for self-promot...

The trade in spices goes back to ancient times: from the Frankincense trails that originated in the Dhofar Highlands in present day Yemen to the Queen of Sheba who travelled to Jerusalem with camels laden with spices. For centuries, spices have captured our imagination far more than any other commodities, and spice traders, from the Arab merchants to the European trading companies of the Age of Di...

Tove Jansson was a Finnish-Swedish author and illustrator best known for her children's books about the Moomins. These white, hippo-like characters live in the imaginary world of Moominvalley where they subtly challenge social norms and utter philosophical statements such as "I knew nothing, but I believed a lot." While the Moomins brought Jansson worldwide fame in the 20th century, she was also a...

Millions of us around the world have undergone an anaesthetic, putting our trust in specialists who keep us alive while surgeons carry out complex operations. Huge advances have been made in this field in the last 150 years, thanks to the work of pioneering doctors, dentists and scientists who often risked their own lives to advance the possibilities of surgery and make anaesthetics safe. And yet...

Today, the Istanbul-born Armenian financier Calouste Gulbenkian is mostly remembered as a great art collector and philanthropist; at his death in 1955 he was thought of as the world's richest man. But perhaps more than any of the above, he may have been the world's most tenacious negotiator: how else would he have held on - for decades - to the main source of his fabulous wealth, his minority shar...

The story of Robinson Crusoe and his many years of survival alone on a deserted island has enchanted the English-speaking world for centuries. Many people first come across the story as a children’s book or a film portrayal, celebrating Crusoe’s buccaneering adventures and his heroic efforts to tame his wild environment, create shelter and food supplies, and eventually befriend the indigenous man...

Lu Xun has been often been called the father of modern Chinese literature. His short stories about the misery and cruelty of ordinary life in China have been interpreted both as revolutionary political statements inspired by the May Fourth Movement of 1919 which wanted to sweep-away outdated social mores, and as a brilliant new take on ancient Chinese literary traditions. Some of his works, both f...

The Talking Drum is one of the most sacred instruments of West Africa. Shaped like an hourglass, the drum has a unique melodic sound which means it can imitate the tones of language and in this way speak words. Along with its spiritual power and healing properties, the talking drum is also a source of history, poetry and proverbs. Bridget Kendall traces the story of the talking drum to the present...

The North Pole lies at the very top of our world. Covered in a thick layer of sea ice, this uninhabitable frozen point in the Arctic Sea has fascinated us for centuries as both a physical location on a map and as a far away place in our imagination. Warmer than the South Pole, the northernmost point of the Earth’s axis sits outside of any time zone in a place where the sun rises and sets just once...