The Forum

Waiting for Godot is a play by the Irish writer Samuel Beckett that revolutionised 20th century theatre when it was first performed more than 60 years ago. Often referred to as a play in which nothing happens, it is about two characters who spend their time waiting for a mysterious person called Godot who never appears. Today it is one of the world's most important and best- known plays and has be...

An accomplished young horsewoman who loved fencing and male attire, the 17th-century Swedish Queen Christina was anything but a conventional princess. And she kept springing surprises on her court and country: after just a decade on the throne she abdicated, converted to Catholicism and moved to Rome. Once there, she put herself forward as a candidate for the post of queen of Naples, opened a publ...

The Dutch post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh is one of the most influential painters in western art. His series of still life sunflowers are known around the world today, but during his lifetime in the 1800s he lived in poverty, selling incredibly little of his work, some say just one painting, and suffered several serious breakdowns. One of his most famous paintings - The Starry Night -...

Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was known for his piercing wit, irreverent satire and social commentary. Leaving school early following the death of his father, he lived many lives in one: spending time as a journalist, steamboat pilot and world traveller, suffering significant personal and financial losses. These are just some of the experiences that would feed into his novels, article...

The Hungarian obstetrician Ignaz Semmelweis, born 200 years ago this month, saved the lives of hundreds, possibly thousands, of new mothers with his forward-looking ideas about hospital hygiene. He insisted that junior doctors working for him wash their hands in chlorinated lime solution before examining expectant mothers. This simple procedure reduced mortality by something like 90 per cent at th...

Try and imagine a world without numbers. Telling people how many siblings you have, counting your wages or organising to meet a friend at a certain time would all be much more difficult. If you’re reading this on a digital screen, even these words are produced through a series of zero and one symbols. We take them so much for granted yet some cultures don’t count and some languages don’t have the...

William Blake is now one of England’s best-loved poets and artists, associated with the well-known poem “The Tyger” and the hymn “Jerusalem”, regularly coined England’s unofficial national anthem. But in his time he was an eighteenth century radical visionary who challenged the social order as well as political and religious orthodoxy at every turn. He was even tried for sedition. Rajan Datar disc...

In many countries, the word 'Fulbrighter' has become almost synonymous with US-sponsored scholarships. But what about the man whose idea it was to set up this international scholar exchange programme over 70 years ago: how did J. William Fulbright convince his fellow Senators to support this novel concept? After all, the aims of the programme were nothing if not ambitious: "the achievement in inte...

The fabled city of Timbuktu is a curiosity. To 16th century Muslim scholars, it was the cosmopolitan hub of Islamic learning in West Africa; to European explorers 300 years later, it was a place of mystery, whose name remains synonymous with being at the end of the Earth. Most recently, in 2013, Timbuktu was at the centre of the world's attention again, after Islamist militants threatened thousand...

What’s the secret to the 300 year-old success of the piano, an instrument that was hardly a huge hit when it was invented around the turn of the 18th century? Perhaps it’s the ability of the instrument to convey a vast range of styles from singing melodies to percussive rhythms, and from classical music to jazz, rock and pop. With the help of musical examples, Bridget Kendall and guests will explo...

Simone de Beauvoir was a French philosopher and writer whose work exploring what it is to be a woman shaped feminist thinking today. A pioneering intellectual, she used her existential ideas around freedom and responsibility to shape her life, literature and politics. Rajan Datar discusses her life and work with writers Claudine Monteil and Lisa Appignanesi, and philosopher Tove Pettersen. Photo:...

Famous for her lovers and satirised for her colourful personal life, Catherine the Great was in many ways one of Russia’s most progressive and moderate rulers, modernising 18th century Russia, improving educational standards and creating a flourishing arts and literature scene. But she also turned Russia into the biggest Empire on earth since the Roman Empire, which included the annexation of Crim...

Bridget Kendall and guests discuss the key components of the global story of the factory, tracing its development from eighteenth century Britain to twenty-first century China and beyond. Exploring how the factory came to shape not just the material world but entire social worlds too, they share their expert knowledge on topics such as the lives of factory workers, the capitalist and communist fac...

The ancient Inca town Machu Picchu is now the most visited tourist attraction in Peru - and yet it lay nearly forgotten for over three centuries until American and Peruvian explorers drew the world's attention to it in the 1910s. And despite a century of excavations at the site, there are still many unanswered questions about Machu Picchu: why was it built in the first place, who were the immigran...

The birth of modern plastic began in 1907 with the invention of Bakelite, one of the first plastics to be made from entirely synthetic components. But plastic in a particular form was being used many thousands of years ago by the Olmec, the earliest known civilisation in Mexico, who played with balls made of a natural polymer - rubber. Over the years the plastics industry has grown from the work o...

Rarely has one foodstuff had such global influence as Sugar – on our trade and economy, movement of people around the world, and health and treatment of fellow humans. Once a costly luxury called “white gold”, it was pivotal in one of mankind’s most shameful chapters – slavery. Joining Rajan Datar to find out more about Sugar and its connection with power is the Canadian historian Dr Elizabeth Abb...

It is a religion that has lasted three millennia, claims to be the world's first monotheistic creed and to have influenced major faiths such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam, inspired artists from Voltaire to Freddie Mercury but Zoroastrianism may be heading for extinction: in some communities only children of male Zoroastrians are admitted to the faith and there are probably fewer than 200 thou...

It was exactly a hundred years ago that women in the UK won the right to vote: though at first it was only for property owning women over thirty. But Britain wasn’t the trail blazer. Seven countries were ahead of it including two of its colonies. So what were the deciding factors? Was it the changing circumstances created by wars and the collapse of Empires? Or was it the suffragettes’ sometimes v...

Today, we can’t imagine an election without an opinion poll gauging public opinion on who’s leading, who’s won a debate or who’s more popular with a specific group of voters. Even our favourite chocolate bars and footballers are subject to a poll. But how did straw polls evolve into the scientific number crunching we know now? What is their purpose and impact? How differently are they used around...

T.E Lawrence was a British scholar and adventurer whose involvement with the Arab Revolt during the World War One inspired one of the most celebrated films in cinema history. So how did a man who was offered a knighthood and became an international celebrity end his days in near obscurity? Bridget Kendall is joined by historians James Barr and Juliette Desplat, and writer Scott Anderson to discuss...

In the ten years since his death, the impact of designer Yves Saint Laurent on women’s fashion remains undimmed. The pea coat, the trench, the trouser suit – many of his designs are now staples of the modern Western woman’s wardrobe. So how did this famously shy and retiring man achieve global success? And did his fashion innovations for women shape social change in the 1960s, or were they a respo...

Moby Dick is the story of a crazed and vengeful sailor, Captain Ahab, hunting a giant whale that bit off his leg. It's a large and challenging book and its author, Herman Melville died without knowing how influential or revered it would become. Although it failed to impress when it first came out in 1851, it’s now hailed as a ‘great American novel’, one of the towering achievements of American lit...

The Goths were a Germanic tribe infamous for their brief sack of Rome in 410 AD, but their cultural and political influence was felt throughout Europe for centuries. They re-shaped the Balkans, preserved the Roman way of life in Italy, and presided over a cultural flourishing in Spain. But how, many centuries after their demise, did they come to give their name to an important architectural style...

Inferno is the 14th century epic that tells the story of Dante Alighieri’s imaginary journey through the underworld. It is the first part of Dante’s The Divine Comedy, and is widely considered to be one of the world’s greatest poems. “Abandon all hope you who enter here” is the famous phrase inscribed on the gates of Dante’s Inferno, and Hell is divided into nine circles, with cruel and unusual pu...

Portuguese sailor and explorer Ferdinand Magellan set out 500 years ago to find a route to the riches of the spice islands, north east of present day Indonesia. Through a series of adventures and tragedies, Magellan’s voyage discovered the Straits of Magellan joining the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through Southern America and was the first expedition to completely circumnavigate the World. But Ma...