The Wonder Podcast for Curious Kids

Have you ever wondered why football is called the beautiful game, why male footballers are paid so much, and female footballers much less so? As the UEFA Women's EURO 2025 Championships are hosted in Switzerland we look at the rise and fall and rise again of the women's game.  Why was the First World War a golden age? What was the impact of the ban from the FA in 1921? And can England's Lionesses...

Why are naughty children so appealing as characters? Do you have to be a nice person to write children's books? Was Walt Disney a villain? We ask Sam Leith, the author of 'The Haunted Wood, A History of Childhood Reading' these questions, and many more  Produced by Camilla Akers-Douglas and Henrietta McMicking  Sound editing by Lou Sawdy  Theme music by James Burrell Music   Instagram @wonderpodca...

It is one of the most famous, and mysterious, stone circles in the world but who built it, and why? Was it an ancient calendar? A place of worship, or pilgrimage? Or a burial ground? Or, as some people have even suggested, a landing pad for alien spaceships? What remains of this 5,000-year-old monument – which sits within a sacred landscape on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England – offers us some...

Have you ever heard of Ada Lovelace? Or Augusta Ada Byron? Or the Countess of Lovelace, as she became? One hundred years before the computer was even invented, Ada wrote the first-ever computer program. She was also a brilliant mathematician and an aristocratic Victorian.  We tell the remarkable true story of a digital pioneer, who was also the daughter of the poet Lord Byron. Every time we play a...

Have you ever thought about the importance of wee? Urine, to give it its proper name, has flowed through human history.  The Romans used it to whiten their togas as well as their teeth. Children in the Middle Ages worked as piss collectors because it was such a valued product in the leather and wool industries. In times of war wee has come into its own. Stale pee was used in the manufacture of gun...

Have you ever wondered why we love playing games – board games, card games, computer games, even playground games like It and Kick the Can? Games let us experiment and take risks in a safe, fun way. Many games involve luck – like the throw of the dice, the draw of the cards – but they also involve maths. And, sometimes, using maths can help you win… Narrated by Camilla Akers-Douglas Script by Cami...

What would it be like to discover a whole city hiding in the cloud forest?  This podcast – for parents and their children – tells the thrilling story of the rediscovery of Machu Picchu, the Andean citadel built by the Incas in 1400.  For hundreds of years, it was covered in undergrowth and known only to local people in a small corner of Peru. Then the American adventurer, Hiram Bingham, found it i...

Are pirates daring adventurers of the high seas or simply ruthless thieves who plunder ships, attack innocent passengers and send shivers down the spines of ordinary sailors? This podcast – for parents and their children – reminds us that pirates can be dastardly and daring in equal measure, brave yet fuse-burningly terrifying, and not nearly so  jolly as one might like to think. Narrated by Olive...

Did you know that people with dyslexia can make very good spies? And people with autism are likely to have been the driving force of human creativity for the last 100,000 years? Dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD and autism are often misunderstood as negative conditions, when really they indicate strengths as well as struggles. This episode is narrated by the comedian Rory Bremner who has ADHD. He encour...

Have you ever wondered why humans chose to ride horses? It was a moment in history which changed the future of both species forever.  This relationship has endured for over five thousand years, and the horse has been described as one of the greatest technologies that man has ever harnessed.  Horses are prized for their speed, strength and adaptability, and revolutionised transport, war, farming an...

Have you ever wondered who had the bright idea of inventing the light bulb?  Well, it’s credited to a rather unusual man, Thomas Edison. An man who had a gift  – not so much for inventing as for taking an existing idea, and finding ways to make it better, or cheaper, or both. During his lifetime Thomas Edison invented a truly extraordinary range of things – ideas that define our modern world – but...

There’s a group of almost 4,000 volunteers known as the White Helmets. They have become famous for their bravery in the Syrian civil war. They are famous too for the white hardhats they wear. Most of the volunteers are men but there are also around 200 women. Their proper name is the Syria Civil Defence. They have been trained to protect and help people during war and disasters. They are unarmed a...

Have you ever considered what an extraordinary invention plastic is? The word plastic means mouldable and therein lies its ingenuity, it can be moulded into every conceivable size shape and colour. It can be thick or thin, large or small, strong or delicate.   Plastic is complicated: it has life saving medical uses but is life threatening to the natural world. Almost every piece of plastic ever ma...

Have you ever wondered about the power of the moon? Craned your neck and stared, deep, into her mysteries? Like a wolf howling through the night, what questions would you ask of her, what secrets would you try to uncover? The moon has the power to conjure werewolves. It controls the tides of our seas and oceans, and it has inspired mankind to reach for a new frontier. Its power to capture our imag...

Have you ever wondered what is actually inside a packet of crisps? Potatoes, obviously, you would think. Air, perhaps just as obviously – but it’s not the air you are expecting. There's history in there too, and rivalry. Who made the very first potato crisp? And, what exactly is a crisp? Or potato chip, as they say in America. To be a crisp, does it need to be literally a thin slice of potato? Or...

Have you ever wondered what exactly are the Crown Jewels, or why kings and queens wear crowns? We tell the extraordinary history of the British Crown Jewels, and how over the centuries they have been lost and stolen, melted down, and remade. Among the crowns, sceptres and orbs, there is even a single stone – the Koh-i-Noor diamond – which is believed to be so cursed that kings are afraid to wear i...

How do we see? And how do we see colour? Does the world look the same through another person's eyes? In this podcast discover how the human eye works and how it sees colour. You may be surprised to learn that not everyone sees colour in the same way: a few are colour blind; others are tetrachromats which means they have an extra type of cone cell in their eye, and can see as many as 100 million di...

Why do we worry? And what can we do about it? This episode explains to children that day-to-day worries are a normal part of life. In fact, sometimes worry is a positive, rather than negative, thing.   When faced with predators, a sense of fear protected our ancient ancestors and, even today, it can push us out of our comfort zone. And when it all gets a bit too much, there are things we can do to...

Have you ever wondered why poo is funny? It’s stinky. It’s perfectly revolting, but if you say the word poo a few times, children – and some adults – start to smile, even laugh. And it can, of course, be surprisingly useful – as a food source, a fertiliser and for marking animal territory. But adult humans don’t tend to like talking about poo so we thought we'd do just that instead. This podcast i...

Have you ever sent a secret message to a friend? Or tried to use a clever code to protect a secret? Have you ever tried to crack a code? There are many ingenious ways to conceal, and reveal, a secret message. Keeping secrets, and code breaking, can be a matter of life and death, as Mary, Queen of Scots found out to her cost. Alan Turing's work as a code breaker during WW11 may have shortened the w...

All around the world during the darkest months of winter people light candles and look forward to a time of new hope. Why do Christians celebrate Christmas at this time of year? Why do Jewish people, Hindus, Jains, Sihks and some Buddhists celebrate with festivals of light at this darkest time? And how does Christmas vary from country to country? No matter how hard Oliver Cromwell, the Grinch and...

Wherever they sailed, they plundered, pillaged and stole, so the story goes. But were the Vikings really the fierce invaders of the history books who ransacked our monasteries and captured human slaves? Or where they simply peaceful traders with an interest in travel? The clue is in the names: the word Viking did not originally mean a single group of people. It meant a pirate or raider. And with n...

It is exactly 400 years since a ship called the Mayflower arrived on the east coast of America, bringing 102 English settlers to the New World. Today some 35 million people all over the USA claim to have had an ancestor on the Mayflower.   As they built their colony on the Massachusetts coast, the so-called Pilgrims encountered the Wampanoag people who were unsure about the threat the new arrivals...

Have you ever wondered why chocolate tastes so good, why it is so completely and utterly scrumdiddlyumptious? In fact the raw cocoa bean tastes horrible, and it takes a lot to turn this tropical rainforest nut into chocolate.  Humans have loved it for longer than you might think, and the Aztecs drank it before going into battle. But only about 120 years ago, after a young Swiss company called Nest...

Have you wondered if zero is actually a number?  Or if infinity is a number or a concept?  What is an imaginary number?  And how do numbers explain the shape of the ancient pyramids? Why is the number 60 so interesting? Just how large is the number Googol, the number that gives a certain search engine its name? And how does maths make our world more beautiful? Listen, and discover. This podcast is...