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Making History podcast compressed

Making History

Factual: Life Stories

Factual: History

Popular history series where the past connects with the present.

Making History: 31/12/2013

31/12/2013

BBC Radio 4 - Making History, 31/12/2013

Helen Castor and guest historians discuss the search for the true home of the Great War.

Helen Castor and a cast of leading historians join with listeners to discuss the latest historical research, including the search for the true home of the Great War of 937.

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: making.history@bbc.co.uk

Producer: Nick Patrick
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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