Roundup

Across the water: Journey to Robben Island [29min]

South African President Nelson Mandela spent 18 years in prison on Robben Island. Now the prison is closed and the island has become a museum, a fast growing tourist attraction in the new South Africa. Former political prisoners work alongside their former jailers as the new keepers of the island's history. It is perhaps one of the most tangible symbols of South Africa's miraculous transformation from apartheid to a multi-party democracy. But what about the personal transformations of those who

Medvedev wins Russian presidential election [audio 51min]

Award-winning journalist Diane Rehm looks at the Russian presidential election and Vladimir Putin's hand-picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, the challenges he faces at home, which include restoring the rule of law and sustaining economic growth; and tensions with the West over missile defense, Kosovo independence and NATO expansion. Her guests are Andrei Sitov, Washington bureau chief for Itar-Tass; Kim Holmes, Vice President of the Heritage F

Women of the Qur'an: The role of Hava [audio 4min]

Women mentioned in the Qur'an are often treated as narrative tools in stories centred around men and have seldom been studied. In the first of a series exploring the stories of women in the Qur'an, Angela Robson looks at the character of Hava, or Eve. She talks to Dr Shuruq Naguib, lecturer in Islamic Studies at Lancaster University, and Barbara Stowasser, Professor of Arabic Studies at Georgetown University and author of Women in the Qur'an: Traditions and Interpretation (Oxford Universi

Helen Keller 'doll' photo turns up [audio 1min]

A recently uncovered 1888 photo of Helen Keller and her teacher, Anne Sullivan, is notable because it shows the young Keller holding a doll. "Doll" was the first word the "Miracle Worker" Sullivan spelled out for her blind, deaf student — who amazed the world by learning to read and write.

Smoke-filled rooms & Teapot Dome [audio 51min]

Award-winning journalist Diane Rehm probes the story behind one of the most infamous incidents in American political history, and its lessons for Washington today, with Laton McCartney, author of Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country. McCartney is a business, finance and political journalist, and author of Friends in High Places and Across the Great Divide.

Harriet Tubman's road to freedom [video 35min]

Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in Maryland in 1820. After her escape to the North in 1849, she returned to the South more than a dozen times to ferry other slaves along the Underground Railroad. She later helped John Brown recruit men for his Harper's Ferry raid, and during the Civil War, Tubman served as a Union spy. In this lecture, historian Catherine Clinton details the quest to uncover new information on Tubman's extraordinary life.

Remembering an infamous New York institution [audio 12min]

By the mid 1960s, Willowbrook, a Staten Island institution for mentally ill or delayed children, was filled to more than double its capacity. But crowding was the least of the horrors: Some residents of the state-run institution were reportedly used as test cases for hepatitis studies. Vanessa Leigh DeBello tracks her mother's 16-year stay at the school in a new memoir, Moron: A Daughter's Story of an Accidental Childhood in Willowbrook. "Moron" was one of three scientific terms

FDR's antidote to Great Depression: Totalitarianism [audio 5min]

Franklin Delano Roosevelt began his presidency 75 years ago as of March 4th 2008. It was in the depths of the Great Depression. During his first 100 days in office, Congress passed much of Roosevelt's initiatives and programs known as the New Deal to try to raise the morale of a nation that was in free fall. In this interview, Donald Ritchie, author of Electing FDR: The New Deal Campaign of 1932, speaks with NPR's Renee Montagne about the solutions presented by FDR during his campaign whi

EZ Comics: Members for advisory panel wanted

I would like to announce a job for an experienced History Professor who is of local Gulf country origin Britain Country origin Indian Country origin The below mentioned are the details. About EZ Comics EZ Comics is an exciting new company publishing historical comic books for US children. The books feature The Civil War, Benjamin Franklin and Martin Luther King Jr. The new book series of historical events in comic form is designed to make history

The lost women of the popular rhymes [audio 6min]

The oral tradition of nursery rhymes was transmitted and sustained almost exclusively by women, who either wrote the first versions of some popular rhymes or original poems that have become later known as 'nursery rhymes'. And yet the names of these women authors are mostly ignored or forgotten. Chris Roberts, author of Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme, and Cambridge expert in Children's Literature Morag Styles look into these women's stories and the image of women

J Edgar Hoover vs Martin Luther King, Jr [audio 15min]

The FBI takes on the new hero of the Civil Rights movement and fights dirty in Part 5 of Tom Mangold's 10-part series looking at the first 100 years of the FBI. Mangold is an award-winning investigative journalist and author. See March 3rd 2008 posting for more details on this series.

'Birth of a Nation' re-assessed [audio 45min]

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss one of the most important and controversial films of all time: D W Griffith's controversial silent classic from 1915, The Birth of a Nation. This film was the first great feature film, probably also the first great war movie, the first film to be shown in the White House and, until Apocalypse Now, the most famous use of Wagner's"Ride of the Valkyries" in cinema. It was also the highest grossing film in American history for decades until it was beate

Ronald Hutton donates fascinating exhibit to Museum of Curiosity [audio 30min]

Historian Ronald Hutton is invited to donate a new exhibit to the Museum of Curiosity by its curators, John Lloyd (producer of the four Blackadder TV series) and Bill Bailey (comedian, musician and actor). Hutton is a Professor of History at the University of Bristol. He is a leading authority on the history of the British Isles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as on ancient and medieval paganism and magic and the global context of witchcraft beliefs and modern paganism

'King Lear': Shakespeare's finest fairy tale [audio 43min]

Around the turn of 1606, a group of London theatre-goers braved the plague to take in a new play by the well-known impresario, Mr William Shakespeare. Packed into the Globe Theatre, they were treated to a tale of violence, hatred and betrayal so upsetting that it languished among Shakespeare's less popular plays until re-written with a happy ending. The play was King Lear -- a drama on the folly of age, the cruelty of families and the futility of ambition, set amidst the wilderness of Anc

Ada Lovelace: Prophet of the computer age [audio 43min]

Deep in the heart of the Pentagon is a network of computers. They control the US military, the most powerful army on the planet, and are in turn controlled by a programming language called Ada. It's named after Ada Lovelace, the allegedly hard drinking 19th century mathematician and daughter of Lord Byron. In her work with Charles Babbage on a steam driven calculating machine, Ada understood, perhaps before anyone else, what a computer might truly be. Ada Lovelace has been called many things --

Don't shoot, G-Man, don't shoot! [audio 15min]

J Edgar Hoover, already having achieved iconic status, takes on the big gangsters of the 1930s in Part 2 of Tom Mangold's 10-part series looking at the first 100 years of the FBI. Mangold is an award-winning investigative journalist and author. See March 3rd 2008 posting for more details on this series.

FBI has a good war [audio 15min]

FBI agents forestall the Nazi threat in their own homeland and take the fight to South America in Part 3 of Tom Mangold's 10-part series looking at the first 100 years of the FBI. Mangold is an award-winning investigative journalist and author. See March 3rd 2008 posting for more details on this series.

What's the point of the Archbishop of Canterbury? [audio 30min]

In light of the recent remarks by Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, about the inevitability of sharia law taking force in the UK, journalist Quentin Letts takes a witty but thought-provoking look at the great British institution of the Archbishopric of Canterbury.

Wagner's 'Tristan and Isolde' traced back to Celtic Drystan and Essylt [audio 30min]

Welsh poet Twm Morys explores the legend of Tristan and Isolde, one of the world's most enduring love stories. Immortalised by Richard Wagner in his 1865 opera, the story predates this by over 1,000 years. Wagner based his text on medieval sources, which themselves derive from a much earlier oral tradition.

FBI history series starts on BBC Radio 4 [audio 15min]

"In the Beginning" is Part 1 of Tom Mangold's new 10-part series looking at the first 100 years of the FBI. Mangold narrates the story and also talks to past – and serving – agents. The series takes listeners from the Bureau's inception in 1908, when it had only a handful of members with jurisdiction over just seven federal crimes, to its 21st-century international fight against cyber crime and the"war on terror". For a century, the FBI has brilliantly marketed itself as the epitome of crime-fig