Travels Through Time – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Our guest today is the New York Times bestselling historian Charles King, the author of Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times that Made Handel's Messiah.

The Messiah is one of the best known pieces of all classical music and, as King suggests at the beginning of this conversation, it 'may be the world's greatest monument to the possibility of hope'.

To tell us more about how such an extraordinary piece was written, as well as to take us along to its premiere in Dublin in April 1742, King sat down with us for a travel back through time just the other day.

Charles King is the author of Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times that Made Handel's Messiah

Scene One: 13 April, 1742. The words 'Comfort ye/Every Valley' at the premiere of the Messiah in Dublin.

Scene Two: 13 April, 1742. The words 'He Was Despised' at the premiere of the Messiah in Dublin.

Scene Three: 13 April, 1742. The Hallelujah chorus at the premiere of the Messiah in Dublin.

Memento: The original manuscript of Handel's Messiah.

Presenters: Peter Moore and Min Kym

Guest: Charles King

Production: Maria Nolan

Our guest today is Tharik Hussain, a travel writer turned historian who has recently produced  an enchanting study of Europe's Islamic history. To investigate this at close quarters, in this episode he takes us back to Córdoba in the year 929 – the greatest city in Europe at the time, a place of wealth and splendour with a population of around 100,000.

By 929 Córdoba was emerging as a rival power base to Baghdad. At a Friday prayers, early in the year, its ruler Abdul Rahman III declared himself Caliph of the Caliphate of Cordoba, Al Andalus. This was a decisive political move.

Tharik takes us into the Grand Mosque to see this happen and he then guides us on a tour of two more equally intriguing sites.

Tharik Hussain is the author Muslim Europe: A Journey in Search of a Fourteen Hundred Year History

Scene One: Friday Prayers in the Great Mosque of Córdoba. 17 January 929.

Scene Two: Inside a Córdoban hospital, or 'maristan'.

Scene Three: One of the great synagogues of Cordoba in search of a young Jewish boy called Hasdai Ibn Shaprut.

Memento: The plans that were drawn up for AR III’s Caliphate City – Madinah az Zahra. 

Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: Tharik Hussain

Production: Maria Nolan

Theme music: Firelight by Minka

Our guest today is one of the greatest of Britons. Lady Hale was, until her retirement three years ago, the President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom – the most senior judge in the country.

Peter sat down with Lady Hale at her London home for a conversation about her life, her love of history and memoir Spider Woman. After this she took him back to 1925, a pivotal year for the law and women’s rights.

For women, the 1920s were a progressive time. Figures like Eleanor Rathbone and Viscountess Rhonda led movements such as the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship and the Six Point Group. In 1925 three particularly important pieces of legislation passed through Parliament. Here she tells us about each of them.

Lady Hale is the author of Spider Woman.

For more, as ever, visit our website: tttpodcast.com.

Scene One: Administration of Estates Act 1925 (Royal Assent 9 April 1925)

Scene Two: Guardianship of Infants Act 1925 (Royal Assent 31 July 1925)

Scene Three: Widows, Orphans and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act (Royal Assent 7 August 1925)

Memento: Her mother’s tennis racquet.

Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: Lady Hale

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours

Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan

Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_

See where 1925 fits on our Timeline

In this special live episode, recorded at the Buckingham Literary Festival last weekend, the award-winning writer Flora Fraser takes us to one of the most remote places in the British Isles to witness the dramatic story of how her namesake Flora Macdonald helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape after his failed attempt to take the throne from George II.

Their adventure is one of the most romantic and romanticised episodes in our history, sighed over and depicted by succeeding generations seduced by Flora’s bravery and charm.

Flora Fraser is the author of several acclaimed works of history including Beloved Emma: The Life of Emma, Lady Hamilton; Venus of Empire, The Life of Pauline Bonaparte, and The Washingtons.

Her book Pretty Young Rebel, The Life of Flora MacDonald is out now in hardback.

For more, as ever, visit our website: tttpodcast.com.

Scene One: June 1746. The Prince comes to Flora at midnight in South Uist and asks for help. 

Scene Two: September 1746. Flora is a captive on a Royal Navy warship in Leith harbour and a celebrity.

Scene Three: December 1746. The ship bringing Flora South from Leith reaches London.

Memento: The handsomely bound Bible in two volumes that Flora carried down to London, where she was kept a state prisoner into the following year.

Presenter: Violet Moller

Guest: Flora Fraser

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours

Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan

Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_

See where 1746 fits on our Timeline

In this episode the cultural historian Mike Jay takes Peter back to the high Victorian Age to see how a pioneering group of scholars and artists experimented with mind altering drugs.

Jay labels these characters 'psychonauts'. These were daring, romantic figures like Sigmund Freud who championed cocaine as a stimulant, and William James whose experiments with nitrous oxide brought new insights into human consciousness.

Others at this time used drugs more informally. One such person was Robert Louis Stevenson. Suffering from poor health in the mid-1880s he took advantage of the powerful drugs that were easily accessible. A result of this, Jay explains, is Dr Jeykill and Mr Hyde, one of the great short stories in English literature.

Mike Jay is the author of Psychnauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind.

For more, as ever, visit our website: tttpodcast.com.

Scene One: January 1885, Vienna - Sigmund Freud publishes his self-experiments with cocaine.

Scene Two: March 31st 1885, Cambridge, Mass - William James in his study, corresponding with Benjamin Blood and Edmund Gurney about nitrous oxide.

Scene Three: September 1885, Bournemouth - RL Stevenson writes Jekyll & Hyde in three days.

Memento: A branded Merck vial of cocaine 

Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: Mike Jay

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours

Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan

Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_

See where 1885 fits on our Timeline

In this lively episode of Travels Through Time the historian Dr David Veevers takes us to the heart of the seventeenth century to visit three key locations in which the British Empire was being formed, challenged and resisted. 

First, we head to the Deccan Plateau of the Indian Subcontinent to witness a dramatic stand off between the Mughal and Maratha Empires. It would set off a series of events which would eventually lead to the English East India Company acquiring a colony of its own in the region. Next, we cross continents and oceans to meet the Indigenous Kalinago of the Eastern Caribbean as they sign a treaty with the English and French. And finally, David takes us to the west coast of Africa where the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa is launched – an operation that would soon gain a monopoly over the trade in enslaved people in West Africa.

These stories represent just a select few from David’s brilliant new book The Great Defiance: How the World Took On the British Empire. It’s a work of history that challenges our idea of the empire as one in which the British came, saw and conquered.

Dr David Veevers is an award-winning historian and Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Bangor, and was formerly a Leverhulme Fellow in the School of History at Queen Mary, University of London. 

Show Notes

Scene One: January, 1660, Deccan. The Mughal Empire invade the emerging Maratha Empire, setting off a series of events that lead to the sack of Surat and the quest of the English East India Company to acquire a colony of its own in India.

Scene Two: March, 1660, Guadeloupe. An Anglo-French delegation conclude a treaty with the Indigenous Kalinago of the Eastern Caribbean to partition the region between them.

Scene Three: December, 1660, London and West Africa. The Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa is launched, eventually gaining a monopoly over the trade in enslaved people in West Africa.

Momemto: A silver cup that the British allege is stolen by Powhatan people.

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours

Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan

Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_

See where 1660 fits on our Timeline

This week we head to the turbulent world of sixteenth century France to meet three fascinating queens whose lives were inextricably linked – Catherine de' Medici, Elisabeth de Valois and Mary Queen of Scots. They are the subject of our guest today, Leah Redmond Chang's, new book, Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power.

'The royal body exists to be looked at,' Hilary Mantel wrote in her essay "Royal Bodies". For a royal woman especially, this has meant that the most intimate parts of her biology have been closely observed and occasionally used to alter the course of her country's history. Whether she had started menstruating, was fertile, was able to sexually satisfy her husband or provide him with a son and heir could all be details on which massive political decisions were based. As Leah Redmond Chang shows in her wonderful new book, these details of women's lives aren't a sideshow to the main event but, in fact, central to the action.

In this episode we visit 1559 to witness the unexpected and violent death of Henry II of France in a jousting competition. It was a tragic accident that would forever change the lives of his wife, Catherine de' Medici, his daughter, Elisabeth de Valois and his daughter-in-law Mary Queen of Scots.

Show notes

Scene One: June 30-July 10, 1559, Paris. The tragic and violent death of Henry II of France in a jousting accident after the wedding of his daughter, Elisabeth de Valois.

Scene Two: Mid-July 1559, the Louvre. The Spanish Duke of Alba visits the mourning chambers of Catherine de’ Medici.

Scene Three: Late November, 1559, Châtelleraut. The Departure of Catherine’s daughter, Elisabeth de Valois, for Spain.

Momento: Henry II's faulty jousting helmet, and/or the first letter Catherine de' Medici sent to her daughter as she was on her journey to Spain to meet her husband. 

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours

Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan

Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_

See where 1559 fits on our Timeline

The Renaissance was stirred into life by many figures of genius. In this episode Peter meets up with the art historian, Andrew Spira, to talk about three of the great masters in one of the most captivating of years.

In different ways Botticelli, Perugino and Dürer were finding new stories to tell in their paintings. Spira evaluates all of this for us and he detects the emergence of something else that would be of central importance in the emerging Western society. This was a revolutionary new conception: 'the self'.

Andrew Spira is the author of The Invention of the Self: Personal Identity in the Age of Art, among other works. He is also one of the esteemed tour directors at Ace Culutral Tours.

For more, as ever, visit our website: tttpodcast.com.

Scene One: Sandro Botticelli's Mystic Nativity

Scene Two: Pietro Perugino's Resurrection

Scene Three: Albrecht Dürer's Self-portrait

Memento: A Dürer print

Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: Andrew Spira

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours

Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan

Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_

See where 1500 fits on our Timeline

For this week's episode Peter headed in to Penguin's offices in London to meet Serhii Plokhy and talk to him about his new book, The Russo-Ukrainian War. They discussed how a culture of secrecy continues to define Russian society as it did before with the Soviets. They looked at the progress of the war and Putin's failed attempt to found a 'Eurasian Union'.

Following this Serhii revisits the dramatic events of 1991, when he watched on as the Soviet Union collapsed in the most unexpected of ways.

Serhii Plokhy has been described as 'The world's foremost historian of Ukraine' by the Financial Times. His new book, The Russo-Ukrainian War, is available in hardback now.

For more, as ever, visit our website: tttpodcast.com.

Scene One: August 1991. Moscow during the attempted coup

Scene Two: Late August. Edmonton, Canada. The Canadian prime minister pledges to recognize Ukrainian independence

Scene Three: 25 December. Mikhail Gorbachev's Resignation Address

Memento: Serhii Plokhy's aeroplane ticket from 1991

Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: Serhii Plokhy

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours

Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan

Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_

See where 1991 fits on our Timeline

It's time to delve into our archive. In this brilliantly descriptive and entertaining episode, the award-winning writer and satirist Craig Brown takes us on a cultural tour of 1963. We discuss the Great Train Robbery, the Beatles meteoric rise to fame and the assassination of JFK.

For much, much more about all this and to be the first to see the amazing new colourised photograph of the Beatles in Washington DC at their first US concert – head to our website.

Scene One: August 1963, lingering with the robbers in their hide-out at Leatherslade Farm.

Scene Two: Second half of 1963, Jane Asher's family home, Wimpole Street, to see/be Paul McCartney, living with the Ashers, at the time of the first flush of the Beatles’ success.

Scene Three: November 23 1963. In the Texas School Book depository with Lee Harvey Oswald as he shoots President Kennedy.

Memento: Paul McCartney’s handwritten lyrics for ‘Yesterday’

Presenter: Peter Moore

Interview: Artemis Irvine

Guest: Craig Brown

Producer: Maria Nolan

Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_

Podcast Partner: ColorGraph

Craig Brown’s book One, Two, Three Four: The Beatles in Time is available now from 4th Estate books.