Travels Through Time

In each episode we ask a leading historian, novelist or public figure the tantalising question, ”If you could travel back through time, which year would you visit?” Once they have made their choice, then they guide us through that year in three telling scenes. We have visited Pompeii in 79AD, Jerusalem in 1187, the Tower of London in 1483, Colonial America in 1776, 10 Downing Street in 1940 and the Moon in 1969. Featured in the Guardian, Times and Evening Standard. Presented weekly by Sunday Times bestselling writer Peter Moore, award-winning historian Violet Moller and Artemis Irvine.

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Episodes

Tracy Borman: Elizabeth I and the Spanish Armada (1588)

Historians often refer to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I as being England’s Golden Age. And of all the forty-five years in which she was the monarch, the year 1588 stands out as the most dramatic. It was a year of peril, a year of valour and a year of heartbreak. In this episode bestselling historian and novelist Tracy Borman takes us back to the anxiety-ridden days of 1588. We watch on as the queen makes a speech that will pass into legend. We hover close by as one of her most famous portraits ...

Nov 16, 2021•48 min•Season 5Ep. 12

Robert Lyman: A War of Empires (1944)

On this Remembrance Day the eminent historian Robert Lyman takes us to Burma, a country that was the crucible of action for a range of competing powers in the Second World War. In Burma the invading Japanese confronted the British, India, Chinese and Americans in a story that really became, as Lyman makes plain, ‘a war of empires.’ * For thirty years Robert Lyman has been studying the war in the Far East. While not as well-known as the conflict with the Nazis in Europe, events in south east Asia...

Nov 11, 2021•58 min•Season 5Ep. 11

Robert Sackville-West: The Missing of the First World War (1915)

The Armistice in 1918 might have brought an end to the violence. But for many families it did not mean the end of the story. In 1918 the whereabouts of more than half a million British soldiers alone remained unknown. These were often very young people, drawn from all walks of life, right across Britain. They were people who had simply vanished into the battlefields. In this episode Robert Sackville-West takes us back to the desperate days of the First World War a century ago. He shows us how Br...

Nov 09, 2021•57 min•Season 5Ep. 10

James Clark: The Dissolution of the Monasteries (1540)

Long into the sixteenth century monasteries remained a familiar and vital part of English society. Wherever you were in the kingdom – Yorkshire, Cornwall, London, the Lakes – it was almost certain that there was a monastery just a short walk away. And yet within a few short years in the 1530s, 850 of these institutions vanished for good. The dissolution of the monasteries really was, today's guest, James Clark argues, ‘the great drama of Henry VIII’s Reformation’. It was the process that had 'th...

Nov 02, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Season 5Ep. 9

Malcolm Gaskill: An Execution and a Witch (1649)

On a cold midwinter’s day in 1649, King Charles I stepped onto a platform in Whitehall. He knelt down and said a prayer. Then he stretched his arms forward to signal that he was ready to die. As the axe swung down, the crowd that had gathered emitted a sound that was later recalled as a ‘collective groan.’ The killing of a king, an unheard of act, brought a shocking end to a destructive decade of civil war in England. In this episode of the historian Malcolm Gaskill explains how that act was see...

Oct 29, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 5Ep. 8

Justine Picardie: Miss Dior (1947)

Writer and journalist Justine Picardie takes us back to 1947 to meet resistance fighter Catherine Dior. The youngest sister of the renowned French designer, Catherine’s story of survival during World War 2 is one of great courage and it is being told at last. * In 1947, Christian Dior launched his debut collection in Paris and became a sensation. His designs were characterised by enormous, fairy-tale-like skirts and hyper-feminine silhouettes. It was christened the ‘New Look’ by the editor of Ha...

Oct 26, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 5Ep. 7

Garry J Shaw: Ancient Egypt and Tutankhamun (c.1335 BC)

Tutankhamun. That one word is enough to conjure up enticing images of Ancient Egypt: dashing chariots, mighty temples, little skiffs sailing on the Nile and, most of all, the king's own transfixing Golden Mask. But who really was Tutankhamun, this figure who has come to represent so much? In this episode we are joined by the Egyptologist Garry J. Shaw who takes us back to the age of Tutankhamun in the second millennium BC. This was, Shaw explains, an exhilarating time to be alive. Great temples ...

Oct 19, 2021•1 hr•Season 5Ep. 6

Neil Oliver: Skara Brae (2,500 BC)

Today we speak to the archeologist and broadcaster Neil Oliver, a figure familiar to millions in the UK. While Oliver's television work has taken him around the world, he retains a special connection to his Scottish homeland. One historical site, in particular, continues to enchant him: Skara Brae. Skara Brae on the wind scoured Orkney Islands is the best-preserved Neolithic settlement in all of western Europe. Embedded inside its stone houses and in the surviving monuments are tantalising clues...

Oct 14, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Season 5Ep. 5

Michael Pye: The City at the Hub of the World (1549)

In the sixteenth-century there was nowhere quite like Antwerp. Tolerant, energetic, independent, vibrant; Antwerp sat at the heart of a busy and growing trading network. After the Portuguese moved the spice trade to Antwerp it became a fierce rival to Venice. It was a place that many came to call. 'the city at the hub of the world.' Today’s guest is the historian, columnist and broadcaster Michael Pye. For many years Pye has been investigating Antwerp’s distinctive culture and unique place in Eu...

Oct 05, 2021•49 min•Season 5Ep. 4

Susan Denham Wade: The Gutenberg Press (1454)

Today’s exhilarating episode takes us on a trip to the fifteenth-century, to see one of the greatest of all technological inventions at the moment of its creation: the Gutenberg Press. Until the mid-fifteenth century European society had had a predominantly oral culture. The books that did exist were expensive manuscripts, produced by scribes in scriptoriums, each of them taking weeks or months to complete. At the Frankfurt Trade Fair in 1454 something appeared that would change this. Among the ...

Oct 01, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 5Ep. 3

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