HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: The official website for BBC History Magazine
date: 2025-10-25T15:28:03.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: The place where TIME began | A history of GMT
items: Love learning like Æthelstan
items: My history hero: Katya Adler chooses Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–2012)
items: My history hero: Dame Stephanie Shirley chooses Tommy Flowers (1905–98)
items: Reshaping narratives, repatriation and Richard III : 25 lessons we've learnt from history in the last 25 years
items: Nikola Tesla: life of the week
items: The female codebreakers of Bletchley Park
items: My history hero: James Coomarasamy chooses Andrei Sakharov (1921–89)
items: British TV history: everything you wanted to know
items: 2024 in review: history behind the headlines

The place where TIME began | A history of GMT
type: item
date: 2025-10-25T15:27:20.000Z
creator: Elinor Evans
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: On location at Royal Observatory, Greenwich in southeast London, HistoryExtra's Elinor Evans unpacks how astronomers, mathematicians, and global powers collaborated to create Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
encoded: Long before smartphones and digital clocks, time was a local affair, creating chaos, confusion and even danger. On location at Royal Observatory, Greenwich in southeast London, HistoryExtra's Elinor Evans unpacks how astronomers, mathematicians, and global powers collaborated to create Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Joined by Louise Devoy, Senior Curator of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, we investigate the milestone innovations in this story, including the story of the Observatory Time Ball, the Shepherd Motor Clock, and George Biddell Airy's meridian Prime Meridian. From solving longitude at sea to defining timezones for the entire planet, this is the story of how we learned to master time. View Green Video on the source website Find out more about the history of time, space and navigation and plan a visit to the Royal Observatory

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Love learning like Æthelstan
type: item
date: 2025-09-22T08:00:48.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove
subject: Anglo-Saxon
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical people
subject: Medieval kings and queens
description: The first king of the English can teach us valuable lessons about how to navigate a world revolutionised by AI, says Professor David Woodman
encoded: Are we losing the need to learn? That’s one of the things that people are worrying about with the advent of AI. Feels like a fair concern to me. Rather than learning something yourself, you can ask AI to tell you the answer, translate something for you, tell you how to fix something, even transcribe a medieval manuscript, if that’s your bag. It’s all a bit too easy, isn’t it, and humans, like water, tend to seek out the easiest route, the path of least resistance. So that’s potentially a pretty big problem. If we don’t need to learn, will we bother to learn, and if we don’t bother to learn, are our minds going to atrophy? Academics talk about ‘digital dementia’, and researchers are looking at whether AI is going to cause a general downturn in our cognitive abilities. Unless something changes, and with AI’s rapid development, chances are that we won’t actually need to learn in the future, or at least not in the same way that we do today. So maybe we need to learn to love learning, if we’re going to avoid falling victim to brain rot. And that, perhaps surprisingly, is where Æthelstan, first king of England, comes into the mix. Creator of the kingdom Æthelstan, to remind you, was the grandson of King Alfred the Great, son of King Edward the Elder. Crowned in 925 in Kingston-upon-Thames (an event marked to this day by a tooth-shaped stone ringed by Victorian railings on the side of the road), Æthelstan went on to create the kingdom of England as we recognise it today. Famously he won a substantial victory over an alliance of his adversaries at the battle of Brunanburh in the year 937. Read more | King Æthelstan: England's colossus Professor David Woodman, from Cambridge University, is Æthelstan’s most recent biographer, and he is a keen observer of the apparently contradictory sides of the character of the man: “One of the great paradoxes of early medieval history is that Æthelstan absolutely was a great military figure. He was somebody who secured his position by milit…

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My history hero: Katya Adler chooses Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–2012)
type: item
date: 2025-09-12T07:30:07.000Z
creator: York Membery
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: History hero
description: Journalist and broadcaster Katya Adler chooses Rita Levi-Montalcini as her history hero
encoded: In profile Rita Levi-Montalcini was a renowned neurobiologist who was a joint winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of nerve growth factor. Born in Turin to Italian Jewish parents, her early career was hindered by Mussolini’s Racial Laws and she had to go into hiding during the Nazi occupation of Italy. In 1992, she established a foundation to boost girls’ science education in Africa, and 10 years later she set up the European Brain Research Institute. When did you first hear about Rita Levi-Montalcini? When I had to help my daughter find an inspirational woman in history for a school research project. Rita, who achieved such amazing things against the odds, really struck a chord with me and my daughter. Her life story also provides a new lens on a fascinating period in history. What kind of woman was she? Rita was a strong, determined, intelligent woman, but was born in the early 20th century – still a sexist time. Initially wanting to be a writer, she went into medicine after a close family friend died of stomach cancer. She was an outstanding student but, as a Jew in Fascist Italy, she was barred from working at a university. Headstrong Rita set up a laboratory in her bedroom instead. When the Germans invaded Italy in 1943, she was hidden by non-Jewish Italians to save her from a concentration or death camp, and continued her research in an ‘underground’ laboratory. What made her a hero? First and foremost, her medical research, which is key to our understanding of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. She’s one of only 25 women to have won a Nobel prize for science, so that was a massive triumph. I also love the fact that, despite the difficulties she faced, Rita never gave up. She always kept hope alive – continuing with her scientific research until she died, aged 103. Another thing I admire is the way she championed both the young and the elderly. Her motto was “add life to your years” – make the best of things and live li…

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My history hero: Dame Stephanie Shirley chooses Tommy Flowers (1905–98)
type: item
date: 2025-08-22T06:00:00.000Z
creator: York Membery
subject: 20th Century
subject: Period
subject: History hero
description: The late tech pioneer and philanthropist Dame Stephanie Shirley, who died in August 2025 aged 91, chose Tommy Flowers as a history hero
encoded: In profile Tommy Flowers was a British engineer with the Post Office. He’s best known for designing and building Colossus, the world’s first programmable electronic computer, which helped decrypt German messages during the Second World War. After the end of the conflict, Flowers continued to work for the Post Office, where he was involved in developing ERNIE, the random number generator used to pick Premium Bond winners. When did you first hear about Flowers? I had the privilege of working as a member of his team (on the first electronic telephone exchange, and later ERNIE) at the Post Office Research Station in Dollis Hill in the 1950s, when it was one of the leading research institutions in the world. However, he was a very senior figure in the organisation so my interaction with him was limited. I understood that he’d done something remarkable during the war, but the Official Secrets Act was taken very seriously in those days, and the story of Colossus didn’t really emerge until the 1970s. What kind of man was he? He was born in London’s East End, the son of a bricklayer and the grandson of a charlady. Growing up, money was tight and he was taught to be frugal. While doing an engineering apprenticeship, he took evening classes, gained a degree in electrical engineering and went on to have a distinguished career. I always found him polite, unassuming, and never sexist. What made him a hero? Because he changed the course of history, not once but twice. First, with his Colossus computer, which decrypted a huge number of high-level German messages during the Second World War, part of work estimated to have curtailed the conflict by up to two years. Second, with his pioneering work on early computers that paved the way for the modern digital world. He was also inspirational to me personally, as the sort of manager I wanted to become: he listened to his staff, got quality work out of them and attracted great loyalty. He was the nearest thing to a mentor to me. What was…

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Reshaping narratives, repatriation and Richard III : 25 lessons we've learnt from history in the last 25 years
type: item
date: 2025-06-18T08:00:37.000Z
subject: 21st Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Debate
subject: Historical events
subject: Historical people
description: To celebrate a quarter-century of BBC History Magazine, we asked 25 expert contributors to nominate the most important historical discoveries and revelations since the publication launched in 2000
encoded: 1. Women played major roles in the Viking Age Just 25 years ago, there seemed to be little new to say about the Vikings – and that was particularly the case for Viking women. The centuries-old consensus was that Viking wives and daughters stayed at home, passively watching as the Viking Age unfolded around them. New technologies have forced a rethink, though, completely revolutionising what we know about Viking women. The first significant discovery came from a systematic survey of a nationwide database of metal-detected female dress jewellery. This demonstrated for the first time that Scandinavian women migrated to England in substantial numbers. Next, isotope analysis of teeth from the graves of Viking women showed that they had formed a key part of the migration process elsewhere, too, moving across the Viking world alongside their families. The most dramatic and most debated discovery, however, came through analysis of ancient DNA. In Birka, Sweden, an individual buried in a high-status warrior grave turned out to be biologically female. This led to a worldwide discussion of the roles of Viking women: we now agree that, though many certainly did stay at home, some played active roles in trade, craft and manufacturing processes, and even held military positions. Cat Jarman is an archaeologist, author and TV presenter. Her books include The Bone Chests: Unlocking the Secrets of the Anglo-Saxons (William Collins, 2023) 2. Britain has been culturally diverse for far longer than most believed The murder of George Floyd by white police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020 signalled a turning point in the way the histories of people of African descent were taught and perceived across Europe. From that moment, the British press and institutions felt that they had to engage better with narratives about minority ethnic communities. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/06/GettyImages-1292414316-CMYK-6ff23f7.jpg" width="1451" height="967" alt="…

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Nikola Tesla: life of the week
type: item
date: 2025-05-06T06:30:16.000Z
creator: Ellie Cawthorne
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Life of the week (podcast series)
description: Iwan Morus revisits the life – and myth – of the enigmatic pioneer of electrical power
encoded: Nikola Tesla is remembered as an enigmatic, eccentric genius who harnessed the power of electricity. But if we strip away some of this myth, what can we really say about the inventor's life and legacy? For this Life of the Week episode, Iwan Morus joins Ellie Cawthorne to reveal how Tesla believed he could invent a death ray, whether he was really a recluse, and how he would feel about Elon Musk's company using his name today.

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The female codebreakers of Bletchley Park
type: item
date: 2025-04-01T14:50:42.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Bletchley Park
subject: Family and parenting
description: Historian Tessa Dunlop shines a light on the secret and undervalued work of the women of Bletchley Park, without whom the codebreaking successes of the Second World War could not have happened
encoded: Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire was one of Britain's most famous institutions during the Second World War, home to codebreaking triumphs that turned the tide against the Nazi regime. Britain’s codebreaking operation has been dominated by a male narrative – a star-studded cast of 20th-century brain boxes, led by mathematician Alan Turing. His outstanding role in the creation of the bombe machine, an electromechanical testing device essential for unravelling German Enigma encoded messages, was hugely significant. It is a feat perhaps only rivalled by that of Tommy Flowers, the engineer who designed the even more advanced Colossus, the world’s first programmable computer. Yet Bletchley Park depended on the heft of a predominantly female workforce, not least Turing's own fiancée, Joan Clarke. The women who worked at Bletchley have often been overlooked in this story because, with the exception of three or four female cryptanalysts, the vast majority of top-end codebreakers during the war were men. The story of how girl power – often school-girl power – turned what began as an eccentric experiment into the world’s most impressive codebreaking factory is less well known, but no less important. Who worked at Britain's wartime intelligence factory In 1938, with war on the horizon, the Government Code and Cipher School (GC&CS) – the precursor to the modern GCHQ – temporarily moved out of London, to avoid bombing raids, but by August 1939, its secret home in Bletchley Park had become permanent. Initially, this fledging operation was staffed by just 186 people. ‘Men of a professor type’, particularly mathematicians were targeted, with early recruits including Turing, Gordon Welchman and Alfred Dillwyn Knox. Their work, however, was supported by an expanding team of chiefly civilian women. Perhaps inevitably at the beginning of the war, Establishment Britain recruited from their own when it came to Bletchley’s secret operations. The German military must never know that Britai…

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My history hero: James Coomarasamy chooses Andrei Sakharov (1921–89)
type: item
date: 2025-03-26T08:30:02.000Z
creator: York Membery
subject: Cold War
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: History hero
description: BBC broadcaster James Coomarasamy chooses Andrei Sakharov as a history hero
encoded: In profile Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was a Soviet physicist and, later, dissident awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1975 for championing human rights around the world. After playing a major part in the development of a Soviet hydrogen bomb, he grew concerned about the moral and political implications of his work. In 1980, he was arrested and exiled by Soviet authorities, and later became prominent in political opposition in the USSR. When did you first hear about Sakharov? While I was studying Russian at university in the late 1980s. I spent half a year in Moscow during the Gorbachev era – in fact, I was in the USSR when Sakharov was elected to the Congress of People’s Deputies, the Soviet Union’s first serious experiment with parliamentary democracy. What kind of man was he? He was a brilliant scientist from an intellectual family. He tried to join the Red Army during the Second World War but failed his medical. He then became involved in the Soviet project to design an atomic bomb – he’s been dubbed ‘The father of the hydrogen bomb’. By the 1960s, though, he’d come to the view that the development of nuclear weapons had created the potential for worldwide destruction, and that the lack of individual freedoms in the Soviet Union also posed a danger to global peace. Read more | How have nuclear weapons shaped global politics? 10 key moments in the post-war atomic world What made him a hero? Sakharov used his position as a member of the Soviet elite to try to change the system from within, and used his platform to urge Khrushchev and Brezhnev to stop testing nuclear weapons, protect human rights and find ways to peacefully co-exist with the west. Speaking out came at great personal cost: by the 1970s, he was regarded as a dissident and traitor. He was prevented from collecting his Nobel Peace Prize, and was later arrested and exiled to the closed city of Gorky. Read more | The history of the Nobel Prizes Eventually, though, the courage he displayed paid off. Gorbachev…

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British TV history: everything you wanted to know
type: item
date: 2025-01-26T07:00:14.000Z
creator: Matt Elton
subject: 20th Century
subject: General Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Everything you wanted to know about history (podcast series)
description: David Hendy answers listener questions on the history of television in Britain – from 1950s 'horror plays' to why early presenters were given electric shocks
encoded: From early shows that looked as if they were filmed "in a heavy and persistent shower of rain" to today's multi-platform streaming world, the history of television has been marked by rapid innovation and huge transformation – and has reflected equally rapid social change. In this 'everything you wanted to know' episode, historian David Hendy joins Matt Elton to answer listener questions on a century of British TV.

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2024 in review: history behind the headlines
type: item
date: 2024-12-24T07:30:56.000Z
creator: Matt Elton
subject: 21st Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: History behind the Headlines
description: Hannah Skoda and Rana Mitter look back at the history behind some of the year's biggest news stories in this special episode of our monthly series
encoded: From the rise of AI to a plethora of elections and life-saving vaccines, it's been a busy 12 months. Hannah Skoda and Rana Mitter look back at the history behind some of the biggest stories of the year – and pick their favourite books of 2024, in this special episode of our monthly series.

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