Episodes categorised as 'Factual: History' available now on BBC iPlayer

Intense fighting continues in Romania.

3/6. Ruth has a go at some traditional remedies, and Alex and Peter join a pheasant hunt.

4/4. Chris Ledgard explores the restoration of Sunday trading in August 1994.

Tales of Christmas in years gone by, introduced by Mark Stephen.

Shaun Ley introduces his 1994 documentary in which he interviewed surviving wartime MPs.

Documentary celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Open University, with Lenny Henry.

Marking the 175th anniversary of the destruction of the Palace of Westminster by fire.

Romanian President Ceausescu is caught as he tries to escape.

2/6. As autumn ends, winterproofing begins in earnest: essential work against cold and frost.

2/3. How have world leaders' attitude to global warming changed since the year 2000?

3/3. Exploring the journey games have taken from the board to the screen in the past 30 years.

Updating the story of the gannet hunters of Ness, first broadcast in 1962.

3/4. Michael explores the Hanseatic League, a precursor to modern ideas of European free trade.

Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu is booed in public.

20/20. A 17th century widow's lonely return and a sad goodbye to the Middle East.

1/6. Ruth, Alex and Peter move into a Victorian smallholding on the Acton Scott estate.

FW de Klerk meets Nelson Mandela, Chile elects a civilian president to replace Pinochet.

Cultural historian Richard Weight explores how we decide what is tasty.

Composer Howard Goodall uncovers the surprising history of the Christmas carol.

US forces looking for General Noriega invade Panama.

3/6. Huw Williams walks along a disused railway line, collecting people's stories along the way

Investigating historical mysteries and delving into the past.

Visit some unique moments in local history.

An exploration into how social attitudes towards drink driving have evolved.

5/5. Neil Oliver charts Scotland's industrial and economic decline in the 20th century.

Serious unrest is reported in Romania, with hundreds massacred.

Catherine Bott presents highlights from a concert featuring the ensemble La Fenice.

Events 100 years ago in the Highlands.

5/5. Suzanne Aspden on Handel's uncanny ability to absorb musical and cultural influences.

2/3. The team tackle their biggest project yet: restoring the village blacksmith's forge.

Troops have fired on protestors in Romania.

19/20. From visions of Japanese cherry blossom to presentation at the Russian court.

Events 100 years ago in the Highlands.

4/5. Derek Alsop explores ways in which Handel related his music to the texts he was setting.

Labour select Peter Mandelson to stand as an MP.

18/20. A kidnapping in 1970s Uruguay and the car bomb which killed an Ambassador in Dublin.

John Waite investigates the work of the Vatican Secret Archives laboratory.

3/3. John Simpson returns to Bucharest 20 years after the bloody overthrow of Nicolae Ceausescu

2/3. How Russian art was affected by the change from feudal nation to hotbed of revolution.

Gwrthryfelwyr Cymreig ar hyd y canrifoedd. Welsh rebels over the centuries.

4/5. Neil Oliver looks at how early 19th-century Scotland became a seedbed of revolution.

2/3. A look at the political and social impact that board games have had in the past 200 years.

1/3. In Shropshire there's harvesting to be done before Christmas, and mince pies to be made.

Julia Neuberger gives a lecture about ending prejudice against Britain's senior citizens.

Alan Johnston returns to the Palestinian city of Nablus - once a hotbed of militancy.

1/3. Andrew Graham-Dixon explores the origins of the Russian religious icon.

3/5. How in the 18th century Scotland was transformed into one of the richest nations on Earth.

1/3. By the late Middle Ages gaming had become increasingly associated with gambling.

A debate at the 2009 Free Thinking festival asking what sort of future lies ahead for men.

Allan Little returns to the scene of the Bhopal Union Carbide disaster in India.

2/5. The story of how Scotland and England came together in 1707 to form Great Britain.

Mike Thomson on Churchill's desperate efforts to keep Spain out of the Second World War.

Psychoanalyst Michael Brearley delivers a talk about the nature of leadership.

Did Argentine officers commit war crimes against their own troops in the Falklands War?

1/5. The story of the National Covenant of 1638 - a document that led to the Civil War.

Mike Thomson investigates Britain's role during the 1970 coup in oil-rich Oman.

2/3. John Simpson returns to Prague to speak to those who lived through the Velvet Revolution

A debate about the importance of the rivers of the North East: the Tyne, Tees and Wear.

Vanessa Collingridge investigates the life and times of Hildegard von Bingen.

How Harold Macmillan misled parliament in 1960 over claims of war prisoner brainwashing.

Lisa Jardine on how IVF is changing our ideas about the definition of a family.

Investigating the impact of racial segregation in the US armed forces in Britain in WWII.

Philip Dodd and guests debate which is the greater human achievement - sport or the arts.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband talks to Philip Dodd at 2009's Free Thinking festival.

Vanessa Collingridge presents the series exploring ordinary people's links with the past.

In a special discussion programme, Sir John Tusa explores the fall of the Berlin Wall.

5/5. Why the medieval monk the Venerable Bede is the great Free Thinker of the North East.

4/5. Poet Sean O'Brien charts the growth of Newcastle's Literary and Philosophical Society.

Rana Mitter hosts a public debate: Is The West Losing Its Nerve?

3/5. Henrietta Heald on the achievements of inventor and industrialist William Armstrong.

Innovative music producer William Orbit presents his personal guide to the world of sound.

2/5. Kitty Fitzgerald on the life of Gertrude Bell, author of the 1921 map of modern Iraq.

Philip Dodd meets psychotherapist Gwen Adshead. Contains some disturbing images.

Are some green lanes and place names in southern England a reminder of a Welsh invasion?

1/5. Graeme Rigby discusses T Dan Smith, former leader of Newcastle City Council.

Ken Livingstone asks an audience in Gateshead if the North-South divide still matters.

2/2. Matthew Sweet hosts further conversation and debate about the 2009 Free Thinking festival.

1/2. Matthew Sweet hosts conversation and debate about Radio 3's 2009 Free Thinking festival.

2009's Free Thinking festival opens with Tanya Byron's vision of the 21st-century family.

Residents of Mildenhall remember the aviators who took part in an air race in 1934.

1/3. John Simpson tells the story of 20 years of post-communist life.

Is the skin that binds a book in Bristol the gruesome remains of a listener's ancestor?

Vanessa Collingridge presents the series exploring ordinary people's links with the past.

Could new construction projects be a beacon of hope in today's bleak economic climate?

3/3. The fall of the Shah led to the creation of the world's first Islamic republic.

Vanessa Collingridge presents the series exploring ordinary people's links with the past.

2/3. The oil crisis of the 1950s led to the overthrow of a democratically elected government.

1/3. John Tusa chronicles the making of modern Iran.

Featuring a listener's ancestor who was a hero in a mine rescue in 19th-century Wales.

Vanessa Collingridge presents the series exploring ordinary people's links with the past.

One of the surviving members of the British whaling fleet recalls life on South Georgia.

Vanessa Collingridge presents the series exploring ordinary people's links with the past.

2/2. Nick Fraser considers the role of intellectuals in relation to world events.

Vanessa Collingridge presents the series exploring ordinary people's links with the past.

1/2. Nick Fraser considers the role of intellectuals in relation to world events.

The story of John Bellingham, the only person to murder a British Prime Minister.

The experiences of a painter and decorator from Sale in 19th-century China.

Could a leaf collection in Southport provide valuable historical research?

Investigating the concentration camps set up in France to hold Spanish Civil War refugees.

Helen Mark joins historian Peter Edwards to visit the Worcestershire village of Rushock.

Professor Mark Stoyle goes in search of the Civil War dead from the siege of Lyme Regis.

Historian Professor Richard Holmes explains how the militia worked in the 18th century.

Bridget Long tries to confirm a family story about her late father during World War Two.

8/8. Clement Attlee's lack of charisma did not prevent him transforming post war Britain.

Could a listener's hotel in North Wales once have been the court of Llewellyn the Great?

7/8. Stanley Baldwin led Britain between the wars and was the first premier to master radio.

Why black soldiers in the French army were denied the glory of liberating Paris in 1944.

6/8. David Lloyd George, who led Britain in the First World War with a presidential approach.

Mike examines allegations that the CIA sabotaged a shipment of buses from Britain to Cuba.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Raphael's depiction of Plato and Aristotle.

5/8. Benjamin Disraeli, who turned his skills as a novelist to politics.

Uncovering papers which accused the BBC of biased reporting of the Iranian revolution.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Boxer Rebellion in the summer of 1900.

4/8. Lord Palmerston, whose colourful private life masked his skill at manipulating the press.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Library of Alexandria.

3/8. Sir Robert Peel, who put the national interest before party interest.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the measurement problem in physics.

2/8. Nick asks if history has been fair to Lord North, the prime minister who lost America.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss TS Eliot's seminal poem The Wasteland.

1/8. Sir Robert Walpole, the first and longest-serving prime minister.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the observatory at Jaipur.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Destruction of Carthage

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jonathan Swift's satirical 1729 pamphlet A Modest Proposal

Melvyn Bragg examines how the writing of history has changed over the years.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Great Reform Act of 1832.

Melvyn Bragg examines the 1453 siege of Constantinople which ended the Byzantine Empire.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 5000 year long story of Indian Maths.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss philosophical and evolutionary arguments over altruism.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great achievements of the Enlightenment.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the events that helped trigger the European Reformation.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss pastoral literature from Virgil to Dylan Thomas.

Melvyn Bragg examines the exhibition that showcased Victorian Britain's industrial might.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Emperor Charlemagne and the Carolingian Renaissance.

The history of the formation of the Royal Society, the oldest scientific academy.

Melvyn Bragg considers the importance of the 17th century Spanish novel Don Quixote.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss negative numbers, a history of mystery and suspicion.

Melvyn Bragg explores the concept of friendship; ‘a single soul dwelling in two bodies’.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Empress who transformed and modernized Russia.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English literature.

Melvyn Bragg examines the Abbasid Caliphs, rulers of the Islamic world for 200 years.

Melvyn Bragg examines the controversy and scandal of 17th century print culture.

Melvyn Bragg examines the 1819 Peterloo Massacre and the brutality of the British state.

Melvyn Bragg investigates artificial intelligence; can a computer imitate the human mind?

Melvyn Bragg looks at the religious orders of the Dominicans and the Franciscans.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Cynics, the performance artists of philosophy.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rise of the mammals which began 65 million years ago.

Melvyn Bragg examines the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and Tudor conspicuous consumption.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history and mysterious force of magnetism.

Melvyn Bragg examines the life of glittering Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the return of classical pagan thought in the Renaissance.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the reign of terror during the French Revolution.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the medieval tale of Abelard and Heloise.

Melvyn Bragg examines the history of thought about the mind/body problem in philosophy.

The life and work of the Venerable Bede who revolutionised Christian scholarship.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discusses rhetoric; supported by Aristotle but reviled by Plato.

The life and work of French novelist, playwright and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.

Melvyn Bragg examines the cultural effect of the eighteenth century idea of Politeness.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss when and how life on earth originated.

The history and legacy of the English army's defeat of the French at Agincourt in 1415.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the monster filled epic, Homer’s Odyssey.

Melvyn Bragg examines the number between 1 and -1, once denounced as the devil's work.