In Our Time Folgen

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the plague that broke out in Constantinople 541AD, in the reign of Emperor Justinian. According to the historian Procopius, writing in Byzantium at the time, this was a plague by which the whole human race came near to being destroyed, embracing the whole world, and blighting the lives of all mankind. The bacterium behind the Black Death has since been found on human remains from that time, and the symptoms described were the same, and evidence of this plague has since been traced around the Mediterranean and from Syria to Britain and Ireland. The question of how devastating it truly was, though, is yet to be resolved.With John Haldon Professor of Byzantine History and Hellenic Studies Emeritus at Princeton UniversityRebecca Flemming Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of CambridgeAndGreg Woolf Director of the Institute of Classical Studies, University of LondonProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss F Scott Fitzgerald’s finest novel, published in 1925, one of the great American novels of the twentieth century. It is told by Nick Carraway, neighbour and friend of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby. In the age of jazz and prohibition, Gatsby hosts lavish parties at his opulent home across the bay from Daisy Buchanan, in the hope she’ll attend one of them and they can be reunited. They were lovers as teenagers but she had given him up for a richer man who she soon married, and Gatsby is obsessed with winning her back.The image above is of Robert Redford as Gatsby in a scene from the film 'The Great Gatsby', 1974. WithSarah Churchwell Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of LondonPhilip McGowan Professor of American Literature at Queen’s University, BelfastAndWilliam Blazek Associate Professor and Reader in American Literature at Liverpool Hope UniversityProduced by Simon Tillotson and Julia Johnson

To celebrate Melvyn Bragg’s 27 years presenting In Our Time, five well-known fans of the programme have chosen their favourite episodes. Guy Garvey, lyricist and lead singer of the band Elbow, has selected the episode on eclipses, first broadcast in December 2020. Solar eclipses are some of life’s most extraordinary moments, when day becomes night and the stars come out before day returns either all too soon or not soon enough, depending on what you understand to be happening. In ancient China, for example, there was a story that a dragon was eating the sun and it had to be scared away by banging pots and pans if the sun were to return. Total lunar eclipses are more frequent and last longer, with a blood moon coloured red like a sunrise or sunset. Both events have created the chance for scientists to learn something remarkable, from the speed of light, to the width of the Atlantic, to the roundness of the Earth, to discovering helium and proving Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.With Carolin Crawford Public Astronomer based at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge and a fellow of Emmanuel CollegeFrank Close Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of OxfordAndLucie Green Professor of Physics and a Royal Society University Research Fellow at Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College LondonProducers: Simon Tillotson and Julia JohnsonSpanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the people, ideas, events and discoveries that have shaped our world. In Our Time is a BBC Studios production