As part of the BBC's year of science programming, Melvyn Bragg looks at the history of the oldest scientific learned society of them all: the Royal Society. The horrors of the First World War were a shocking indictment of the power of science. Picking up the thread at this hiatus in scientific optimism, this programme, recorded in the current home of the Royal Society in Carlton House Terrace in London, looks at the more subtle, discreet role the Society played in the 20th century, such as secretly arranging for refugee scientists to flee Germany, co-ordinating international scientific missions during the Cold War and quietly distributing government grant money to fund the brightest young researchers in the land. As ever more important scientific issues face the world and Britain today, the programme asks how well placed the Royal Society is to take an important lead in the future.

The podcast explores the history of the Royal Society, the rise of scientist David (Humphrey Davy), power dynamics within the society, the British Association for the Advancement of Science democratizing knowledge, Dickens' satirical view on science, and the evolution of the Royal Society in the late 19th century.

The podcast delves into the history of the Royal Society, including Newton's role, international relations with scientists like Benjamin Franklin, and the Society's embedding in imperial bureaucracy. It explores the Industrial Revolution and the challenges faced by the Society in the 18th century, highlighting significant figures like Joseph Banks and Captain Bligh

As part of the BBC's year of science programming, Melvyn Bragg looks at the history of the oldest scientific learned society of them all: the Royal Society. Melvyn travels to Wadham College, Oxford, where under the shadow of the English Civil War, the young Christopher Wren and friends experimented in the garden of their inspirational college warden, John Wilkins. Back in London, as Charles II is brought to the throne from exile, the new Society is formally founded one night in Gresham College. When London burns six years later, it is two of the key early Fellows of the Society who are charged with its rebuilding. And, as Melvyn finds out, in the secret observatory in The Monument to the fire, it is science which flavours their plans.

Melvyn Bragg and guests John Mullan, Karen O'Brien and Barbara Taylor discuss the life and ideas of the pioneering British Enlightenment thinker Mary Wollstonecraft.Mary Wollstonecraft was born in 1759 into a middle-class family whose status steadily sank as her inept, brutal, drunken father frittered away the family fortune. She did what she could to protect her mother from his aggression; meanwhile, her brother was slated to inherit much of the remaining fortune, while she was to receive nothing.From this unpromising but radicalising start, Wollstonecraft's career took a dizzying trajectory through a bleak period as a governess to becoming a writer, launching a polemical broadside against the political star of the day, witnessing the bloodshed of the French Revolution up close, rescuing her lover's stolen ship in Scandanavia, then marrying one of the leading philosophers of the day, William Godwin, and with him having a daughter who - though she never lived to see her grow up - would go on to write Frankenstein.But most importantly, in 1792, she published her great work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which marks her out as one of the great thinkers of the British Enlightenment, with a much stronger, more lasting influence than Godwin. The Vindication was an attempt to apply the Enlightenment logic of rights and reason to the lives of women. Yet it was not a manifesto for the extension of the vote or the reform of divorce law, but a work of political philosophy. And surprisingly, as recent scholarship has highlighted, it was infused with Rational Dissenting Christianity, which Wollstonecraft had absorbed during her time as a struggling teacher and writer in north London.John Mullan is Professor of English at University College, London; Karen O'Brien is Professor of English at the University of Warwick; Barbara Taylor is Professor of Modern History in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of East London.

Experts Gregory Irvine, Nicola Liscutin, and Angus Lockyer discuss the complex role of Samurai in Japanese culture, beyond their fierce warrior image. From their origins as rural warriors to becoming bureaucrats, the Samurai underwent identity crisis and adaptation in times of peace. The podcast explores their influence on national identity, Zen Buddhism, and Western impact in the 19th century.

Mathematical experts Serafina Cuomo, John O'Connor, and Ian Stewart discuss the enigmatic Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans. They delve into the mystical beliefs of the Pythagoreans, their unique code of living, and the profound impact of Pythagorean ideas on Western science and philosophy. Explore the Pythagoreans' fascination with numbers, their influence on modern science, and their unconventional cosmology that challenged traditional views.

Melvyn Bragg and guests Tim Barrett, Naomi Standen and Frances Wood discuss the Silk Road, the trade routes which spanned Asia for over a thousand years, carrying Buddhism to China and paper-making and gunpowder westwards.In 1900, a Taoist monk came upon a cave near the Chinese town of Dunhuang. Inside, he found thousands of ancient manuscripts. They revealed a vast amount of evidence about the so-called Silk Road: the great trade routes which had stretched from Central Asia, through desert oases, to China, throughout the first millennium.Besides silk, the Silk Road helped the dispersion of writing and paper-making, coinage and gunpowder, and it was along these trade routes that Buddhism reached China from India. The history of these transcontinental links reveals a dazzlingly complex meeting and mingling of civilisations, which lasted for well over a thousand years.With:Tim Barrett is Professor of East Asian History at the School of Oriental and African Studies; Naomi Standen is Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at Newcastle University; Frances Wood is Head of the Chinese Section at the British Library.

Guests Melvyn Bragg, Roy Foster, Jeri Johnson, and Katherine Mullin discuss James Joyce's novel, 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.' They explore the protagonist's struggles with family, church, and societal expectations. The podcast dives into Joyce's experimental approach in depicting psychological complexities and the lasting influence of the novel on literary experimentation. Other topics include the cultural nationalism in Joyce's time, the protagonist's evolution from autobiographical to artistic representation, the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, identity conflicts, language nuances, religious symbolism, and Stephen's adolescent sexuality.

Melvyn Bragg and guests delve into the militaristic world of Sparta, contrasting its brutal culture with Athens. They discuss Spartan training, political system, poetry, and the influential role of Spartan women. The podcast explores Sparta's legacy, including the historic battle of Thermopylae and its impact on Greek history.