The Forum

Greenwood was an African American success story: a thriving, wealthy district of Tulsa. Over the course of two days at the end of May 1921 it was the scene of looting, rioting and murder. After 18 hours the area was razed to the ground by vigilantes. One eye witness said it looked like the world was coming to an end with bullets.Nobody to this day has been able to establish the true number of deaths. Some put the figure in the hundreds, with casualties on both sides. The community rebuilt itself however, and today it’s the focus of a multi-million dollar investment and education programme.Joining Rajan Datar to examine the events of 1921 are Carol Anderson, the Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies at Emory University and the author of White Rage; Hannibal B Johnson, lawyer and author of numerous books on the city’s history including the forthcoming Black Wall Street 100: An American City Grapples With Its Historical Racial Trauma and John W Franklin, cultural historian and former senior manager at the Smithsonian National Museum for African American History and Culture in Washington DC. He’s also the grandson of Buck Colbert Franklin, a lawyer and leading community figure who survived the massacre.There is language in the programme which reflects the historical records and accounts recorded at the time of the events in Tulsa, which some listeners may find offensive.(Image: The aftermath of the Tulsa Race Massacre at east corner of Greenwood Avenue and East Archer Street. Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

Queen Tamar was one of Georgia’s most iconic and colourful rulers, a powerful medieval sovereign who controlled large parts of the Caucasus and the eastern side of the Black Sea and forged strong cultural links with both the Byzantine West and the Persian South. Her influence extended beyond the battlefield: she presided over the last phase of the Georgian ‘Golden Age’ which saw the building of classic Georgian churches and a flowering of the Arts that produced one of Georgia’s most important poets. So who was Queen Tamar? How did she rise to power and outmanoeuvre her enemies? And why do the myths about her rule publicised by her faithful chroniclers persist till today? Bridget Kendall is joined by Dr. Ekaterine Gedevanishvili, Senior Researcher at the National Centre for the History of Georgian Art in Tbilisi; Alexander Mikaberidze, Professor of History at Louisiana State University; Dr. Sandro Nikolaishvili, researcher at the University of Southern Denmark, who works on retracing connections between the Byzantine and Georgian worlds; and Donald Rayfield, Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary, University of London.(Image: Queen Tamar, detail of a mural in Vardzia monastery, Georgia, c. 12th century. Credit: G. Chubinashvili National Research Centre for Georgian Art History and Heritage Preservation, Tbilisi)

The Huguenots gave the word 'refugee' to the English language - they were French protestants escaping religious persecution, who fled from France to neighbouring states between the 16th and 18th centuries. Despite their early experience of violence and religious upheaval, they are widely celebrated for their contribution as migrants, famously as silk weavers and silversmiths, traders and teachers.Joining Bridget Kendall to discuss the Huguenots and their global legacy are three experts: Owen Stanwood is Associate Professor of History at Boston College in the United States and is the author of 'The Global Refuge: Huguenots in an Age of Empire'; Ruth Whelan is Professor of French at Maynooth University in Ireland, where she researches the religious and intellectual culture of French Protestants between 1680 and 1730; and Kathy Chater is a London-based historian and genealogist. She’s the author of 'Tracing Your Huguenot Ancestors'.Image: Engraving depicting French Huguenot refugees as they landed in Dover Image Credit: adoc-photos / Getty Images

As scientists around the world look for ways to combat COVID-19, the only human disease ever to be eradicated by vaccination could provide us with some insights.Since 1979 the world has been free from smallpox. But before the WHO’s concerted effort to eradicate the disease, it claimed millions of victims every year. It’s estimated that 300 million people died from it in the 20th century alone, and those who survived were often left with disfiguring scars or sometimes blind. Such was its destructive power, some commentators have argued that smallpox changed the course of human history, wiping out indigenous populations and allowing imperial nations to colonise new territories with little resistance. The English doctor Edward Jenner developed the first vaccine against smallpox in 1796. This procedure laid the foundations for immunisation programmes which have saved hundreds of millions of lives ever since, by giving people protection against a whole range of diseases - not just smallpox.Joining Bridget Kendall to discuss the history of smallpox are Professor Gareth Williams, author of Angel of Death: The Story of Smallpox; former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US, Dr Bill Foege who worked on the WHO smallpox eradication programme in Africa and India, and Dr Anne-Marie Moulin, author of The Vaccine Adventure.(Photo: Man with smallpox in the Middle East, 1898. Credit: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)

There is a great deal of mystery surrounding the poems attributed to the female Kashmiri poet, mystic and sage known as Lal Ded or Lalla. There are no records of her life but what is beyond doubt is the vitality, wisdom and endurance of her work. Her poems, usually just four lines long, have been around for centuries and remain so popular that some of them have passed into everyday speech in Kashmir. Lal Ded’s poems are also celebrated for their independence of thought and spirit and for challenging stereotypical images of what counts as female poetry during the Middle Ages. Rajan Datar is joined by leading Kashmiri writer and translator Neerja Mattoo; poet Ranjit Hoskote, author of a complete rendering of Lalla's poetry into English; Andrew Schelling, professor of poetry at Naropa University in Colorado who has translated and edited Indian devotional poetry for many years; and Dean Accardi, professor of history at Connecticut College who specialises in medieval Kashmir.(Photo: a woman at sunset. Credit: rvimages/Getty Images)

The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt is one of the greatest wonders of the ancient world. It is the largest pyramid ever built and even today, with advanced satellite and thermal imaging and other high tech science, we don’t know everything about the pyramid- exactly what’s inside or how it was built. To explore the history of The Great Pyramid - also known as the Pyramid of Khufu, after the Pharaoh who commissioned it as his tomb - Rajan Datar is joined by Salima Ikram, Distinguished University Professor and Egyptology Unit Head at the American University in Cairo, space archaeologist Sarah Parcak, a National Geographic fellow and Professor at Birmingham University Alabama in the USA, and Professor Joyce Tyldesley, an archaeologist and Egyptologist from the University of Manchester in the UK.Photo: The Pyramids at Giza (Getty Images)

”People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it.” Ray Bradbury has been acclaimed as the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream but, as the quote above shows, he regarded himself as the author of modern philosophical fables, rather than a sci-fi writer. In his dystopian works, such as Fahrenheit 451, he holds up a mirror to contemporary society and then transposes it into fantastical and futuristic scenarios. Bradbury was a prolific writer who tried his hand at everything from poems and novels to TV and radio scripts but it’s his early short stories which he produced in his twenties that are perhaps the most imaginative.To mark the centenary of Bradbury’s birth, Rajan Datar is joined by three Bradbury experts to help him navigate through the author’s prodigious output: Professor Jonathan Eller from Indiana University who is also the Director of the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies; Dr. Miranda Corcoran who teaches American literature at University College Cork with particular interest in science fiction, horror and the gothic; and Dr. Phil Nichols who combines research into Bradbury's TV and other media work with the teaching of Film and Television Production at Wolverhampton University. (Photo: Ray Bradbury in Los Angeles, circa 1980. Credit Michael Montfort/Pix/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

In 476, the last of the Roman emperors in the West was deposed; in 1776, historian Edward Gibbon wrote “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, and Rome’s fate became a major point of comparison for all empires. In Gibbon's view, instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed precisely 1300 years before, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. Ever since, there has been a fascination with what changed in Rome in 476 and why, and whether there were more significant changes earlier or later than that date and, importantly, what stayed the same.In this edition of The Forum, Rajan Datar explores the ideas about Rome’s Fall with Sarah E. Bond, Associate Professor of History at the University of Iowa, USA; Meaghan McEvoy, Lecturer in Byzantine Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia; and Peter Heather, Professor of Medieval History at King’s College London, UK.(Photo: Sack of Rome by the Visigoths led by Alaric I in 410. Coloured engraving. Credit: Prisma/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Pablo Picasso is commonly regarded as one of the most influential artists of the 20th Century, changing our way of seeing with his radical innovation and revolutionary approach. As pioneer of Cubism, godfather to the Surrealists, and creator of the enduring anti-war painting Guernica, he produced thousands of paintings in his lifetime, not to mention his sculptures, ceramics, stage designs, poetry and plays.Rajan Datar discusses his life and work with curators Ann Temkin and Katharina Beisiegel, and art historian Charlie Miller.(Photo: Pablo Picasso in 1955. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

'War and Peace' by the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy charts the story of Russia during the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th century, covering the pandemonium and brutality of the battlefield, as well as the equally intense dramas and loves of several families. It is a monumental novel, tracking the fortunes of dozens of brilliantly drawn individuals, with a cast of more than six hundred characters, both historical and fictional. So why is 'War and Peace' still such a compelling masterpiece, and why did Tolstoy later disown it?Joining Bridget Kendall are Dr Galina Alexeeva, head of Research at Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy’s former country estate in Russia; Andrei Zorin, Professor of Russian at Oxford University and author of a new biography of Tolstoy, and Professor Donna Orwin, author of 'Simply Tolstoy', who’s from the University of Toronto in Canada. (Image: Anthony Hopkins as Pierre Bezukhov in the 1972 BBC 20- part dramatization of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Credit: BBC Copyright pictures)