Frida Kahlo, the iconic and flamboyant Mexican painter, is one of the most famous female artists of our age. Her rebellious and subversive works are instantly recognisable. Many are self-portraits depicting an arresting dark and heavy-browed woman, often in bright traditional Mexican dress with flowers woven into her hair, staring straight out of the canvas.In her life time, she was better known as the wife of her celebrated artist husband, Diego Rivera. Now, she is arguably more famous than him, and her paintings sell for millions of dollars. Having lived and documented a life filled with physical and emotional pain, her blisteringly personal and political accounts now speak to populations young and old the world over. Bridget Kendall discusses her life, work and posthumous success with Kahlo experts Circe Henestrosa, Gannit Ankori, and Oriana Baddeley.(Photo: Frida Kahlo. Credit: Ivan Dmitri/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Quentin Cooper and guests follow the twists and turns of jet engine development: from its 1930s origins and the often highly dangerous early fighters in World War 2, through Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War, to the much more reliable modern incarnations which now take us all over the world. Just three decades after the first airplane took off, the emerging aero industry was already stalling. There were limits to how big propeller-driven aircraft could get. How fast they could go. And how far. For the air age to truly take off it needed a new kind of propulsion: the jet engine. With Professor of the History of Industry and Technology at Rutgers University Philip Scranton; historian Hermione Giffard, author of Making Jet Engines in World War II; and former head of the Aircraft Collection at the Deutsches Museum in Munich Walter Rathjen.Photo: close-up of a jet engine. (Getty Images/Dushlik)

Edgar Allan Poe is a 19th century American writer whose spine-chilling gothic tales have inspired generations of horror and mystery fiction writers. His poem ‘The Raven’, and short stories such as ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ and ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ brought him international fame, and he is also thought to have invented the detective fiction genre with ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’. But his tumultuous life was beset by personal tragedy, poverty and artistic struggle which seemed to echo many of the dark themes in his work.Bridget Kendall explores Poe’s life and extraordinary work with J. Gerald Kennedy, Boyd Professor of English at Louisiana State University; Diane Roberts, Professor of English and Creative Writing at Florida State University; and Paul Collins, Professor of English at Portland State University.Photo: Edgar Allan Poe (Corbis/Getty Images)

In the mid-19th century Japan transformed itself from feudal state to economic powerhouse at breakneck speed. Taking their cue from Western imperial powers, the rebel samurai who seized power in 1868 implemented an astonishing programme of reform.By removing an entire ruling elite, introducing national conscription and compulsory education, the Meiji rulers set about building a brand new society. Even the measurement of time was changed, which led to considerable confusion between generations.Rajan Datar and guests will unpack the origins of this dynamic transformation, and examine how it led Japan to a period of drastic imperial expansion and the subsequent atrocities of World War II.Joining Rajan will be historians Naoko Shimazu from Yale NUS College in Singapore, Mark Ravina from Emory University in Atlanta, USA, and Barak Kushner from the University of Cambridge in the UK.Photo: Meiji Shrine In Tokyo, Japan. (Junko Kimura/Getty Images)

Born in 1924, the prolific writer and thinker James Baldwin is a landmark figure in twentieth century American culture. The author of popular novels such as Go Tell It on the Mountain and bold essay collections such as The Fire Next Time, his works explored themes including race, sexuality, identity, democracy and love. An African-American man born in Harlem who spent much of his life in France, he became an important literary voice during his country’s civil rights movement. A critic and analyst of his country’s racial divide, he saw division as destructive and urged his fellow citizens to achieve a better future together.Rajan Datar and guests reflect on some of the key moments in James Baldwin’s life and work. With expert scholars Rich Blint, Ernest L. Gibson III and Magdalena Zaborowska.Photo: James Baldwin in 1964 (Jean-Regis Rouston/Roger Viollet/Getty Images)

The Acropolis of Athens, with its crowning glory the Parthenon and its massive marble pillars, is one of the most recognisable sites in the world. In the 5th and 6th century BCE, it was where the concept of democracy – rule by the people – first developed, where modern- day theatre was born, and it gave the West the foundation of its politics, philosophy and history. But the Acropolis is also, like our humanity, a place of constant struggle and contradiction, from the pride and ambition of the ancient Athenians that led to its destruction, to its current status as a symbol of the Greek state. Joining Rajan Datar to look at the history and meaning of the Acropolis is Paul Cartledge, Emeritus Professor of Greek culture at the University of Cambridge and author of Democracy: A Life; Dr Andronike Makres, co-Director of the Hellenic Education and Research in Athens, and Demetrios Papageorgiou, Professor of Applied Mathematics at Imperial College London.Photo: The Acropolis (Anne Khazam)

A champagne-loving industrialist who enjoyed hunting, a literary critic and an upstanding Victorian gentleman: this does not sound like a description of your typical advocate of proletarian revolution or the co-author of the Communist Manifesto. Yet Friedrich Engels was all those things and more. Deliberately keeping in the shadows of his comrade-in-arms Karl Marx, Engels led an eventful life, fighting in the 1848 German revolution, attending secret meetings with Chartists and keeping two homes in Manchester: a respectable one that fitted his image of a bachelor businessman, the other a boarding house where he lived with his working-class lover Mary Burns and her sister, and future wife, Lizzie. Rajan Datar charts the life and work of Friedrich Engels with the help of leading scholars of Marxism: Jonathan Sperber from the University of Missouri, Terrell Carver from Bristol University, Belinda Webb-Blofeld from Kingston University and Christian Krell from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.Photo: Statues of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in Berlin. (Getty Images)

Empress Nur Jahan was the most powerful woman in 17th century India, wielding an unparalleled control over the Mughal Empire. Born as Mehr-un-Nissa, she came from a wealthy Iranian family who came to India and made their way up the imperial court. After the death of her first husband, a Persian soldier, she became the twentieth and final wife of Mughal Emperor Jahangir and her rise to the top really began. Often sitting beside her husband in court, she controlled trade routes, designed gardens and mausoleums, was said to be a skilled hunter and was the only Mughal Empress to have coins minted in her own name.Joining Rajan Datar to explore the life of Empress Nur Jahan is Ruby Lal, professor of South Asian Studies at Emory University and author of 'Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan'; Mehreen Chida-Razvi, Research Associate in the Department of Art History at SOAS, University of London; and Shivangini Tandon, Assistant Professor at the Department of Women's Studies, Aligarh Muslim University, India.Photo: a detail from the painting Jahangir and Prince Khurram with Nur Jahan, c1624-1625 (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Waiting for Godot is a play by the Irish writer Samuel Beckett that revolutionised 20th century theatre when it was first performed more than 60 years ago. Often referred to as a play in which nothing happens, it is about two characters who spend their time waiting for a mysterious person called Godot who never appears. Today it is one of the world's most important and best- known plays and has become a comment on our political and social climate, as its themes of hope and despair have led to it being re-interpreted in a number of conflict situations around the world, from South Africa to Sarajevo.Joining Rajan Datar is the South African theatre director Benjy Francis who was the first to stage Waiting for Godot with an all-black cast in Apartheid South Africa in 1976, the Irish theatre director Garry Hynes whose current production of Waiting for Godot is at the Edinburgh International Festival, and Professor of theatre at Reading University, Anna McMullan, who is also co-Director of the Beckett International Foundation.Photo:The Druid Theatre Company's production of Waiting for Godot (Matthew Thompson).

An accomplished young horsewoman who loved fencing and male attire, the 17th-century Swedish Queen Christina was anything but a conventional princess. And she kept springing surprises on her court and country: after just a decade on the throne she abdicated, converted to Catholicism and moved to Rome. Once there, she put herself forward as a candidate for the post of queen of Naples, opened a public theatre and scandalised the Holy See by a liaison with a cardinal. Bridget Kendall follows Christina's adventures with biographer Veronica Buckley, and historians Stefano Fogelberg Rota and Therese Sjovoll.Photo: Christina of Sweden by Jacob Heinrich Elbfas, 1640s