Many of us can find the time of day quickly and accurately but where did the idea of time keeping originate and how did our ancestors manage without the instant access we take for granted today?From ancient shadow and water clocks to the latest super accurate optical clocks, Bridget Kendal explores time keeping with the Curator of the Royal Observatory in London, Dr Louise Devoy, the Director of the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, Dr Silke Ackermann and watch and clock expert Grégory Gardinetti from the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie in Geneva.Photo: World Clocks (Credit: EyeWire, Inc.)

Perhaps the island of Taiwan makes you think of those familiar "Made in Taiwan" labels on computer and electrical goods but it was nicknamed 'Ilha Formosa' or the 'beautiful island' by the Portuguese in the 1500s. Bridget Kendall explores its rich and surprising history with Emma Teng, Professor of Asian Civilisations at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Dr Jie Yu, Head of China Foresight, focused on Chinese foreign policy, at the London School of Economics and Dr Bi-yu Chang and Dr Dafydd Fell from SOAS (formerly known as the School of Oriental and African Studies) in London. Photo: people celebrate Taiwan' s annual Lantern Festival, which marks the end of the Lunar New Year festivities. (Getty Images)

This year is the 80th anniversary of the record-breaking attempt by the US aviator Amelia Earhart to circumnavigate the globe. It was a mission that cost her life, but helped to cement her place in history as one of the most inspirational and celebrated pilots of the 20th century. Bridget Kendall looks back at the life of a pioneering woman determined to break through barriers - with Susan Butler, author of ‘East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart’; Dorothy Cochrane, Curator in the Aeronautics Division of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington; and Susan Ware, author of ‘Still Missing: Amelia Earhart and the Search for Modern Feminism’.Photo: Amelia Earhart in June 1928 (Getty Images)

Nowdays, if you want to find out how long one metre is, you can use a tape measure or, if you are a scientist, you can calculate the distance that light travels in a vacuum in 1/299 792 458 seconds. But how did we decide on what length a metre should be in the first place? To follow the far-from-straight story of the metre Quentin Cooper is joined by Professor Robert Crease, historian of science at Stonybrook University in the USA; Professor Marc Himbert, Scientific director of the Metrology Laboratory at CNAM in Paris; and Dr. Jahnavi Phalkey, historian of contemporary and twentieth century science and technology at King’s College in London.Photo: Lilian Bourgeat's art creation 'Tape Measure', France 2013 (Getty Images)

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is said to be one of the most quoted books in the world. It has been translated into 174 languages, from Catalan to Zulu, and its fantastical creatures, nonsense words and magical happenings have become part of our shared cultural landscape. Bridget Kendall investigates the story behind Lewis Carroll’s Victorian literary classic and its sequel with Angelika Zirker, Assistant Professor of English Literature at Tübingen University, Germany; Virginie Iché, Associate Professor of English Studies at Paul Valéry University in Montpellier, France, and currently a Visiting Scholar at the University of Texas at Austin; and Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Professor of English Literature at Oxford University in the UK, and author of ‘The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland’.Illustration by John Tenniel (Photo by Rischgitz/Getty Images)

The Moulin Rouge in Paris is the risqué cabaret venue that encapsulates for many the 'Belle Epoque', a period of French and especially Parisian history around the turn of the 19th Century, where permissiveness mixed with political, commercial and creative optimism and when an extraordinary vitality and innovation seemed almost boundless. To explore the Belle Epoque, Dr Janina Ramirez is in Paris with the director of Le Petit Palais art gallery and museum Christophe Leribault, the associate artistic director of the Moulin Rouge, Janet Pharaoh, and professor of French history from Leeds University in the UK, Diana Holmes.(Photo: An 1891 lithograph by French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Credit: Honda /Getty Images)

Over five hundred years ago, dismissed diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli produced his most famous work, ‘The Prince’. Written on the fringes of the Italian city of Florence, the book has long been read as a priceless guide to power and what holding it truly involves. But who was the man behind the work? Why did he claim that a leader must be prepared to act immorally? And why did the name of this one-time political insider become a byword for cunning and sinister strategy?Rajan Datar explores the life and impact of Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’, with writer and scholar Erica Benner, historian Professor Quentin Skinner and journalist David Ignatius.Image:Circa 1499, Niccolò Machiavelli (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Emperor Haile Selassie was the last in the line of Ethiopia’s ancient monarchy. During his long rule he was revered as an international statesman and reformer, demonised as a dictator, and even worshipped as a God incarnate by the Rastafarians of Jamaica. He was without doubt a controversial figure, but achieved a status in the global arena previously unheard of for an African ruler.Bridget Kendall discusses Haile Selassie’s life and legacy with Prince Asfa-Wossen Asserate, political analyst and author of ‘King of Kings: The Triumph and Tragedy of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia’, who is also the great-nephew of Haile Selassie; Gerard Prunier, Independent Consultant on Eastern and Central African affairs, and former Director of the French Centre for Ethiopian Studies in Addis-Ababa; and Laura Hammond, an anthropologist specialising in Ethiopia at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.Image: Haile Selassie Credit: Henry Guttmann/Getty Images

2017 is the centenary of the Cheka – the Bolshevik secret police organisation from which the KGB eventually emerged in 1954. The KGB was not just an intelligence agency like its adversaries in the west, but an all-encompassing organisation that covered every aspect of promoting and protecting the Soviet one party state. From its headquarters in Moscow’s infamous Lubyanka, the KGB’s influence spread across the world. To explore the KGB and its legacy, Bridget Kendall is joined by the Cambridge historian, Professor Christopher Andrew, the Anglo American intelligence and policy expert, Dr Calder Walton and the Russian historian, Dr Svetlana Chervonnaya.Photo: Badge logo of the KGB (Photo credit: KGB)

From Cellini's magnificent Perseus statue to the humblest of tools, people have been using bronze for at least five thousand years. So what makes bronze such a versatile material, how we first discovered it, and why is it that so many precious bronze art works have failed to survive? Bridget Kendall is joined by Carol Mattusch, Professor Emerita of Art History at George Mason University, Professor Jianjun Mei, from the University of Science and Technology, Beijing and Director of the Needham Institute in Cambridge who specialises in ancient metallurgy, and David Ekserdjian, Professor of Art and Film History at Leicester University. Also in the programme: Dutch sound artist Floris van Manen follows the key stages of making a bronze bell at Eijsbouts, one of Europe's leading foundries.Photo: Cellini's statue of Perseus holding the head of Medusa (Getty Images)