In Our Time - The siege of Constantinople

"THE SIEGE OF CONSTANTINOPLE

When Sultan Mehmet the Second rode into the city of Constantinople on a white horse in 1453, it marked the end of a thousand years of the Byzantine Empire. After holding out for 53 days, the city had fallen. And as one contemporary witness described it: “The blood flowed in the city like rainwater in the gutters after a sudden storm”. It was the end of the classical world and the crowning of an Ottoman Empire that would last until 1922."

For more click here. The programme will be available as a podcast after the 28th December.

Here's my take on the subject.

In Our Time

One of my favourite sites on the net is the BBC's In Our Time podcast which is a weekly radio programme in which Melvin Bragg talks about various historical, philosophical and artistic topics. For example;

	Altruism - how can evolutionary biology explain it? The Peasants' Revolt - a lasting legacy for popular uprising? Alexander Pope - "short is my date, but deathless my renown" The Poincare Conjecture - how a 19th century mathematician changed how we think about the shape of the universe The Encyclopedie - the great project of the Enlightenment The Needham Question - did China lay the foundations of modern science? The Diet of Worms - Luther's stand against the Church Averroes - the battle between faith and reason Alexander von Humboldt - the remarkable career of the Prussian naturalist

If you want a work out for those dying brain cells then this is the place. Each week's episode can be downloaded as a podcast for a week after transmission. After that you can listen to them on your PC but not download them. Just one thing, you'll need to download Real Player (it's about 10mb) to listen to the programmes in the archive.

Also they are great listening practice for my students.