The Forum

A Phoenician princess, who fled into exile to escape the cruel king of Tyre, sailed across the Mediterranean Sea to North Africa, where she founded the great city of Carthage in the ninth century BC. Well, that is one story about Dido, or Elissa, as she is known in today's Lebanon and Tunisia.

(Image: A drawing of Dido and Aeneas hunting deer. Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images)

The multi-talented Paul Robeson could have turned his hand to pretty much anything he set his mind to: lawyer, athlete and linguist were just some of the career paths he could have taken. But he chose to become an actor and singer, and in doing so reached into the lives of huge numbers of people as one of the most popular American entertainers of his time.

Outspoken on the issues of racism, colonialism and the rights of workers, he used his popularity to campaign against the injustice he saw in many countries across the world – not just injustice suffered by his fellow African Americans.

During the Cold War, his support for Soviet-style communism was deemed unacceptable by the American establishment, and some set out to destroy his career.

Joining Bridget Kendall to examine Paul Robeson’s life are Dr Gerald Horne, the Moores Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston and the author of Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary; Dr Shana L Redmond, Professor of Musicology and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of Everything Man: The Form and Function of Paul Robeson; and Tayo Aluko whose one-man play Call Mr Robeson has won numerous awards and toured countries around the world since its premiere in 2007.

Photo: Paul Robeson

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.)

‘We accept reality so readily - perhaps because we sense that nothing is real.' A typically paradoxical quote from the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges whose works have become classics and an influence not just on many Latin American novelists but on countless authors around the world. Yet although he is one of the most analysed figures in literature, even his greatest fans struggle fully to explain his writing. So who was Jorge Luis Borges? And what is it that makes his writing so compelling?

To find out, Bridget Kendall talks to three Borges experts: Dr. Patricia Novillo-Corvalán, from the University of Kent, author of Borges and Joyce, An Infinite Conversation; Prof. Evelyn Fishburn, from University College London, author of Hidden Pleasures in Borges’s Fiction; and Edwin Williamson, Professor at Oxford University and editor of the Cambridge Companion to Jorge Luis Borges.

(Image: Jorge Luis Borges in 1973 Photo: Horacio Villalobos/Corbis via Getty Images)

Life behind bars in English prisons in the early nineteenth century was, to put it mildly, grim. Prisons at the time were often damp, dirty and over-crowded. Common punishments included shipping convicts to colonies like Australia - and many crimes carried the death penalty. And the poor suffered most of all, because they couldn’t buy privileges like extra food rations. Into all this walked a woman known as the "angel of prisons", Elizabeth Fry. She was one of the major driving forces behind a new way of thinking about prisons – one that stressed that improving conditions for prisoners and treating them with humanity would lead to better outcomes and lower re-offending rates. A Christian philanthropist from a large Quaker family, her ideas were taken up across much of Europe, and she became something of a celebrity in Victorian England.

Joining Rajan Datar to discuss her work and legacy are:

Averil Douglas Opperman, author of a biography of Elizabeth Fry called 'While It Is Yet Day'; Criminal barrister, Harry Potter, author of 'Shades of the Prison House – A History of Incarceration in the British Isles'; And Rosalind Crone, historian and author of 'The Guide to the Criminal Prisons of Nineteenth-Century England'.

Produced by Jo Impey for the World Service.

Image: Painting by Jerry Barrett depicting Elizabeth Fry reading to prisoners at Newgate, 1816

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.

(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

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.

(Photo: a woman at sunset. Credit: rvimages/Getty Images)