The Forum

King Cnut the Great started life as a young Viking warrior, but quickly became one of the most successful kings in Anglo-Saxon history, reigning over a huge empire covering England, Denmark and Norway in the early 11th Century. For some, he was the perfect Christian king; for others, he was a ruthless warlord. Today in popular culture his name is associated with the tale of King Cnut and the waves - the legend of an arrogant king who believed he could stop the tide.

Joining Bridget Kendall to disentangle the facts from legends about King Cnut are Else Roesdahl, professor emerita of Medieval Archaeology at the University of Århus, Denmark; Eleanor Parker, lecturer in Medieval English Literature at Brasenose College, Oxford University, UK; and historian Timothy Bolton, author of the biography Cnut the Great.

(Image: An illustration where Cnut criticises his courtiers for believing that he could command the tide of the river. Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images)

The months between May and August 1919 were a crucial time for Afghanistan: it was the period of the Third Anglo-Afghan War followed by the declaration of Afghan independence from Britain. So how was modern Afghan national identity forged? Who were the leaders responsible? Why, in the 19th century, had the country become financially and politically dependent on Britain? And what, a century on, is the legacy Afghanistan's independence struggle?

These are some of the issues that Bridget Kendall discusses with historians of Afghanistan, professors Shah Mahmoud Hanifi, Sana Haroon and Benjamin Hopkins.

Photo: People hold Afghan flags as they celebrate Afghan Independence Day (Sayed Khodaberdi Sadat/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Rasputin’s story is a familiar one – an illiterate Siberian peasant who managed to secure the confidence of the last Tsar and Tsarina of Russia, while indulging his legendary sexual appetite and love of hard drinking. Rasputin was so revered by his acolytes that they would collect his fingernail clippings, as if they were some kind of holy relic. When his extraordinary life was brought to an equally extraordinary end when he refused to die – murdered eventually in cold blood by a group of aristocrats – it unleashed the Russian revolution, and changed the geopolitical landscape in ways that still resonate today.

That’s one version of events that’s held sway for more than one hundred years. And yet so much of the Rasputin legend has been pieced together by those looking to discredit him. Is it possible to peel away the layers of myth-making and get to the heart of who Rasputin really was and what he stood for?

Joining Bridget Kendall on a truth-seeking mission is Russian imperial historian Helen Rappaport, author of The Race to Save the Romanovs; Russian literary translator and executive editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, Boris Dralyuk; and historian Douglas Smith, author of the 2016 biography Rasputin: Faith, Power and the Twilight of the Romanovs.

Photo: Grigori Rasputin. (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

For as long as humans have gazed up at the moon it has been an object of fascination. From the Aztecs to the Romans to the Romantics, the moon has inspired everything from artistic outpourings to religious devotion. So how has our understanding of our nearest cosmic companion changed over the millennia? And, 50 years on from the Apollo 11 Moon landing, how has our relationship with the moon been changed by our lunar explorations?

Rajan Datar talks to Monica Grady, Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at the Open University in the UK; Anthony Aveni, Professor Emeritus of Astronomy, Anthropology, and Native American Studies at Colgate University in the US; and Alexandra Loske, a German art historian and co-author of Moon: Art, Science, Culture.

Photo: A couple have dinner on a hill as the Supermoon is seen in Turkey's Kayseri, 2019. (Sercan Kucuksahin/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Pearls are the most chameleon-like of jewels: they can sell for millions or for just a few dollars, they have been used to symbolize both chastity and debauchery, they have been conspicuously worn by men and women. The production methods of both cultured and natural pearls have been fraught with controversy and their position as fashion and status symbols has waxed and waned over the centuries.

(Photo: Pearls in a shell. Credit: Greg Vaughn/VW Pics/UIG/Getty Images)

Rajan Datar and guests explore the life and legacy of the American thinker Henry David Thoreau and his famous work 'Walden', which describes the young writer's experiment in living simply at Walden Pond in Massachusetts, for two years, two months and two days in the 1840s.

Photo: Henry David Thoreau (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

In its 200-year lifetime the Portuguese song known as fado has been intertwined with the country's politics. At first it was an expression of the woes of Lisbon's underclass, which perhaps explains its predominantly melancholy character. In the early 20th century when a military coup brought the fascist regime of António Salazar to power, fado was accused of being degenerate music and government officials censored its lyrics. However, as the dictatorship's grip on the country tightened over a 50-year period, fado flourished, and the regime saw its potential as a tourism marketing tool.

When democracy was restored in the 1970s, fado began a decline because of its perceived links to the former far-right regime. As those associations have faded with time, fado is now enjoying a renaissance. The music's found favour with a new generation of singers who are taking this nostalgic, yearning song to a global audience.

Rajan Datar investigates the ups and downs of fado, its history, legends and mystique, with guests historian Rui Vieira Nery, ethnomusicologist Lila Ellen Gray and editor-in-chief of Songlines magazine, Simon Broughton.

Photo: Portuguese singer Amalia Rodrigues on stage in 1987 (Jacques Demarthon/Getty Images)

The 17th Century Queen Njinga was among the most successful of Africa's rulers in resisting European colonialism: she defied no fewer than 13 different Portuguese governors of modern-day Angola and ruled the kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba for over three decades. She was no ordinary person, the warrior Queen. She was a fearless fighter, a military strategist, often ruthless, a shrewd diplomat and an inspirational leader in a period of huge turmoil, shifting alliances and conflict. Her name still resonates throughout the region and she stands as a symbol of the continent's fight against oppression.

(Photo: Statue of Queen Njinga in Luanda, Angola. Sculptor: Rui de Matos. Credit: mtcurado/Getty Images)

Leonardo da Vinci is best known for his paintings - creating masterpieces like the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. But through his notes and drawings we know him also to have been a sculptor, mathematician, botanist, palaeontologist, anatomist, architect and engineer, recording insights and inventions that were astonishingly ahead of their time. So what do his observations and experiments tell us about his unique understanding of the visible world around him?

To mark the 500th anniversary of Leonardo's death Bridget Kendall talks to Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor in the History of Art at Oxford University in the UK; Carmen C. Bambach, a curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in the US; and Prof Marina Wallace, a curator and art historian.

Photo: Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519), Self-portrait, Red Chalk Drawing (Christophel Fine Art/Getty Images)

It’s been called the 'gymnasium of the mind', both mental exercise and a way to build self-esteem. Born some 1,500 years ago, the game of chess was one of the world’s first strategy board games, though little is still known about its origins. Was it first conceived to teach Indian army generals? Or devised to turn a tyrannical King into a virtuous ruler? Or was it a meditative diversion for Japanese monks? It’s easy to forget that the modern game of chess is only 500 years old – and that other ancient forms of Chess, like Xiangqi in China and Shogi in Japan, are much older, still evolving and still played today.

Joining Bridget Kendall to explore the history of chess, are the chess historians Jean-Louis Cazaux and Rick Knowlton, the novelist Andrei Kurkov who’s followed the dramas of Russian chess through the ages, and the Grandmaster Jovanka Houska who’ll be challenging Bridget to a game of chess in the studio.

Photo: Rick Knowlton's sculpted reproductions of the first confirmed chessmen ever discovered. The original pieces were found in Afrasiab, the ancient city of Samarkand (in present-day Uzbekistan) in 1977. They are dated at approximately AD 700. (Rick Knowlton)