Samira Ahmed explores the extraordinary rise and fall of the Lady Protectress Elizabeth, wife of Oliver Cromwell - a commoner who became "queen" in the 1650s.

Laura Ashe tells the story of the Black Death and discovers how plague changed our cultural landscape, and influences our responses to current emergencies such as Ebola.

Andrew Hussey travels across Paris to understand how the Eiffel Tower, and the huge World's Fair that gave birth to it, shaped French culture.

Christopher Harding explores the influence of Freud in India, China and Japan, and John Gallagher focuses on the history of the foreign language phrase book.

Frank Cottrell Boyce on the impact of the First World War on religion at home and at the Front.

Gregory Tate explores why many C19th scientists wrote poetry, as do several today. Fern Riddell rediscovers the astonishing life of Kitty Marion: singer, suffragette, firestarter.

Rana Mitter travels to Beijing to explore the recent flourishing of theatre in China and its re-invention as an art-form of youthful, urban cool.

Richard Strauss's works are staples of both concert hall and opera house, and yet relatively little is known or discussed of the man himself. What we do know about Strauss - that he was incredibly astute financially, that his relationship with the Nazis was "complicated", and that his wife Pauline was as assertive and domineering as his mother was not - is a roughly-drawn portrait of the man which was propagated by almost all his contemporaries, and indeed by Strauss himself. A man who strove to control almost obsessively what was known about him, what cliches there are have largely succeeded in deterring scholars from taking more than a passing interest in this most complex of characters.

In the final programme in the series Petroc Trelawny measures the impact and effectiveness of education in sustaining and nurturing the massive growth in Western Classical music.

The second programme in Petroc Trelawny’s series looking at the new Global passion for classical music. In programme one his attention was on the dramatic new concert hall’s, opera houses and cultural centres which make such a bold and apparently determined statement of intention about the art form. In this programme the focus switches to a new world of performers.