The Forum Episodes Episode guide
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The enduring allure of jewellery
How precious ornaments have held us spellbound for centuries
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Why sleep sometimes eludes us
Insomnia in science and the arts
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The high-speed train race
Celebrating six decades of very fast railways
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The diary: A life page by page
The centuries-old practice of keeping a personal journal
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The only way is up: A history of mountaineering
Tracing our fascination with the high peaks
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Music on the move
A short history of portable audio devices
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The fight for women’s education
Empowering women through schooling
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Feeding the world and the Green Revolution
Turning points in arable farming
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Etiquette
Manners in the modern world and in the past
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Supermarkets
How supermarkets came to dominate food retail
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Diplomacy
The reality of international diplomacy
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The story of throwaway living
How disposable and single-use items conquered the world
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Political parties and us
How well do political parties serve their voters?
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What makes a good boss?
An exploration of how we can get the best out of people in the workplace.
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The joy and sorrow of roads
Dirt tracks to expressways: how roadbuilding changed the world
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Pets and us
A scamper through the social history of our best friends
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The evolution of teenagers
Why do humans have such a prolonged adolescence?
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Global mass tourism
Has tourism lost its way?
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A deep dive into deepfakes
Misinformation spread by faked images is almost as old as film itself
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How the mobile phone changed everything
Charting the seismic transformation of our lives caused by mobile communications
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The dam builders
The politics, power and engineering behind monumental dams
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Alexander the Great or not so great?
One of the world’s most astonishing military leaders, but was he brilliant or brutal?
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Rituals: Our anchors in a changing world
Why rituals and ceremonies enthral us and endure through the ages
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Tropicália: the movement that defied Brazil’s dictatorship
The story of Brazil’s counter-cultural push of the late 1960s
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How the shipping container changed the world
How standardising the humble shipping container revolutionised world trade
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Neanderthals: Meet the relatives
Recent scientific breakthroughs have overturned received wisdom about our ancient cousins
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Cavalry and code-breaking: The Polish-Soviet war
Little-known conflict that shaped Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the First World War
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How we work: Redesigning the office
The concept of the office is being reimagined. What can we learn from its history?
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When money died: The world's worst inflation
Hungary, 1946, where prices doubled every 15 hours
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The writer Rachel Carson who fought insecticide wars
How Silent Spring, a book about DDT use, changed the way we think about the environment
