After a short break at TTT, enter the world’s largest flying machine. ‘R101’ was one of the most ambitious creations of the airship era. Plans for it began about a century ago in the 1920s. The vision of engineers and politicians was that the 1930s were to mark the start of a new epoch in air travel. R101 was to lead the way. Huge airships were going to glide through the imperial skies, binding together the distant outposts of the British Empire. In 1930 R101’s story reached its tragic climax when, seven hours into a flight from its base in Bedfordshire, it crashed to the north of Paris. Of the fifty or so on board, only a handful survived the hydrogen fireball. R101’s story, and the history of the era that created it, are the subject of a new book by the New York Time bestselling author S.C. ‘Sam’ Gwynne. His Majesty’s Airship tells the story of ‘the life and death of the world’s largest flying machine’. In this episode Sam takes Peter back to see R101 as the moment of disaster nears. To be in with winning one of two hardback copies of His Majesty’s Airship, just head to the Unseen Histories Instagram page and follow/like this post. For more, as ever, visit our website: tttpodcast.com. To read an extract and see images from His Majesty’s Airship, visit unseenhistories.com Show notes Scene One: 30 June 1930. Royal Airship Works, Cardington. R101 is beset with problems. Scene Two: 4 October 1930. The departure of R101 from Cardington, Bedfordshire. Scene Three: 5 October 1930. Near Beauvais, France. The crash, and aftermath. Memento: R101’s Control Car People/Social Presenter: Peter Moore Guest: S.C. Gwynne Production: Maria Nolan Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_ See where 1930 fits on our Timeline

In this episode the cultural historian Mike Jay takes Peter back to the high Victorian Age to see how a pioneering group of scholars and artists experimented with mind altering drugs. Jay labels these characters 'psychonauts'. These were daring, romantic figures like Sigmund Freud who championed cocaine as a stimulant, and William James whose experiments with nitrous oxide brought new insights into human consciousness. Others at this time used drugs more informally. One such person was Robert Louis Stevenson. Suffering from poor health in the mid-1880s he took advantage of the powerful drugs that were easily accessible. A result of this, Jay explains, is Dr Jeykill and Mr Hyde, one of the great short stories in English literature. Mike Jay is the author of Psychnauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind. For more, as ever, visit our website: tttpodcast.com. Show notes Scene One: January 1885, Vienna - Sigmund Freud publishes his self-experiments with cocaine. Scene Two: March 31st 1885, Cambridge, Mass - William James in his study, corresponding with Benjamin Blood and Edmund Gurney about nitrous oxide. Scene Three: September 1885, Bournemouth - RL Stevenson writes Jekyll & Hyde in three days. Memento: A branded Merck vial of cocaine  People/Social Presenter: Peter Moore Guest: Mike Jay Production: Maria Nolan Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_ See where 1885 fits on our Timeline  

In this episode we strap on our armour and brace ourselves for battle! From the monumental ruins of strongholds like Conwy and Dover to the fantastical turrets of Hogwarts, castles are an important element in our vision of the past. They played a vital role in history, as centres of defence and political power, the physical foundation of royal and noble authority.  This week, we are travelling through time with the acclaimed architectural historian John Goodall. His new book The Castle: A History tells the stories of these influential buildings through riveting snapshots at various moments in their history. John takes us to visit several important castles in the year 1217, a turbulent moment in English history when rebel barons had asked the French king Louis for help in their struggle against the notoriously bad King John. In the ensuing civil war, castles played a vital role as centres of defence – so much so that John demanded his knights to destroy them rather than see them falling into French hands. Fortunately for posterity, they ignored his orders. John Goodall is the architectural editor of Country Life magazine. He is the author of The Castle: A History (Yale University Press). This episode is sponsored by ACE Cultural Tours, the oldest and most experienced provider of study tours and cultural travel in the United Kingdom. Find out more via their website at www.aceculturaltours.co.uk or speak to their friendly team on 01223 841055. Show Notes Scene One: 20 May 1217. Lincoln Henry III’s forces brutally sack the city of Lincoln in the aftermath of the battle because the citizens sided with Louis and the French, an event known sardonically as ‘Lincoln Fair’. Scene Two: 24 August 1217. The Battle of Sandwich, a decisive moment in the war when the English royalist army defeats Louis and pushes the French back across the Channel. Scene Three: 12 September 1217. On an island on the Thames near Kingston, the Treaty of Lambeth is signed by both sides in which Louis formally gives up his claim to the English throne, wearing just his underwear and a cloak. Memento: The coronet Henry III wore at his coronation aged 9, made of his mother’s jewels especially for the event. People/Social Presenter: Violet Moller Guest: John Goodall Production: Maria Nolan Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_ Or on Facebook See where 1217 fits on our Timeline   

In this episode we head to Victorian Britain, where leaps in technology were making the world seem smaller and faster than ever before. Our guide is the author and film-maker Paul Fischer whose new book, The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures, charts the incredible race to invent the first film camera and projector.  The late nineteenth century was a world full of contradictions. Categorically Victorian but also undeniably modern. Technological developments were exhilarating and anxiety-inducing. For the first time in history, it was possible to speak to people miles away using a telephone. You could sail across the Atlantic Ocean in a week. But this was also a world where the fastest mode of individual transport was still a horse, where the electric lightbulb was barely ten years old and where the idea of motion pictures was still a beautiful idea waiting to be made a reality. In this episode we meet Louis Le Prince, the enigmatic hero at the heart of The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures. We join him as he becomes the first person to successfully capture and replay moving images, as well as visiting two other telling scenes in the rise of modern Britain. Paul Fischer was born in Saudi Arabia. He is the author of A KIM JONG-IL PRODUCTION, the true story of the kidnapping of two South Korean filmmakers to Kim Jong-Il’s North Korea, which was translated into fourteen languages, nominated for the Crime Writers’ Association Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award, and chosen as one of the best books of 2015 by NPR and Library Journal. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and the Independent, among others. This episode is sponsored by ACE Cultural Tours, the oldest and most experienced provider of study tours and cultural travel in the United Kingdom. Find out more via their website at www.aceculturaltours.co.uk or speak to their friendly team on 01223 841055. Show Notes Scene One: 30-31 August 1888, the Frying Pan public house, Whitechapel, London. Mary Ann Nichols is drinking in the pub in Spitalfields. By morning, she will be found dead — the first victim of the killer who will come to be known as Jack the Ripper. Scene Two: 8 September 1888, Pikes Lane Football Ground, Bolton. Kenny Davenport scores the first-ever goal in the first match in the newly-formed Football League. Scene Three: 14 October 1888, Roundhay Gardens, Yorkshire. Louis Le Prince assembles his family on the lawn of their home — to film the world’s first ever motion picture. Momento: Some of the missing negatives from Le Prince's early films.  People/Social Presenter: Artemis Irvine Guest: Paul Fischer Production: Maria Nolan Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_ Or on Facebook See where 1888 fits on our Timeline  

In this episode, we are donning our lab coats and gaining access to the secrets of particle physics. We visit 1932, an astonishing year in the history of science across the world, from Carl Anderson’s rooftop cloud chamber in California, to Marietta Blau’s mountaintop experiments in Austria, via the Cavendish Lab at the University of Cambridge. Our guest is Dr Suzie Sheehy. Dr Sheehy is unusual for Travels Through Time – she is a scientist rather than a historian – but she is also quite unusual within her own field of accelerator physics. Firstly, because she is a woman, and secondly because she is a brilliant communicator, able to beautifully articulate the wonder and complexity of Physics. In her new book, The Matter of Everything, Twelve Experiments that Changed Our World she tells the major discovery stories of the past century: the cathode ray tube that brought us television, splitting the atom, finding new particles and, of course, the Large Hadron Collider and Higgs Boson. Behind each of these breakthroughs are the brilliant scientists whose curiosity and persistence made them possible.  This episode is sponsored by ACE Cultural Tours, the oldest and most experienced provider of study tours and cultural travel in the United Kingdom. Find out more via their website at www.aceculturaltours.co.uk or speak to their friendly team on 01223 841055. Show Notes Scene One: 2nd August 1932. The discovery of the positron, Carl Anderson, at Caltech in America. Scene Two: 14th April 1932. Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, the splitting of the atom Ernest Rutherford (at almost the same time James Chadwick discovers the neutron in the same lab!). Scene Three: 1932. Hafelekar observatory, Marietta Blau and her assistant Hertha Wambacher place 'emulsion plates' 7,500 feet above sea level, near Innsbruck, Austria. They would go on to have a huge impact scientifically, but as women their work was undervalued and overlooked at the time. Momento: Marietta Blau’s diaries so Dr Sheehy could write about her and fully reveal her genius and achievements to the world. People/Social Presenter: Violet Moller Guest: Dr Suzie Sheehy Production: Maria Nolan Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_ Or on Facebook See where 1932 fits on our Timeline