On the 6th June 1944 the Allies landed on the beaches of Normandy in the battle to free occupied Europe from the Nazi jackboot.

In the early hours of 6th June 1944, D-Day, a small squad of SAS troopers parachuted into SE France to begin the Special Forces part of Operation Overlord, the invasion of Nazi occupied Europe.

China has eyes on Taiwan, and how can we in the West respond? Should we respond?

Late at night on the 5th June 1944, British paratroopers set off on their flight that would land them in Normandy, with the key objective to capture and hold two bridges of vital strategic importance to the allied landings the next morning.

Secrets and lies have been part of us for as long as we've been around and are found as early as the Book of Genesis.

With the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany, the political make up of the Second World War was turned on its head, and Churchill allied with Stalin.

On the 25th May 1951 Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean defected to Moscow, and so the opening shots were fired in the dismantling of the Cambridge Spy Ring.

A bonus episode sees the historical consultant of the new Disney series Shardlake join to discuss disability and the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and the history behind the new show.

Iran & Britain are old friends, they've had ups and downs, and it's probably fair to say we're going through a difficult patch right now, but who better than Ali Ansari to talk about the historical relationship through much of the 20th century.

On the 19th April 1600, after nearly two years at sea, William Adams, one of only nine surviving crew members, made land at modern day Usuki, on the east coast of Japan. He was starving, scurvy ridden and close to death.

The release of The Passion of the Christ in 2004 caused outrage, fury accusations of antisemitism and even sadomasochism.

The Berlin Wall stood for 28 years, but up until the very end, on the 9th November 1989, the whole world thought it was permanent. It's now 35 years since the Wall fell, but how did it get built, what was its impact, and how did it fall?

On a dark night in April 1944 a German general was returning to his villa on the Nazi occupied island of Crete. Suddenly, two men, dressed as Wehrmacht soldiers, emerged from the darkness and stopped the car. The two men were British officers, and together with Cretan resistance fighters, they bundled the general into the back, and drove through Heraklion and 22 checkpoints. So began one of the most audacious operations of World War Two, orchestrated by Patrick Leigh Fermor, autodidact, writer and war hero.

On the 24th March 1603 at Richmond Palace Elizabeth I died. She had not named a successor, but James VI of Scotland was proclaimed king in London that same day, and he headed south to accede to the English throne.

The Mau Mau Uprising ran from 1952 to 1960 in a Kenya administered by Britain. The conflict was a brutal one, with atrocities committed by both sides and it remains controversial to this day.

Sarah Gristwood returns to talk about the secret diary entries of women's diaries, from the 1st January all the way to the 31st December. There are many great names, and some less well-known, but we delve into some heart-breaking, funny, tragic and shocking accounts written with stunning honesty.

This week's guest is a man who has lived about what he writes. Louis Ferrante was a former member of the Gambino crime family, one of the Five Families of New York. He rose up the ranks until he was convicted of crimes and sent to prison where he became a changed man.

Steven Spielberg's 1993 masterpiece is hugely influential even today. His adaptation of the Thomas Keneally's Booker Prize winning Schindler's Ark, filmed in black and white, brought the Holocaust to a mass audience.

On the 2nd September 1942 in Loch Ewe, Scotland, a large convoy of ships carrying food, ammunition, tanks, artillery pieces and materiel set sail for Archangel, Russia. This convoy would be of vital importance to the Soviet troops fighting the Nazis at Stalingrad.

Gordon returns to discuss those WW1 Commanders that lost out to Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig.

You've read the story of Jesse James Of how he lived and died. If you're still in need; Of something to read, Here's the story of Bonnie and Clyde. So wrote Bonnie Parker, partner to Clyde Barrow and the famous couple that attracted fans, headlines, cops and in the end, bullets.

On the 22nd July 1934 John Dillinger left a movie theatre in Chicago having just enjoyed the Clark Gable film, Manhattan Melodrama. He didn't get far before FBI agents shot him four times - the era of the romantic bank robber was over - or was it?

We've ignored the suitcase from Sepp Blatter bulging with cash and returned to football's roots to discuss the origins in England, the class system, the rise of the working class and the might Preston North End side of 1888/89 - thought Arsene Wenger did it first with the Invincibles and diet? Well you'd be wrong - it was PNE under William Sudell.

Early on the morning of 7th December 1941, Japanese fighters, dive bombers and torpedo planes descended on the port of Pearl Harbor, the headquarters of the American Pacific Fleet. Within minutes the balance of power had changed, and four days later Hitler declared war on the US.