This year marks a double celebration for Gloucester History Festival – the 10th year of the Festival itself and the 25th year of Heritage Open Days in the city.

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Chris Packham, presenter of BBC2’s Springwatch and Winterwatch, has led an extraordinary life as one of Britain’s best-known naturalists, filmmakers, conservationists and campaigners. He explores his love of wildlife, his favourite Springwatch moments and the highs and lows of broadcasting the natural world.

In discussion with Janina Ramirez, he looks at how humans have lived alongside nature, and how the natural world has shaped myths and our relationship with the landscape. They ask what history can teach us about conserving the environment and explore the positive actions we can take to protect the future of the nature all around us.

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Prize-winning Oxford historian Nandini Das explores the British arrival in India in the early 17th century through the story of Thomas Roe, James I’s first Ambassador to the Mughal Empire. When Roe landed in India in 1616 he swapped the chaotic Jacobean Court for the cultured heart of one of the richest empires in the world. During his four years in India he witnessed palace intrigue and scandal. Nandini Das tells Roe’s thrilling story exploring the sights and sounds of Jacobean London and Imperial India, taking us right to the heart of the dazzling Mughal Empire. Chaired by Jo Durrant.

A fascinating glimpse of the origins of the British Empire drawn in dazzling technicolour.  – The Spectator

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Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s International Editor, has been covering the Middle East since 1989 and is uniquely placed to explain its complex past and trouble present.

From countries as diverse as Erdogan’s Turkey, Assad’s Syria and Netanyahu’s Israel, he takes us on a journey across the Middle East and through its history meeting ordinary men and women on the front line, and their leaders, whether brutal or benign. He offers a gripping and invaluable guide to the modern Middle East and what its future might hold.

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Former Defence Secretary Rt Hon Ben Wallace and former NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Sir Tim Radford have been at the heart of NATO’s political and military decision-making when peace in Europe has broken down, the Middle East looks more precarious than ever and the whole world seems a lot more fragile. They join Richard Graham, Chair of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, to explore how NATO is evolving. While it has two new members – Finland and Sweden – and looks more united, will current and future challenges prove its making or undoing?

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Join acclaimed historian and broadcaster Michael Wood for a dazzling journey across today’s China and back into the ancient world of the Tang Dynasty in the footsteps of the 8th century politician, poet and courtier Du Fu. Celebrated as China’s greatest poet, he travelled across the Tang Empire living an eventful life of highs and lows at the heart of the magnificent royal court. Witnessing war, famine and upheaval, he experienced one of the most riveting periods of China’s history.

Michael Wood’s classic BBC TV documentaries and books, including In Search of the Dark Ages and The Story of China, were groundbreaking and game-changing. There’s no one better to take us on a fascinating and hugely enjoyable journey along the rivers, through the cities and into the courts of a lost Chinese Empire.

Superb. Beautifully written and thoroughly researched.
– John Simpson BBC World Affairs Editor writing in The Guardian

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Implicated in the Wyatt Rebellion of 1554, a plot to topple her half sister Mary I from her throne, the young Elizabeth I was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where her mother Anne Boleyn had lost her life. She spent the remainder of Mary’s five-year reign under a dark cloud.

Acclaimed historian Nicola Tallis charts the fascinating relationship between Elizabeth and Mary and explores the Virgin Queen’s tumultuous childhood, facing the predatory attentions of Thomas Seymour and enduring a heartbreaking rift with her stepmother Katherine Parr.

Sparkling, pacey and page-turning. Highly recommended.
– Alison Weir

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Acclaimed historian Peter Frankopan, bestselling author of The Silk Roads and the ground-breaking The Earth Transformed: An Untold History, joins Janina Ramirez to explore how a changing climate has dramatically shaped the development – and demise – of civilisations across time.

Ranging from savage storms and devastating droughts to how growing demands for harvests resulted in the increase of slavery, they discuss how the natural environment is a crucial, if not the defining, factor in global history. They ask: what lessons can it teach us as we face a future of rapid global warming?

Humanity has transformed the earth: Peter Frankopan transforms our understanding of history.
– The Financial Times

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From the murder of Thomas Becket to the Peasants’ Revolt and the Black Death, we sometimes think of the Middle Ages as a dark, backward and unchanging time, characterised by violence, ignorance and superstition. But we couldn’t be more wrong.

Bestselling historian Ian Mortimer, author of The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England which revealed the sights, sounds and smells of medieval life, shows how between 1000 and 1600 the medieval world was in fact a revolutionary age marking the transition between a warrior-led society and the Elizabethan Age.

The endlessly inventive Ian Mortimer is the most remarkable medieval historian of our time. – The Times

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Tudor to Stuart: Regime Change from Elizabeth I to James I

This is an unprecedented opportunity to listen in on a live recording of an episode of the hit podcast Not Just the Tudors. Host Suzannah Lipscomb, the award-winning historian, author and broadcaster, is joined by Susan Doran, a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford who has written extensively on the Tudors.

Together they discuss the transition from Elizabeth I to James I, including his dramatic accession and the tumultuous first decade of his reign.

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Sathnam Sanghera’s award-winning Empireland started a national conversation about how we talk about race and imperial history in Britain. Now with Empireworld he traces the legacies of the
British Empire across the globe exploring how 2.6 billion people live in former British colonies.

His journey takes him from Barbados and Mauritius to India, Nigeria and beyond, demonstrating just how deeply British imperialism is baked into our world. And why it’s time Britain was finally honest with itself about empire. In conversation with historian and BBC broadcaster Kavita Puri.

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From Anne Boleyn to Hillary Clinton, the role of iconic women in history is complex and compelling. Yet the stories of the majority of women remain untold.

Using Joan of Arc, Anne Boleyn and Jennifer Worth as starting points, bestselling Femina author Janina Ramirez, Call the Midwife actor Stephen McGann and Tudor expert Estelle Paranque explore how women are portrayed in history, fiction and drama. They share stories both of women hidden from history, and of those who’ve become emblematic of their age.

Chaired by HistoryExtra Content Director David Musgrove.

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Did we really land on the moon? Was Paul McCartney cloned? Did aliens land at Roswell? Conspiracies used to be fun! Nowadays in a world of fake news and social media algorithms, they’re
often a cause of mistrust. But why do so many people doubt the official histories?

Multi-awardwinning comedian Dom Joly, star of Trigger Happy TV, journeys around the world talking to leaders and followers, taking a sideways look at conspiracy theories and finding the quirky and funny along the way.

If you’re interested in conspiracy theories and the people who preach them, you must read this. Highly entertaining, seriously interesting and beautifully written.

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The 1643 Siege of Gloucester is one of the pivotal moments of the English Civil War. After the success of the ‘Royalist Summer’, Charles I came to grief at Gloucester as commander Edward Massie and the townsfolk stood resolute for 26 days against 30,000 Royalist soldiers.

Leading Civil War historian Mark Turnbull is joined by well-known historians Phil Moss and Jon Eeles to explore the strategic importance of the stand-off, what life was like for the imprisoned townsfolk, and the impact of the Siege on the city and nation’s history.

This event is recorded for a Cavaliercast podcast special edition.

Buy Jon Eeles’ book via the Gloucester Civic Trust