In Our Time

All dinosaurs were originally thought to be related to lizards - the word 'dinosaur' was created by Richard Owen (1804-1892) from the Greek for 'terrible lizard' - but that now appears to be false.
In this archive episode, first released in October 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the development of theories about dinosaur feathers, following discoveries of fossils which show evidence of feathers. In the last century, the discoveries of these fossils have established that at least some dinosaurs were feathered, and that some of those dinosaurs survived the great extinctions and evolved into the birds we see around us today. There are still many outstanding areas for study, such as what sorts of feathers they were, where on the body they were found, what their purpose was and which dinosaurs had them.
With Mike Benton
Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Bristol

Steve Brusatte
Reader and Chancellor's Fellow in Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Edinburgh

and

Maria McNamara
Senior Lecturer in Geology at University College, Cork

Producer: Simon Tillotson

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

A world-class seminar every week. Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time celebrates the pursuit of knowledge and the enduring power of ideas. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

The first dinosaur to ever be scientifically named, almost 20 years before we even had the word ‘dinosaur’. In 1824, the geologist and priest William Buckland (1784-1856) stood before the Geological Society of London and announced something that would kickstart two centuries of dinosaur science. He’d been studying large, fossilised bones which didn’t resemble those of any living animal - and, as he told his rapt audience at that meeting, he had a new name for this mysterious and unusual creature: Megalosaurus.
Misha Glenny and his guests discuss why the 19th century was such profound period of theological and scientific change, and how our understanding of mid Jurassic dinosaurs has changed since. This In Our Time episode examines the story of a dinosaur that led to palaeontology as we know it today. The discussion explores the influential roles of William and Mary Buckland, how we learn about animals from over 160 million years ago, and why you’d never have seen a Megalosaurus and a Tyrannosaurus Rex together.
With
Emily Rayfield
Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Bristol
Emma Nicholls
Vertebrate Palaeontologist and Collections Manager at Oxford University Museum of Natural History
And
Steve Brusatte
Professor of Palaeontology and Evolution at the University of Edinburgh
Producer: Martha Owen
Reading list:
Deborah Cadbury, Terrible Lizard: The First Dinosaur Hunters and the Birth of a New Science (Owl Books, 2002)
Michael Taylor, Impossible Monsters: How the Discovery of Dinosaurs Changed the World (Bodley Head, 2024)
Roger B. J. Benson, ‘A description of Megalosaurus bucklandii (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Bathonian of the UK and the relationships of Middle Jurassic theropods’ (Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 158, 2010)
William Buckland, ‘XXI.—Notice on the Megalosaurus or great Fossil Lizard of Stonesfield’ (Transactions of the Geological Society of London, 2:1, 1824)
P. Wilson et al, ‘Utilizing X-ray computed tomography for heritage conservation: The case of Megalosaurus bucklandii’ (2017 IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference 12MTC, Torino, 2017)
In Our Time is a BBC Studios production
A world-class seminar every week. Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time celebrates the pursuit of knowledge and the enduring power of ideas. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

Orson Welles was only 25 when his film Citizen Kane was released in 1941. It is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, films yet made.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Welles' film, in which he plays the lead role of Charles Foster Kane, a newspaper magnate. It was his first acting role. He also directed, produced and co-wrote this story of loneliness at the heart of a megalomaniac.
The production was influenced by Welles’ experience in radio and theatre, and expressed the potential of cinema as an artistic medium with its use of deep focus, long takes and other techniques.
The plot was partly inspired by the life of William Randolph Hearst, who then used the power of his own newspapers to try to suppress the film’s release. It was to take some years before Citizen Kane reached a fuller audience and, from that point, become so celebrated.
With:
Stella Bruzzi
Professor of Film and Dean of Arts and Humanities at University College London
Ian Christie
Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck, University of London
John David Rhodes
Professor of Film Studies and Visual Culture at the University of Cambridge
Producer: Simon Tillotson
In Our Time is a BBC Studios production
A world-class seminar every week. Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time celebrates the pursuit of knowledge and the enduring power of ideas. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

Recorded at the Crossed Wires Festival in Sheffield, Misha Glenny and guests discuss Casablanca, one of the greatest films from Hollywood’s Golden Era.
The film stars Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and features the unforgettable song As Time Goes By.
Casablanca opened in November 1942 when Europe had been at war for three years and the USA for one. It was among Hollywood’s first major films to explain to US audiences why the war was worth fighting, and alongside this became a huge box office hit.
It was created by a cast and crew full of emigres and refugees from lands under Nazi control. They produced a movie that has authenticity as well as astonishing emotional power that continues to this day.
With
Ian Christie
Emeritus Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck University of London

Pamela Hutchinson
Film historian and critic
Sheldon Hall
Emeritus Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University.

Producers: Simon Tillotson & Sam Peach
Reading List:
Rudy Behlmer, Inside Warner Bros. (1935-1951) (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986)
Thomas Doherty, Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939 (Columbia University Press, 2013)
David Gerstner and Janet Staiger (eds.), Authorship and Film (Routledge, 2003), especially 'The Auteur theory: Michael Curtiz and Casablanca' by Peter Wollen
Aljean Harmetz, The Making of Casablanca: Bogart, Bergman, and World War II (Hyperion, 2002)
Noah Isenberg, We’ll Always Have Casablanca: The Life, Legend, and Afterlife of Hollywood`s Most Beloved Movie (Faber & Faber, 2020)
Colin McArthur, The Casablanca File (Half Brick Images, 1992)
Thomas Schatz, The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era (Pantheon Books, 1988)
David Thomson, Warner Bros: The Making of an American Movie Studio (Yale University Press, 2017)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production
A world-class seminar every week. Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time celebrates the pursuit of knowledge and the enduring power of ideas. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

Dark Matter is a proposed form of matter that does not absorb, reflect or emit light. It is known to make up 27% of our universe, while the matter that makes up stars and galaxies accounts for only 5%.

In this archive episode, first released in March 2015, Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss dark matter, the mysterious and invisible substance existing throughout the Universe. In 1932 the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort noticed that the speed at which galaxies moved was at odds with the amount of material they appeared to contain. He hypothesized that much of this 'missing' matter was simply invisible to telescopes.

Today astronomers and particle physicists are still fascinated by the search for dark matter and the question of what it is.

One leading theory is that Dark Matter is made up of WIMPS (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) that are big, heavy and move slowly, interacting with gravity but not other particles.

Scientists have developed multiple theories about the make up of this substance, and they are able to test them through remarkable computer modelling that simulates the construction of the universe.

With

Carolin Crawford
Public Astronomer at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge and Gresham Professor of Astronomy

Carlos Frenk
Ogden Professor of Fundamental Physics and Director of the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University

Anne Green
Reader in Physics at the University of Nottingham

Producer: Thomas Morris

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

A world-class seminar every week. Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time celebrates the pursuit of knowledge and the enduring power of ideas. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.