Season Two: Introduction

Season Two introduces twenty more remarkable people whose achievements, discoveries and acts of courage...

Jo van Gogh-Bonger: The 28-Year-Old Who Made Vincent van Gogh

Today Vincent van Gogh is the most famous artist in the world. When he...

Jimmy Hill: The Footballer Who Made Modern Football Modern

Jimmy Hill thought English football was stuck in a “feudal time warp”. He spoke...

Masahiro Hara: The Engineer Who Built a Bridge Between Two Worlds

In the early 1990s, workers in Japanese car factories could spend most of their...

Claudette Colvin: The Schoolgirl Who Refused to Stand

On 2 March 1955, a 15-year-old schoolgirl refused to give up her...

Tommy Flowers: The Engineer Who Built the Impossible Machine

During the Second World War, Britain intercepted German messages but could not act on...

Jack Johnson: The Boxer Who Refused to Know His Place

At the start of the twentieth century, the heavyweight boxing championship was more than...

Srinivasa Ramanujan: The Indian Clerk Whose Mathematics Shapes Your Life

On 31 January 1913, renowned Cambridge mathematician G. H. Hardy opened a letter from...

Delia Derbyshire: The Woman Who Made the Future Sound Reel

In 1963, Britain heard a sound unlike anything it had heard before. It was...

Norman Borlaug: The Man Who Made Wheat Smaller and Bellies Fuller

In the 1940s, wheat had a problem. The more fertiliser farmers applied, the more...

Robert Chesebrough: The Chemist Who Sold Waste to the World

In the 1860s, oil was discovered in Pennsylvania, changing America forever. What had once...

Peter Norman: The Runner Who Chose to Stand

In 1968, landmark civil rights laws had made racial discrimination illegal in the United...