History Uncensored

A small island sitting dangerously close to a rival superpower. A military flashpoint shaped by ideology, geography, and fear. Is that Cuba - or Taiwan?
In this deep-dive, Bianca Nobilo explores the striking parallels between Cuba and Taiwan, two islands shaped by the ambitions of far larger powers. From the Cuban Missile Crisis to rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait, Bianca looks at why great powers become obsessed with strategically placed islands just offshore and what that reveals about the return of spheres of influence in global politics.

Cuba became central to America’s Cold War anxieties, just like how Taiwan now sits at the heart of U.S-China rivalry - both islands represent something far bigger than territory alone.

At its core, this is a story about power, fear, and the return of great-power competition.
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Eugenics is often treated as a dead ideology buried with Nazi Germany but historians and scientists argue the idea never truly disappeared - it simply evolved.

Bianca Nobilo speaks to geneticists Adam Rutherford and Professor Debby Sneed, exploring how eugenics became tied to empire, racial hierarchy, forced sterilisation and genocide. Later examining the flawed science that sustained it and tracing how ancient Sparta and classical Greece were later mythologised by modern extremists.

Was eugenics defeated after World War II? Or did the bad science that fuelled some of history’s worst atrocities simply adapt to a new age?
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Why do powerful men keep idolising the ancient world?

From Xi Jinping invoking Thucydides at a US-China summit, to Putin’s “Third Rome,” to Elon Musk posting “America is New Rome,” modern leaders repeatedly reach back to Greece and Rome when talking about power, destiny and empire.

Bianca Nobilo explores what leaders’ historical obsessions, like Hitler and Napoleon reveal about them and why ancient figures like Caesar, Augustus, Alexander and Sparta still hold such political and psychological power today.

Chronopolitics also comes into play - the political use of the past to legitimise the present and claim authority over the future - because the ancient world can justify almost anything: democracy, empire, conquest, republican virtue, dictatorship, restraint or glory.

So the real question isn’t whether leaders read the classics. It’s what they’re trying to authorise through them.

What historical figures do YOU notice modern leaders admiring?
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What even is time? Physicists still can’t fully agree.

Einstein showed that time bends and warps. Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli argues it may not fundamentally exist at all. And yet modern life is ruled by clocks, schedules, deadlines and timestamps measured down to fractions of a second.

Across ancient civilizations, humans developed ways to make the invisible movements of the sky measurable - first through monuments, then sundials, water clocks and eventually mechanical timekeeping.

Featuring interviews with science communicator Finn Burridge from Royal Observatory Greenwich and author Jonathan Martineau, Bianca Nobilo examines how time evolved from a natural experience into a system that structures modern life itself.
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Bianca Nobilo takes us through the history behind the headlines again as President Donald Trump meets Xi Jinping in China in his first visit there in over a decade.

The relationship between the two countries is one of the most important in the world. What happens between them shapes the future of the global order - trade, war, Taiwan, the Middle East, climate change. But it hasn’t always been a relationship between equals.

How did America help great its own biggest rival? Listen to find out...
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