100 Essential Things You Didn't Know You Didn't Know About Sport

As the musical half of the great Gilbert and Sullivan operetta-writing partnership, Sir Arthur Sullivan was behind some of the most memorable songs in English, but what were his secrets?Professor David Owen Norris outlines Sullivan's approach to writing his songs.Uploaded 20-10-11The transcript and downloadable versions of this part of the 'Sullivan Song Day' conference are available from the on the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/sullivan-song-day-1Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website.http://www.gresham.ac.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This lecture looks at the impact of empire on the colonizers and the colonized.Uploaded 06-03-12In Europe, ideologies of imperialism emerged, increasingly mingled with racism. These had a material effect on the attitudes of political elites that helped push Europe towards war in 1914.Critics of imperialism argued that colonies were crucial mainly to ensure the continued existence of capitalist economies. Economic exploitation was indeed a key part of imperial rule, as settlers grabbed land to farm, merchants, traders and planters sought profits in commodities such as rubber and coffee, and state administrators tried to minimize the costs of running the colonies by turning them into profitable enterprises. In many cases, notoriously the Belgian Congo, this led to horrific acts of cruelty against indigenous people conscripted as labourers.At the same time, economic imperatives led to attempts to develop the colonies, to provide a transport infrastructure, and to train and educate indigenous elites to meet modern economic needs. This sowed the seeds of later movements of national resistance and liberation.The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/from-conquest-to-controlGresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are increasingly aware that fundamentalism is not a monolith. It has political, cultural, social and religious implications which at times are extremely grave. Its characteristics and impact are often defined by the culture of the place in which it develops.Uploaded 12-08-11This is an attempt to define and clarify the 21st century form of Christian fundamentalism in both academic and practical terms as found in North America.The transcript and downloadable versions of the full conference are available from the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/a-swift-survey-of-fundamentalismGresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Such is the gloom that surrounds settling down today and the glamour that attaches to mature bachelor freedom, it is hard to imagine that there was a time when marriage represented the summit of a young man's hopes. Uploaded 12-08-11Forty years after the sexual liberalization of the 1970s, it is easy to forget that only marriage promised true sexual fulfillment for Christians, turning furtive or frustrated boys into fully-realized men. Marriage was the only acceptable framework for children, through whom men made a claim on the future, but also confirmed their potency. Virility was one of the most celebrated masculine qualities. The father who led a handsome family into church radiated both an air of commanding respectability and a glow of unmistakable sexual success. Marriage promised physical excitement. Two days before his marriage in January 1754, 33 year old Josiah Wedgwood positively frothed with anticipation of 'the blissful day! When she will reward all my faithful services and take me to her arms! To her Nuptial bed! To - Pleasures which I am yet ignorant of'. He took the precaution of working over-time the week before his wedding to clear time to enjoy his bride uninterrupted. Marriage was a sexy prospect. In the 17th and 18th century, bachelorhood was a temporary and unprestigious state best solved by marriage. The Batchelor's Directory of 1694 was unequivocal - 'Matrimony - what can better agree with man and more exactly relate to his necessities?' Even men who felt no attraction to the opposite sex had to marry to gain the full benefits of adulthood.There were even proposals to levy a tax on mature bachelors as a deterrent and a punishment for their evasion of the burden of domestic government and social provision. Perpetual bachelors were the 'vermin of the State' pronounced the Women's Advocate stonily. 'They enjoy the benefit of society, but Contribute not to its Charge and Spunge upon the publick, without making the least return'.We associate the history of home and private life with women, but what did house and domesticity mean to men? More than you might think argues Professor Amanda Vickery.The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/what-did-eighteenth-century-men-wantGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website.http://www.gresham.ac.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

00:00 // Introduction: Meet Professor Melissa Lane Uploaded 24-07-2600:15 // Cicero's Dilemma: A Letter on Tyranny 03:07 // Who Was Cicero? Rise of a "New Man" 05:36 // Philosopher and Statesman of Rome 09:44 // Five Crises That Defined Cicero's Life 12:27 // Crisis One: The Gracchi and Land Reform 18:39 // Crisis Two: Sulla's Dictatorship and Civil War 23:16 // Crisis Three: The Catiline Conspiracy 27:13 // Crisis Four: Caesar's Tyranny and Assassination 31:45 // Crisis Five: Cicero's War Against Mark Antony 38:09 // Conclusion: Hero of the Republic, or Its Undoing?Watch the Q and A session here: https://youtu.be/QLC154lRXZ0An enthusiast of the Roman mixed constitution, Cicero was elected consul and in that role dramatically curbed the tyrannical ambitions of Catiline. He would later become fatally embroiled in the shifting politics of later generations of ambitious strongmen, while also writing his own theories of constitutional change. This lecture explores Cicero’s life and death as a way to articulate the crises of the late republic.This lecture was recorded by Melissa Lane on the 11th of June 2026Melissa Lane is the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics, Princeton University and is also Associated Faculty in the Department of Classics and Department of Philosophy. Previously she was Senior University Lecturer at Cambridge University in the Faculty of History and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge.She studied for her first degree in Social Studies (awarded summa cum laude) at Harvard University, and then took an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, where she was a student at King’s College, supported by appointments as a Marshall Scholar, Truman Scholar, and Mary Isabel Sibley Fellow of Phi Beta Kappa.Professor Lane is an author, lecturer and broadcaster who has received major awards including being named a Guggenheim Fellow, and the Lucy Shoe Meritt Resident in Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome. She has published widely in journals and authored or introduced nine major books including Greek and Roman Political Ideas; Eco-Republic; and most recently, Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Ideas of the Political, which was awarded the 2024 Book Prize of the Journal of the History of Philosophy, and was published in a paperback edition with modifications in 2025.Professor Lane is the only person ever to have delivered both the Carlyle Lectures and the Isaiah Berlin Lectures at the University of Oxford.The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/ciceroGresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.ukX: https://x.com/GreshamCollegeFacebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollegeInstagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollegeBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollegeSupport Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices