Keith's choice for our Hall of Fame is equally impressive. Someone who fought to try and change a nation's story of its war. But it is an uncomfortable nomination, because Yuasa Ken was a Japanese war criminal who performed horrendous human experiments during the war. Afterwards, however, he saw the light and dedicated the time he had left in the world to educate his country about its culpability.

This is a powerful and unsettling listen, but it is one which we all need to hear.

This is a gripping episode – the very essence of Trapped History. You can find it as Black Boy Lane: Joris Lechene on the Legacy of John La Rose.

And Joris' nomination for the Hall of Fame is equally fascinating. Because he doesn't nominate a person. He nominates a whole uprising, when the former slaves of Guadeloupe fought to the death against the French.

And in this Hall of Fame nomination, she does the same for the women of the death camps. Hilde Grunbaum's life is a truly emotional one as both she and dozens of other female musicians would make up the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz. It was a lifeline in the midst of horror.

Her story is incredible – but even more astonishing is the tale Sathnam brings to the Hall of Fame: that of Dean Mahomed, an Indian surgeon, soldier and writer who settled in England. Which is where he established the country's first Indian restaurant and introduced the art of "shampooing" to Europe.

Prepare to be amazed! And then, head over to the main episode to hear all about The Indian Imperialist: Sathnam Sanghera on the Curious Cornelia Sorabji.

Charles Jagger was a prize-winning young sculptor on the up when the First World War broke out. He quickly signed up and served in the trenches and at Gallipoli. He was awarded the Military Cross and was wounded three times.

On his return to civilian life, Charles was a changed man. And a changed artist too. Because while he would create many sculptures and statues which were not war-related, it is for his war memorials which he is remembered. They can be found in Belgium, France, Egypt and Australia but perhaps his most famous and heart-breaking one is London's Royal Artillery Memorial.

Ian is the perfect guide to the work and the emotions behind it. So when you've listened to this, head over to the main episode to hear Remembering the Ordinary: The Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice.

Robbie's was a charmed life – a mechanic who would be one of the first Jamaicans to drive a car, he crossed the Atlantic to sign up in 1915. Joining the Royal Flying Corps, he gained his wings in April 1917, making him the first Allied Black wartime pilot.

It's an inspiring story so when you're done with this, head over to the main episode to hear about The Four Heroic Lives of Johnny Smythe.

Mabel was born in Burton-upon-Trent, but she made her name in Paris and New York, where Cole Porter, Gertrude Stein and even Ol' Blue Eyes himself fell under her spell. Her story is eye-opening and a real counterpoint to Adelaide's.

When you've finished with this, turn to the main episode: Adelaide Hall – The Greatest Singer you've Never Heard Of.

You may remember that Rosemary joined us to find out all about the marvellous Nellie Bly, adventurer, entrepreneur, war reporter and one of the very first investigative journalists in history. And perhaps Nellie's greatest exploit was to play Jules Verne at his own game and travel around the world in (under) 80 days.

But Nellie wasn't the only person to do that. There was another woman travelling around the world . . . So tune in to hear the story of that other great tenacious traveller, Elizabeth Bisland.

Because this is what Madame Xuan Phuong did. As a teenager, Phuong fought in the jungles and mountains of Vietnam for her country’s independence against the Japanese. And then the French. And finally the Americans.

We are delighted and honoured to be joined by a very special guest to tell Xuan’s story – Madame Phuong herself. A legend in her homeland, named on the BBC’s 100 Women 2024 list and a recipient of the Legion d’Honneur, her fascinating story helps us see the Vietnam War through Vietnamese eyes.

Amy's life may have been short and tragic – but it was also full to the brim. She knew W. B. Yeats, Eleanor Marx and Oscar Wilde (it was he who said Amy had a 'touch of genius') as well as a host of the literati both in England and France. She wrote short stories, essays and articles, and in her lifetime published two poetry collections and two novels (more would follow after her death). She was also one of the first generation of women to study at Cambridge.

Being Jewish and queer in an era of buttoned-up Victorian jingoism was hard enough but Amy also struggled with her mental health. Her final novel was met with scathing reviews and at the age of 27, Amy killed herself by suicide. Wilde wrote her obituary, hinting at the darkness which sat at the heart of her life, but we are also left with the last poignant words in her diary: "Alone at home all day."

Jack the Ripper is striking fear into the heart of the East End, the Bryant & May matchgirls are on strike and the magnificent Ching Hook is knocking them dead at the Sebright Music Hall. And Pearl Fitzgerald, a young woman with a Chinese mother and an Irish father, is trying to secure her inheritance.

But Pearl isn’t real. She is a fiction, the main character in novelist Fiona Keating’s bodice-ripping Smoke & Silk. Everything else, though, is true – and so Fiona is taking us and you on a journey through Pearl’s world to re-discover London’s first Chinatown. Here you will find laundries and opium, poverty and anger – but above all else a small Chinese community, hanging on by its fingernails in the onslaught of the tabloid ‘yellow peril’ scare.

It's bracing, it’s exciting and it might help change your mind about Sherlock Holmes.

It's a small story but it's a slice of life which shows us so much about a world which seems so foreign to us in the 21st century. But if there's one thing we've learned from history, it's that people and people – and they don't take kindly to being told what to do! Enjoy this medieval rebel's tale.

Award-winning Filthy Queens author, Christina Wade, plunges us into the life of an 18th century courtesan – a world in which Peg is a modern day Samuel Pepys, with views on men, marriage, chastity and responsibility which seem so fresh and yet alien to her times. This is a rip-roaring, rumbustious tale – so buckle in and check your pockets!

Born in County Mayo when Henry VIII was on the throne of England, Grainne would command a fleet of ships, raid neighbouring clans, revenge the deaths of her loved ones and take on the English army. She would even meet with Queen Elizabeth to – in the best Jack Sparrow tradition – 'parley' with her opponent.

Grainne was pretty special and is a worthy addition to the Trapped History Hall of Fame – and its new protector too!

Empireland’s Sathnam Sanghera joins us today to try to understand someone who lived and died by the maxim ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’. We find out what that actually meant in the 1940s and how we can navigate the ethical and moral quagmire which led Bose into the arms of the Nazis. This is an important episode, summed up by Sathnam’s own maxim: ‘it’s complicated’.

More than that, Bill trained figures like Byron and Hazlitt, performed in front of European royalty and was an usher at George IV's coronation.

His was an astonishing life and Bill is a worthy entrant to the Hall of Fame.

As we celebrate our three-year anniversary, join Oswin, Carla and MK for a very special episode in the company of award-winning British artist Habib Hajallie. His very own artwork, A British Hall of Fame, speaks to the past, present and future as we grapple with how we honour and remember people. This episode is literally packed with dozens of hidden heroes – and villains – and asks the question, what is fame and why do we feel a need to recognise it?

She is also remembering her friends and family and on the hike through the Welsh hills, she was walking hand-in-hand with grief. But the healing power of nature is truly something to behold. This is an emotional but also a fulfilling journey.

Have a peaceful and restorative festive break.

It is a story rooted in horror but also in love. And Jill's life bears witness to our capacity for both. If you feel moved by her story, please visit Animals Asia to see how you can support Jill in her fight to save bears from this torment: https://www.animalsasia.org/support-us/

It's a delightful episode, full of passion, joy and hope as Michaela shares her love of nature, walking and conservation. She even persuades Oswin to pull on his boots . . .

In changing women's history, she was imprisoned four times for campaigning for the vote, carved "V" for votes on her breast, went on hunger strike and was force-fed by prison guards.

In Constance's own words, which can stand for so much political action:

"People say, what does this hunger strike mean? Surely it is all folly. If it is not hysteria, at least it is unreasonable. They will not realise that we are like an army, that we are deputed to fight for a cause, and for other people, and in any struggle or any fight, weapons must be used . . . These women have chosen the weapon of self-hurt to make their protest, and this hunger strike . . . involves grave hurt and tremendous sacrifice, but this is on the part of the women only, and does not physically injure their enemies. Can that be called violence and hooliganism?"

Constance celebrated women winning the vote in 1918, a milestone in women's history – but she did not live to see women wield the vote in true equality with men. Because it was only at the 1929 general election that men and women aged 21 and over entered the voting booth as equals. But Constance, fatally weakened by her treatment in prison, had already died six years earlier in 1923, at the age of 54.

Hers was a bright short life in women's history: forgotten, unsung and hidden – but it is one captured beautifully by Helen here.

And it's one of the reasons we created Trapped History in the first place – because we don’t need more stories about Leonardo, Churchill or Elon. We need the hidden history, the forgotten history, the untold stories. But if anyone can take down ‘The Great Men of History’ it’s going to be Helen!

So strap in as we rip through the centuries and the rulebook of what makes someone ‘special’, what constitutes ‘importance’ and why we might just be able to live without these geniuses.

Throw in poetry, mysticism and sainthood and you have perhaps the greatest genius of the medieval world. A paragon of women's history and cultural history. Kings, emperors and popes certainly thought so as they sought our her teachings on the weightiest matters of the medieval age.

So tune in to find out why a Gladiator thinks an Abbess should be in the Hall of Fame . . .

Her name is Lisa Lyon and she is a legend in the fitness world. The first female bodybuilding world champion, the inspiration for the Marvel superhero Elektra and the muse for the mould-breaking photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. So tune in for a very special episode as Carla and Oswin are joined by none other than Jet from Gladiators, Diane Jetstrong, to celebrate a woman who shook the worlds of fitness, art history, gender and health.

Warned by the debonair master of deception Dudley Clark that "any carelessness or indiscretion on your part may well upset carefully arranged and important plans and have far-reaching consequences" Mick and a fellow soldier carried out their mission to bring the SAS to life with perfection.

Find out what they did, what it meant and what Mick did next.

In a wide-ranging conversation which covers everything from Trump and Putin to Downton and Dunkirk, we grapple with the fundamentals of what we mean when we talk about history, hidden history, forgotten history and unsung heroes. Josh gives us some fascinating insights into how history is turned into entertainment from his time as a historical consultant on blockbuster movies, while Oswin gives you his best (or actually his worst) Churchill impression!

With extraordinary and sometimes shocking tales about the SAS, 911 and America's longstanding desire for Canada, this is a great summertime listen which will set you up nicely for the rest of the season.

Please be upstanding for Odette Pilpoul, the Parisian soul of the French Resistance who took it upon herself to document and save evidence of atrocities when she survived a series of concentration camps and bore witness to the horrors perpetrated against the Resistance and the people of France.

You are Margarete Buber-Neumann and you are a prisoner in Ravensbruck concentration camp. The note in your hand is from Milena Jesenska, a Czech legend who has just arrived in the camp after being swept up in the Holocaust. It is a note which heralds the beginnings of hope, of friendship – of love – in the midst of death.

Join Oswin and Carla as the Holocaust historian Gwen Strauss tells the life-affirming and heart-breaking tale of Grete and Milena as they try to find a reason to live among the ruins of the Holocaust. Theirs is a forgotten history, a hidden history of queer life and death and it should act as an inspiration to us all.

She is loved and admired by other music industry greats, such as Michael Stipe, Tom Waits, Rickie Lee Jones and Everything But The Girl.

Mary makes music magic and Sarah-Jane thinks we should love her too. And we think she's right!

Connie's story is the epitome of forgotten history, hidden history. But her name deserves to be shouted from the rooftops.

Oswin and Carla are joined today by the singer Sarah-Jane Morris to help us understand the joy and sorrow of Connie’s short life, the pressures on women in the music industry then and now and how luck, time and place can conspire to sweep unsung heroes away – even as their music still remains.

She was the first Asian woman elected to the Royal Institute of British Architects and a friend of Le Corbusier and Picasso. But she's been overshadowed by those men of architecture and cultural history.

So tune in to hear her architecture story and why she means so much to Nihal.

These are the questions unsung hero Helen Bamber asked herself when she travelled to Belsen at the end of WW2 and bore witness to untold stories when she engaged survivors in conversation. She would spend her whole life working with victims of genocide, torture and human trafficking and her questions are as vital today as they were 80 years ago as we try rebooting history.

Tune in for a riveting conversation as the broadcaster and author Nihal Arthanayake joins Oswin, Carla and MK for our season opener on why we need to have this conversation, why listening is as important as talking and why connection is our only hope for the future.

But to whet your appetite . . . we are absolutely delighted to give you this wonderful taster from the brilliant Astrid & Chinny, the brains behind the award-winning It’s A Continent Podcast. Which uncovers key moments in African history, one nation at a time. It is bite-sized history, it is accessible history and it is history which will deepen and broaden all of our understanding. So I strongly recommend seeking them out on apple, spotify, wherever you listen to stuff, right after you’ve listened to this episode.

Which we particularly want to share because Astrid and Chinny got there before us! I really think that this person is someone we should all know about and carry his name in our hearts. He is Patrice Lumumba, and he was a distinguished Pan-African politician who served as the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo after the country gained independence. Patrice was well-connected but as he became more politically active and vocal, calling for an end to Belgium's rule and advocating for his country's independence, he became a target of both the Belgian and American governments.

To such a point that we need to give you a trigger warning: there is a graphic depiction of death at the 29 minute mark.

In the meantime, sit back, enjoy the ride and make sure you’re back here from 1st July for the rest of Trapped History’s summer season.

And so Carla, MK and Oswin have each brought along someone they'd like to see honoured in the Hall of Fame. Tune in for a whistle-stop tour through the lives of a First World War heroine, a couple who fought for freedom in South Africa and a union leader who was a conscientious objector.

Three different stories, four hidden heroes and forgotten stories, but we hope you will agree, they led some of the fullest and most compelling lives you will hear of.

We want to hear your own nominations for the Hall of Fame, so be inspired and head over to trappedhistory.com to send us your own nominees.

At Trapped History, we look at lives and stories which have been forgotten or ignored, and there is one community in Britain which is still shrouded in mystery even in the 21st century: that of the circus people. So who better to lift the curtain than the King of the Ring himself, Zippo the Clown — or just plain Martin Burton to us.

Not only does Martin shine a light on the lure of the circus but he also joins us on a journey back in time, when America was in thrall to the greatest showman of all — Frank Bostock, the Animal King from Darlington. Frank's is an astonishing story and an amazing life, which tells us so much about the glory years at the turn of the 20th century when technology, travel and theatre collided to create the magical potion of 'Spectacle'.

It is a story of courage and selflessness. Prepare to have your heart broken.

history, ww2 history, inspiration, heroes, forgotten history, hidden heroes, podcast

Tune in to hear the astounding story of Elżbieta Zawacka, AKA Agent Zo. It's a tale which takes us from Warsaw and Berlin to Paris and London, a tale of hope and fear, of courage and terror. Above all else, it is the tale of a young woman who won't take no for an answer when the call comes.

Oswin and Carla are joined today by the historian Clare Mulley, whose excellent new book tells the legend that is Zo. It is a wonderful story and a wonderful life. We're honoured to be able to help tell it.

It's not just Elizabeth's life story here — Chris fills us in on the theory of false memory (remember getting lost in a supermarket?) and the controversies around recovered and repressed childhood memories which she researched and challenged.

It makes for a powerful nomination and we believe this longer format justifies Elizabeth's inclusion in the Hall of Fame.

Well, someone does because on 19th August this year, a blue plaque was unveiled at Cambridge Airport to mark the 75th anniversary of her truly momentous achievement.

We featured Dikki in our first ever season and we couldn't pass up the chance to celebrate her once more. So Oswin travelled to Cambridge to see the blue plaque, catch up with old friends and meet some of Dikki's family to try to find out more about the woman behind the record.

This all-new ‘director’s cut’ of our original episode tells Dikki's story alongside the incomparable Polly Vacher, herself a record-breaker. But we've also got new interviews with Polly as well as with Amanda Harrison, another female pilot inspired by her forebears, and we get to hear from Dikki's relatives about what drove her.

It’s a fascinating story so please join us for this wonderful repeat.

Join Carla and Oswin as Goldsmith's Professor Chris French takes us on a rollercoaster journey of psychics and charlatans, secrecy and snake-oil salesmen – and above all else, of doubt and belief. Hold onto your hats – there might be a rabbit in it . . .

In the historian Kim Wagner's nominee, prepare to find out something new about someone you thought you knew.

Rewind a further 60 years and the same thing is playing out in the hills and forests of the Philippines, as the Moro resistance is being wiped out by the American army in the infamous Bud Dajo massacre.

Does history teach us anything? Looking around the world today, can we say that we have learnt from the past? This is a tough and harrowing episode of Trapped History, but it is an important one too.

So join Oswin and Carla as we try to make sense of atrocity in the company of one of the great historians of our times, Kim Wagner.

And they're not the people you might expect to meet. At a time when Britain's kings and queens barely spoke the language, please let us introduce you to Mehmet and Mustapha, two Turkish men who ran the life of George I. And what about Abdullah, who brought a caracal from India all the way to the King's Menagerie at the Tower of London? Or Bridget Holmes, Frances Talbot and Grace Tosier – without whom, life would have been just a bit less tolerable for the Stuart and Georgian rulers.

So tune in to Dr Mishka Sinha, co-curator of Kensington Palace's wonderful exhibition 'Untold Lives', as we lift the curtain and peer into the machinery of monarchy.

In this Season Four opener, please meet Mishal Husain's nominee: Fatima Jinnah, known as Madr-e-Millat or 'Mother of the Nation', a woman who broke the rules and the barriers as Pakistan emerged from the chaos of Partition. She became the conscience of Pakistan, who as opposition leader and presidential candidate, constantly reminded people about the founding principles of the new nation.

It's a great introduction to our new season.

Shahid, Tahirah, Mumtaz and Mary live through Empire, world war, independence and partition. They meet the people who will shape their future, men like Mountbatten and Jinnah - but they also find themselves unable to meet the people who really matter to them, the friends and family they grew up with but who end up on the other side of an embattled border.

It is a truly powerful episode, reminding us that we all have 'history' big and small within our grasp, within our family.

This all-new ‘director’s cut’ contains golden nuggets on the French and American Revolutions and on Charlotte’s campaigning for animal rights. It’s a real treat!

On top of that, the former leader of the Labour Party was really excited to be part of this episode – Charlotte is one of his all-time greats – and he tells us a thing or two about finding and losing tribes, how injustice can move people to great deeds, and how we all need a Charlotte to inspire us.

It’s a fascinating story so please join us for this wonderful repeat.

Tune in to hear Martin Gutmann's nominee. We guarantee you'll have heard of them before but not necessarily for Martin's reasons. It's a truly fascinating listen which might change the way you think about bands, friends and music.

More precisely, how much do we want to know? Surely, the tangled heroics of Scott of the Antarctic and of Ernest Shackleton make for more exciting reading than the careful, boring tales of Amundsen? They faced crises with fortitude, didn't they – while he simply, well, succeeded?

That is, perhaps, the point. So join Oswin and Carla on our enthralling season finale as we dissect 'The Hero's Journey' and the 'Action Fallacy' in the company of Professor Martin Gutmann – and find out why we all deserve to know more about Amundsen and his unseen leadership.

Most of our nominees are long gone – but Dee Jarrett-Macauley follows in the footsteps of Pete Paphides and nominates someone who is well and truly alive and kicking: the great publisher and writer Margaret Busby, whose Daughters Of Africa anthologies changed the way poetry was published in Britain.

Tune in to hear about the six lives of Una Marson as Oswin and Carla are joined by her biographer and Orwell Prize winner, Dee Jarrett-Macauley. It's a tale of a young woman who came to represent a whole region, a whole continent even – and who sometimes found that burden too heavy to shake off.

It's an inspirational story, it's a sad one too. But it's a story of our times – when the personal and the political become one.

Most guests nominate someone who's, well, dead. But Pete Paphides joins Polly Vacher in nominating a living legend. In this case, the mesmeric Paolo Conte, Italy's answer to Tom Waits.

Listen to Pete's nomination exclusively here.

A damaged, wounded singer-songwriter who wowed the British folk scene and presaged psychedelia and punk, Jackson only produced one album – but its influence can still be heard today in the work of artists like Laura Marling, Counting Crows, even Daft Punk.

Oswin and Carla are delighted to be joined by the music journalist Pete Paphides to discuss Blues Run The Game, how hurt and pain can drive creativity and the transformative power of music.

Today, it's the turn of @that.spitfire.bird, instagram's very own Jo Rogers. We take a quick detour into Tilly Shilling's orifice – no, really! – before finding out what a Messerschmitt 108 turned up when it taxied into Jo's life.

Find all about the magnificent Elly Beinhorn, a German aviatrix who rivalled Amy Johnson, fell in love with a dashing racing driver and turned her nose up at the Nazis who tried to control her life.

Tune in to hear Pauline’s story as Oswin and Carla are joined – buckled up inside a Dakota troop carrier – by Jo Rogers, AKA instagram’s magnificent @that.spitfire.bird. It’s a tale of bravery, tragedy, grit and sheer bloody-minded determination in the face of slack-jawed armchair generals. There are appearances from the great Amy Johnson and Jacqueline Cochran, so strap in and prepare to be inspired.

As it's the holiday season, today we have a twofer for you: first, there's Peter's light-hearted nomination of the explorer Richard Burton, in all his magnificent messiness. And then, hear about the courageous Father Stanley Rother, a missionary among the Tz'utujil people of Guatemala in the 1970s, who famously wrote, "The shepherd cannot run at the first sign of danger" and was murdered by paramilitary forces in 1981.

It's a moving tale which deserves a full listen.

Join Oswin and Carla and the great writer on religion, Peter Stanford, as we try to understand the mechanics, the money-making and the magic of pilgrimage.

It’s a tale of technology, of power, of disease and migration. It truly is a tale of our times.

Tune in this week to hear Jeremy Corbyn's nomination – the quite brilliant Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a Mexican writer, poet and philosopher from four centuries ago, variously known as The Phoenix of America and The Tenth Muse. Her's was an astonishing life and this is a great nominee.

So who better to help Oswin and Carla tell her story than the Charlotte Despard of the 21st century – Jeremy Corbyn. The former leader of the Labour Party was so excited to be part of this episode – Charlotte is one of his all-time greats – and he tells us a thing or two about finding and losing tribes, how injustice can move people to great deeds, and how we all need a Charlotte to inspire us.

Hers is a fascinating story so please join us for this wonderful episode.

Join Oswin, Carla and the art historian Frances Spalding as we delve into Evelyn's life and art, understand life in the 1930s and what being a woman artist means today.

You can find the paintings we're talking about on the Trapped History website, trappedhistory.com, and on our instagram page @trappedhistory

Tune in to hear the compelling story of the last of the Nuremberg prosecutors in the company of the great historian of our post-war world, Keith Lowe. History is fascinating and exciting but it can also be complex, murky and compromised. Ben's story is the story of our times.

So earlier this year, it seemed obvious – and right – to name a street in his honour. But the furore over the renaming of Black Boy Lane threw John and everything he stood for back into the cultural and political spotlight.

Join Oswin, Carla and our very special guest the cultural commentator Joris Lechene as we celebrate John's life and try to understand how a simple street renaming can ignite racism and intolerance.

Meet the women of the Resistance, Dédée, Tante Go and countless others – the women of the Comet Line.

Join Carla, Oswin and our special guest the historian Anne Sebba who last year made the journey which hundreds of downed aircrew took, over the Pyrenees and into neutral Spain. Hear about her crossing and about the fear and the danger which Dédée had to conquer.

And yet, Cornelia was also an arch-imperialist, extolling the British Empire, castigating Gandhi and dismissing the Indian independence movement.

Join Oswin, Carla and our very special guest Sathnam Sanghera as we try to understand what drove someone like Cornelia – and why 'empire' still resonates more than 75 years after India gained its independence.

Tune in to hear the Northern Soul Legend Sam Jones tell us all about the time she won Sopot – and what John Lennon, Frank Sinatra and others thought about her. It's a great listen!

Join Oswin, Carla and six young people from today as we time travel 125 years to find out about Kid Blink, Joseph Pulitzer and how news has changed – or remained the same . . .

And listen in to hear who Shane, Dillon, Dalani, Elijah, Marley and Maya agree on for their Hall of Fame nominee.

Join Oswin and Carla as we learn about the troubled and troubling lives of Hanna Reitsch and Melitta von Stauffenberg. The acclaimed historian, Clare Mulley, guides us through this knotty moral, ethical and historical challenge – a story which will open your eyes and your ears to the very nature of history, memory and truth.

Emmy fought multiple prejudices all her life – she was a woman, she was Jewish and she came from a left-wing family. And this was Germany before the Nazis, already one of the most conservative places on earth. And yet, her pioneering work in abstract algebra and her proofs of Einstein's theory of relativity still stand today and are the basis of so much of our modern world.

Join Oswin and Carla as we explore Emmy's world and try to understand a bit about the barriers she dealt with every day. And if you're lucky, you might pick up some of the maths too from Sums Of Anarchy's brilliant Dominique Miranda – with a side order of Einstein!

Tune in also to hear the fascinating story of Dominique's nominee for the Trapped History Hall of Fame.

Richarda was a bored and lonely young woman in post-war Britain. But she had a dream and she knew that she was the only person who could make it happen.

Join Oswin and Carla and the legendary circumnavigator Polly Vacher MBE as we try to understand what drives someone to climb into a cockpit and set off on a year-long journey. Just like Richarda, Polly did it too – as the first woman to fly solo around the world via the polar regions – and she shares her secrets of success.

Tune in also to hear the fascinating story of Polly's nominee for the Trapped History Hall of Fame.

Join us as we leave the studio and venture out into wintery London to find out about this fascinating place. It's Victorian, but not as you know it – there's no pomp, there's no circumstance. Instead, this is a memorial to ordinary people who did extraordinary things.

The artist and sculptor Ian Wolter leads us through the complex world of memorialisation and remembrance as we learn about the man behind the Memorial, the people on it and what it teaches us about memory today.

Tune in also to hear the powerful story of Ian's nominee for the Trapped History Hall of Fame.

Sierra Leonean Johnny was an RAF bomber navigator, a Prisoner of War, his country's top lawyer and the mastermind behind the Windrush.

In this special episode, Oswin and Carla are joined by Trevor Edwards, who flew for the RAF for a decade and who clues us in about the fear, the nerves, the pain, the racism and the ignorance he and Johnny would have faced every time they climbed into a plane.

Tune in also to hear the astonishing story of Trevor's nominee for the Trapped History Hall of Fame.

Ella Fitzgerald called her the first lady of jazz. She was the first to dance the Charleston, one of the richest Black women in America, the highest paid female entertainer in Britain during the war – so whatever happened to Adelaide Hall?

Join Oswin and Carla as we hear Adelaide sing and find out from the great Stephen Bourne all about Adelaide's life, the Cotton Club, the Harlem Renaissance, the Blitz, music halls and why we should know more about her.

Peter is a chancer, a thief, a scrounger and a fraudster. But he's also a genuine war hero. And one of the most complicated, hidden and secretive people you'll ever meet.

Join Oswin and Carla and the military historian Joshua Levine as we try to understand the tangled world of Peter Stevens – and to make sense of how war can free people to be whoever or whatever they want to be.

Nellie was born in the 19th century but she is a 21st century woman. An investigative journalist before the job existed, a travel writer before people knew what to write about, an anthropologist before people wanted to understand different cultures – and an entrepreneur at the dawn of a new age. You really want to hear about Nellie . . . you really need to.

Join Oswin and Carla as we delve into Nellie's life and hear from Rosemary Brown, a historian who followed Nellie on her greatest adventure: to beat Jules Verne at his own game and travel around the world in under 80 days.