All Episodes
Great Lives — 410 episodes
Pauline Black of The Selecter on Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex
Actor Laurence Olivier with Derek Jacobi and Tim Walker
Cartoonist Naji al-Ali
Cleopatra picked by Kate Williams
Ade Edmondson on singer Sandy Denny
Tony Garnett picked by Harry Bradbeer
Peter Cook picked by Jon Harvey aka Count Binface
Coco Khan picks Edith Garrud, the jujitsu fighting suffragette
William Gladstone, four-time PM
Alistair McGowan on HE Bates
Beverley Knight on Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the godmother of rock and roll
Daisy Dunn on Marcus Agrippa, ancient Rome's king of cement
Dr Sian Williams nominates Anna Freud
Pianist and broadcaster Keelan Carew nominates Russian composer Nicolai Medtner
Comedian Helen Lederer on Joan Rivers
John Cooper Clarke on Johnny Green, road manager of The Clash
Helen Carr picks Christine de Pizan at the Gloucester history festival
Alex Wheatle, the Bard of Brixton
Spitfire pilot Jeffrey Quill picked by astronaut Tim Peake
Oliver Postgate
Sylvia Plath
Elizabeth Day on Hatshepsut
Comedian Stewart Lee on Derek Bailey
Jock Stein, first British football manager to win the European Cup
Benjamin Franklin
Miles Jupp on JL Carr, author of A Month in the Country
Helen Castor on Richard II
DJ Deb Grant on John Prine
Sir Seretse Khama, first president of Botswana
Emily Williamson, co-founder of the RSPB
Tina Turner
Raymond Blanc on Professor Nicholas Kurti
Dervla Murphy, author of the classic Full Tilt
Ned Ludd mythical leader of the Luddites
Richey Edwards of The Manic Street Preachers
Benny Hill
Maggi Hambling picks muse and lover Henrietta Moraes
Harriet Harman on Maria Callas
Kate Raworth on Donella Meadows
Mark Billingham chooses George Harrison
Jake Arnott on John Gay
Ellen E Jones nominates Florynce Kennedy
AN Wilson selects Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Jessica Fostekew on Boudica
Reginald D Hunter selects Eugene V Debs
Pen Hadow nominates Sir Peter Scott
Lauren Cuthbertson on Margot Fonteyn
Dr Hannah Critchlow picks Professor Colin Blakemore
Doug Allan on Captain Jacques Cousteau
Ekow Eshun on the first openly gay footballer, Justin Fashanu
Anneka Rice picks the largely forgotten Jane Morris, muse to Rossetti and wife of William Morris
The surgeon Henry Marsh picks 'the saviour of mothers' Dr Semmelweis
The Roman Emperor Nero
Film director Julien Temple on Elizabethan bad boy Christopher Marlowe
Zing Tsjeng on Swedish painter Hilma af Klint
Miriam Margolyes on Charles Dickens
Mary Portas on Anita Roddick
Lady Rachel MacRobert, chosen by Hayaatun Sillem
Queen Emma
James Dyson on Frank Whittle
Katherine Rundell on E Nesbit
Antoni Gaudi
Sir Bruce Forsyth
Harry Enfield on Gerard Hoffnung
Alan Freeman picked by Simon Mayo
Actor Niamh Cusack on the life of poet Mary Oliver
Mr Motivator picks Harry Belafonte
Jimmy Wales on Thomas Jefferson
Eartha Kitt proposed by Faye Tozer
John Gray on JG Ballard
Iszi Lawrence on Diana Barnato Walker
Mohammad Mossadegh, PM of Iran ousted in a coup
Ludwig Koch
Lady Eve Balfour
Ken Loach on Gerrard Winstanley
Chi-chi Nwanoku on Jessye Norman
Ninette de Valois
Sophie Scott on Hattie Jacques
Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore and London Zoo
Susie Dent on Thomas Mann
Tony Benn
Jon Ronson picks Terry Hall of The Specials
Sir Edward Coke, prosecutor of Guy Fawkes
Kofi Annan
Frank Zappa
Frederick the Great of Prussia
Arthur Ashe
Astrid Lindgren, creator of Pippi Longstocking
Adjoa Andoh on Zora Neale Hurston
Comedian Chris McCausland on Kurt Cobain
Roger Deakin, wild swimmer and author of Waterlogged
Minette Batters on Henry Plumb
Bob Harris on Sir Matt Busby, Manchester United manager
Noddy Holder on Chuck Berry
Olivia Laing on Christopher Lloyd, Gardener and Writer
Olia Hercules on Alla Horska, Ukrainian painter
Bonnie Greer on the Women of the Morant Bay Rebellion
George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood nominated by Lesley Garrett
Romy Gill on poet Amrita Pritam
Rosalind Franklin picked by Kate Bingham, former head of the UK government's vaccine taskforce
Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw, Educationalist
Ravi Shankar, India's famous sitar player
Holly Walsh on BS Johnson
Pat Nevin on Johan Cruyff
Judy Garland
Joan Rhodes, strongest woman in the world
Rob Newman on Franklin D Roosevelt
Mr Manchester Tony Wilson nominated by Terry Christian
Gil Scott-Heron
Lolita Chakrabarti on actor Ira Aldridge
Janet Ellis on Puffin editor Kaye Webb
Tom Hopkinson, editor of Picture Post
Brian Cox on Lindsay Anderson
Spike Milligan
Roma Agrawal on Mrinalini Sarabhai
Lady Hale on Lady Rhondda
William Lever, Lord Leverhulme, founder of Unilever
Noor-Un-Nissa Inayat Khan
Jeanne Baret, first woman to sail round the globe
Rory Sutherland on Johnny Ramone
JRR Tolkien, creator of The Hobbit
Ruth Rogers on James Baldwin
Yanis Varoufakis on Hypatia
Dorothy Byrne on Catherine of Siena
Peggy Seeger on her husband Ewan MacColl
Josiah Wedgwood
Frantz Fanon
Althea Gibson
Yehudi Menuhin
Hans Christian Andersen
The Surprise Lives
Rosie Millard on Edward III
Ben Miller on William Hazlitt
Arlo Parks on Elliott Smith
Jonathan Dimbleby on Harry Hopkins
KT Tunstall on Ivor Cutler
Black and British pioneer Kenny Lynch
Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novelist
The Talented Mr Ripley author, Patricia Highsmith
Rights activist Cesar Chavez nominated by Cori Crider
Caroline Catz on Delia Derbyshire
David Jonsson on Jean Michel Basquiat
Rob Rinder on Jessica Mitford
Diane Morgan on Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding
David Spiegelhalter on Frank Ramsey
The Great Lives of Great Lives
Katherine Parr, sixth wife of Henry VIII
Xuanzang, Chinese monk and traveller
James Graham on John Maynard Keynes
Sir David Adjaye on Okwui Enwezor
Tom Allen on Kenneth Williams
Ernie Bevin, forgotten political giant
Jessie Ware on Donna Summer
Peter Frankopan on Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
Frida Kahlo nominated by author Jessie Burton
Mussolini
Dolly Alderton on Doris Day
Sybille Bedford, author of Jigsaw and A Legacy
Billy Bremner of Leeds United
Sally Phillips on Hollywood star Myrna Loy
Victoria Wood
Maya Angelou
EUrsula Le Guin nominated by Kate Stables
Frank Cottrell Boyce on Tove Jansson
Rick Stein on Jim Morrison
Andi Oliver on Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison
Kurt Vonnegut
Charlie Parker nominated by Ken Clarke
Bill Bailey on his hero Alfred Russel Wallace
Novelist Enid Blyton
Jeremy Paxman nominates Lord Shaftesbury
Lee Miller, war photographer and model
Just William / Richmal Crompton proposed by Peter Oborne with Martin Jarvis
Constance Agatha Cummings-John
Comedian Sindhu Vee on Prince
Fiona Shaw nominates the actress Eleonora Duse
Philippa Perry on the Italian educator Maria Montessori
First Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald
Caroline Quentin nominates Sir John Vanbrugh
Laura Marling on Lou Andreas-Salome
Robinson Crusoe
Ed Balls nominates Herbert Howells
Kamila Shamsie chooses Asma Jahangir
Shirley Collins on Alan Lomax
Jeremy Deller on The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein
Caroline Criado-Perez on Jane Austen
Kirill Gerstein on Ferruccio Busoni
Malcolm Lowry, nominated by Ian McMillan
Catherine de Medici nominated by Helen Lewis
Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, chosen by Tom Holland
Shappi Khorsandi on Emma, Lady Hamilton
Matt Lucas on Freddie Mercury
Rohan Silva on Colin Chapman
Suzanne O'Sullivan on Oliver Sacks
Nikesh Shukla on the Great Gama
Sathnam Sanghera on Alexander Gardner
Mark Steel on Charlie Chaplin
Tim Smit on Humphrey Jennings
Russell Kane on Evelyn Waugh
Samira Ahmed on Laura Ingalls Wilder
Christina Lamb on Benazir Bhutto
Helen Glover on Alison Hargreaves
Mark Carwardine on Douglas Adams
Cherie Blair on Dame Rose Heilbron
Greg Jenner on Gene Kelly
Patricia Greene on Bess of Hardwick
Simon Evans on JS Mill
Erica Wagner on Roald Amundsen
Hanif Kureishi on David Bowie
Barbara Stocking on Catherine the Great
Suzy Klein on Hedy Lamarr
Mica Paris on Josephine Baker
Simon Callow on Orson Welles
Ayesha Hazarika on Jayaben Desai
Tej Lalvani on Richard Feynman
Laura Serrant on Audre Lorde
Adrian Utley of Portishead on Miles Davis
Jim Moir on Captain Beefheart
Gisela Stuart on Joseph Chamberlain
Liza Tarbuck on Nikola Tesla
Justin Marozzi on Herodotus
Hertha Ayrton
Nazir Afzal on Gandhi
Louise Richardson on Daniel O'Connell
Cornelia Parker on Marcel Duchamp
Will Gregory on Flann O'Brien
Helena Morrissey on Rachael Heyhoe Flint
Andrea Catherwood on Constance Markievicz
Nicholas Stern on Muhammad Ali
Helen Sharman on Elsie Widdowson
Tracy Chevalier on Mary Anning
Don McCullin on Norman Lewis
Maxine Peake on Ellen Wilkinson
Stephen Fry on PG Wodehouse
Peter Williams of Jack Wills chooses Steve Jobs
Iain Lee on Andy Kaufman
Sue Cameron on Emma of Normandy
Steven Knight on Sitting Bull
Peaches Golding on Shirley Chisholm
Anton Du Beke on Arnold Palmer
Ermonela Jaho on Mother Teresa
Germaine Greer on Dame Elizabeth Frink
Gary Kemp on EW Godwin
Chris Patten on Pope John XXIII
Len Goodman on Lionel Bart
Akram Khan on Srinivasa Ramanujan
Suzannah Lipscomb on CS Lewis
Ruth Holdaway on Helen Rollason
Orlando Murrin on Dinu Lipatti
Sir Ben Kingsley on Elie Wiesel
Cary Grant
Cyrus Todiwala on Dadabhai Naoroji
AA Gill on Arthur Neville Chamberlain
Eliza Carthy on Caroline Norton
Maureen Lipman on Dame Cicely Saunders
Tony Hawks on Marshall Rosenberg
Dag Hammarskjold
Sara Pascoe on Virginia Woolf
Alex Salmond on Thomas Muir
Hilary Devey on Gracie Fields
Frank Turner on Joseph Grimaldi
George Fox
Charles Moore on Gordon Hamilton-Fairley
Richard the Lionheart
Graeme Lamb on Christine Granville
Sudha Bhuchar chooses the life of Zohra Sehgal
Ray Peacock chooses the life of Lenny Bruce
Nancy Dell'Olio chooses the life of Lucrezia Borgia
Alfred Hitchcock
Eliza Manningham-Buller chooses Abraham Lincoln
Nitin Sawhney on Jeff Buckley
Susan Calman on Molly Weir
Martin Jennings on Charles Sargeant Jagger
Precious Lunga chooses Wangari Maathai
Alvin Hall chooses James Baldwin
Roger Saul chooses Gertrude Jekyll
Dickie Bird on the life of Sir Leonard Hutton
Toyah Willcox on Katharine Hepburn
Nick Stadlen on Bram Fischer
Hannah Rothschild on Thelonious Monk
Monica Ali chooses Richard Francis Burton
George Washington Williams
Michael Howard on Elizabeth I
Vicky Pryce on Melina Mercouri
Ian McKellen on Edmund Hillary
Val McDermid on PD James
David Blunkett on Louis Braille
US Ambassador Matthew Barzun on JG Winant
Antonia Quirke on Marlon Brando
Wendy Cope on John Clare
Dame Helen Ghosh on James Lees-Milne
Kulvinder Ghir on Zoran Music
Rachel Johnson on Ottoline Morrell
Sir Trevor McDonald on Learie Constantine
Mervyn King on Risto Ryti
Eve Pollard on Nora Ephron
Michael Dobbs on Guy Burgess
Philippa Langley on Richard III
Tom Solomon on Roald Dahl
Brian Eno on Lord Young of Dartington
Laura Bates on Louisa May Alcott
Arthur Smith on Emil Zátopek
Professor Edith Hall on Lucille Ball
Andrew Adonis on Joseph Bazalgette
Stella Rimington on Dorothy L Sayers
Labi Siffre on Arthur Ransome
Tom Shakespeare on Gramsci
Ray Mears on Rommel
Baroness Oona King on Ida B Wells
Jazzie B on James Brown
Jonathan Meades on Edward Burra
Ernest Hemingway
John Craven on Brunel
Isy Suttie on Jake Thackray
Emma Kirkby on Henry Purcell
Deborah Moggach on Arnold Bennett
Marcus du Sautoy on Jorge Luis Borges
Sir Mark Walport on Sir Hans Sloane
Ian Curtis
Sarah Vine on Dante
Evelyn Glennie on Jacqueline Du Pre
DJ Sara Cox nominates singer Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes
Mark Constantine on Kahlil Gibran
Meg Rosoff on Isabella Bird
Dave Allen chosen by Adil Ray
David Baddiel on John Updike
Sir David Chipperfield on Le Corbusier
Michael Horovitz on Allen Ginsberg
Ricky Ross on Hank Williams
Nina Simone
Nancy Mitford
Al Murray on Bernard Montgomery
Sir Brendan Barber on John Steinbeck
Konnie Huq on Ada Lovelace
Peter Bowles on George Devine
Paul Mason on Louise Michel
Julie Burchill on Ava Gardner
Tanika Gupta on Rabindranath Tagore
Gabriel Gbadamosi on Fela Kuti
Russell Grant on Ivor Novello
Florence Nightingale
Primo Levi
Salvador Dali
Bill Shankly
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
David Livingstone
Kenny Everett
Galileo
George Bell
William Robinson
Aubrey Beardsley
John Stuart Mill
Grigori Rasputin
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Jean Cocteau
Dick Francis
George Orwell
Edith Wharton
Karel Reisz
Stan Laurel
Juvenal
Leonard Maguire
Walter Scott
Josephine Bonaparte
Henry Cooper
Sebastian Walker
Goya
John Ford
Edward Said
George Lyward
Gertrude Stein
Oscar Wilde
Dylan Thomas
Razia Sultana
Vera Brittain
Gracie Allen
Joseph Rotblat
Lonnie Donegan
Ludwig II of Bavaria
Thomas Hobbes
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Philip K Dick
William Shakespeare
Gerald Durrell
Hildegard Von Bingen
Edwin Lutyens
Hans Fallada
Eduardo Paolozzi
Kirsty MacColl
Graham Greene
Harold Pinter
Jack Johnson
Petra Kelly
Lewis Carroll
Kathleen Ferrier
Simone de Beauvoir
Leonard Bernstein
Thomas Edison
Marcus Garvey
Mary Stott
Gertrude Bell
Aneurin Bevan
Sammy Davis Jr
Samuel Beckett
DH Lawrence
Malcolm McLaren
Walt Disney
Michel de Montaigne
Winston Churchill
Golda Meir