In Our Time is a British radio show about everything. Launched by the BBC’s Radio Four in 1998, it has run for 21 straight years with the same host, the more than 50-year BBC veteran Melvyn Bragg. Its free online podcast archives are an autodidact’s dream and a gift to curious people around the world.

One of the joys of the show is the contrast between the broadness of its sweep and its intimate, changeless format. Each episode begins with a “hello” from Bragg, swiftly followed by a condensed introduction to the episode’s subject, which might be anything from free will to the Haitian Revolution, teeth, the concept of zero, Buddha, the alphabet, the Boxer Rebellion, Simón Bolívar, Virginia Woolf, the Medici, echolocation, the Metaphysical Poets, or Samuel Beckett.