Welcome to Histories of the Unexpected where you will discover the history of things that you did not know had a history; like the history of dreams, or the history of holes.

Ready your quills and join the longhand Professor James Daybell, and the shorthand Dr Sam Willis, as they demonstrate that the pen is mightier than the sword in the unexpected history of handwriting.

In this episode discover what you can find out about the prisoners of war in Singapore under Japanese occupation from their handwriting and what kind of education girls and boys had in the sixteenth to seventeenth century. From writing manuals of the Renaissance period through to the American Revolution and the terrible handwriting in the early modern period, the writing is most definitely on the wall.

From education and intellect, health and change, power and hierarchy, gender and identity, democracy and control, Sam and James discover that this is an episode to write home about!

Listen out as our historical scribblers try their hands at reading sixteenth to seventeenth century handwriting.