Hello and welcome to the History Extra Podcast from BBC History magazine, Britain's

bestselling history magazine.

I'm Ellie Corthorn, from fierce rivals to romantic entanglements, sometimes two heads

of better than one when it comes to making a mark in the history books.

In today's episode, you'll be hearing from the journalist and news presenter, Kathy

Newman, author of It Takes Two, a book about powerful couples and dynamic duos who changed

the course of history.

Kathy was joined in conversation by a digital section editor Rachel Dunning.

Your book It Takes Two tells the stories of remarkable duos through history whose relationships

are particularly interesting in some way or they achieve great things together.

My first question is when you came to write this book, how did you define what a couple

is because the individuals you choose aren't necessarily romantic pairings?

Yeah, that's a very, very good question.

I didn't want to write a book about sort of wrong-clawing romantic couples.

I didn't want that to be what couple them meant.

Obviously, that's part of it and there are great love stories.

You know, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, for example.

But it's much more about the nature of partnership, the nature of collaboration and why too is

special.

And there is something special about too.

The old saying, you know, two's company, three's a crowd, for example.

But actually, if you look at what sociologists have examined about couples, there's something

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