History Hit Podcasts

Cadaver Synod: Trial of a Dead Pope

What could drive a pope to put a corpse on trial?

In 897, Rome staged one of the Middle Ages’ strangest spectacles: the Cadaver Synod,...

The Fake Princess Who Fooled Georgian England

What you'll hear in today's episode is a story that strikes to the dark heart of the British Empire.

Despite being set in the time of Jane...

A Day in the Life of a Puritan

What if we told you that puritans were actually sex-crazed? Well maybe not crazed but definitely not opposed to it.

What if we told you...

The Scandalous Life of Lord Byron

WARNING: This episode includes discussion of sexual abuse and explicit language.

He appalled and titillated Regency polite society in equal...

Royal Favourites: Robert Dudley, Elizabeth I's Forbidden Love

Passion, scandal, and power collided in the tumultuous relationship between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley. Rumours of secret trysts between them...

The Haunting of Cock Lane

Today we are celebrating the upcoming publication of Maddy's new book 'Hoax: Truth and Lies in the Age of Enlightenment' by sharing one of the...

The Prehistoric Plague

The first ever outbreak of 'plague' - Yersinia Pestis, the most feared disease in human history - was long thought to be the Plague of...

Christine de Pizan: Pioneering French Feminist

How did a widowed mother transform loss, politics and misogyny into one of the most accomplished literary careers in medieval history?

From...

Sex Work in Colonial India

When the British Empire colonised India, how did it treat their different ideas about sex? How did they treat sex workers like the Devadasi,...

George Washington's Spies

During the Revolutionary War a vital web of intelligence was established, with General Washington at its head. Operating through coded letters,...

Speaking with the Dead: Ancient Necromancy

In Ancient Mesopotamia, the boundary between the living and the dead was not always fixed... some even believed it could be crossed. But why would...

The Persian Gulf

Near the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most vital commercial chokepoints, lies an ancient trade route that powered civilisation 4,000...

Anne of Cleves: New Discoveries

What if Henry VIII’s “discarded bride” actually showed real promise as queen?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr James Taffe...

Bloody Mary

In 1553, Mary Tudor became the first woman to sit on the English throne - a reign of just five years, that history has remembered almost...

Saving Byzantium

Did Constantinople’s fall in 1453 end the Byzantine Empire as neatly as we think?

Dr. Eleanor Janega and Dr. Laura Bolick unpack the...

How Scandalous Were Masquerade Balls?

Faces covered, identities unknown - masquerade balls sound like a place of anonymity and, therefore, SCANDAL.

But how true is this in the...

Geronimo's Rebellion and the Apache Wars

Geronimo's name is famous across the world: the Apache warrior who led a resistance movement against the United States out in the South West for...

The Black Prince

He was one of medieval England’s most formidable warriors. Today we hear how Edward of Woodstock - the Black Prince - earned that reputation,...

Dark Side of Prehistoric Britain

Across prehistoric Britain people raised vast stone circles, buried their dead in monumental tombs, and left offerings in rivers and bogs....

Francisco de Cuéllar: Spanish Armada Captain

How did a condemned Spanish Armada captain survive shipwreck, betrayal, and war to leave behind one of the most extraordinary first-person...

The Ottoman Conquest of Constantinople

Assassin's Creed Revelations transports us to Constantinople, only a couple of generations after its conquest by the Ottoman Empire. It is one of...