History Hit Podcasts

Owain Glyndwr and The Welsh Revolt

England plays Wales in the World Cup today so it only makes sense that Dan looks back at what's often called Wales' last war of Independence...

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

On the evening of 14th April, 1865, the Union was celebrating victory in the civil war, won 5 days earlier with General Lee's surrender at...

WW1 & The Rise of Ghosts

8.5 million soldiers died as a result from wounds and disease during the First World War, plunging a society into mourning as loved ones were left...

Public Executions in London

For at least 700 years, presumed criminals were publicly executed in London. Such occasions were often gruesome, gory and very...

The Legacy of Rome

Rome has attracted aspiring conquerors and leaders for millennia, not just as a great metropolis, but as an idea. It has long been a symbol of...

Aliens

Who invented aliens? We did. Each age invents its own. When we invented robots, aliens became robotic beings. In the Cold War, intergalactic...

Alexander the Great: Man and Myth

Alexander the Great is one of the most famous figures from history. Legends and fantastical versions of his life were told almost immediately upon...

Mongol Empire

The Crusades are well-known but only part of the complex history of the medieval Near East. During the same era, the region was completely remade...

The History of the Clitoris

It’s so important that it’s been ‘discovered’ at least twice, but what is the clitoris and why has it previously been so hard to...

Irish Revolution

The Irish War of Independence in 1919 was fought between the Irish Revolutionary Army and British Forces, with support of the RIC and USC. Wounds...

Plagues

From a plague in Athens during the Peloponnesian War in 430 BCE, to another in 540 that wiped out half the population of the Roman empire, down...

The First Thanksgiving

In the fall of 1621, a year after the pilgrim ship the Mayflower landed on the coast of New England, the settlers of the Plymouth Colony...

The Legacy of Tutankhamun

Since the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, the phenomenon of “Tutmania” has continued to capture the worlds...

Fall of the Ming Dynasty

In 1627 Zhu Youjian, the Chongzhen Emperor, became the 17th - and what would turn out to be the last - Emperor of China’s Ming Dynasty. It had...

A Short History of Scotland and England's Union

Yesterday the UK Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Scottish government is not allowed to hold a second independence referendum without...

Roller Coasters

The world’s first Loop-the-Loop roller coaster gave so many people whiplash that they kept a medical team on the payroll.

Find out where...

Kings and Queens: Villains, Heroes and Rulers

Dan teams up with his parents and esteemed journalists Peter Snow and Ann MacMillan to explore the lives, loves, triumphs and disasters of a...

Hanseatic League

Growing from a few North German towns in the late 12th century, the Hanseatic League — a powerful network of...

Mussolini's Favourite Daughter

What do we know about the people who shared the surname Mussolini with the Italian fascist dictator?

Edda Mussolini may have been Benito’s...

Central Park: What Lies Beneath

Central Park is an oasis of nature in New York City, amidst the countless skyscrapers and gridded streets of Manhattan. Over 800 acres of sweeping...

Ronald Reagan: The Peacemaker

When Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, he was initially written off by many as a reckless B movie cowboy who would lead the US to nuclear...