History Hit Podcasts

Gothic Fiction

From Dracula, to Frankenstein, to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, to Twilight’s Edward Cullen…when did our fascination with gothic fiction...

Tutankhamun: The Valley of the Kings

1/4. On the West Bank of the Nile in Luxor lie the burial chambers of some of Ancient Egypt's greatest pharaohs - Ramses II, Seti I and...

Sleepy Hollow & the Haunted Hudson

On Halloween, Elizabeth Bradley tells Don about Washington Irving's famous story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, its headless horseman and the...

Sorcery and the Tudor Court

It's a little known fact that the Tudor monarchs and their councillors used - and feared - magic and the occult. At this time of great religious...

Tactical Nuclear Weapons

In a scathing attack on the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared the world faces its most dangerous decade since WW2 - having...

Smugglers of Jamaica Inn

Stories of shipwrecks, smugglers and ghosts. Built in the mid-18th century, over the years many of the Jamaica Inn's patrons have been less...

Ukraine's Ancient Greek City

Located in modern day Ukraine, Olbia was the largest ancient Greek settlement on the coast of the Black Sea. A mix of Scythian and Greek culture,...

Paranormal Technology

Welcome to Patented-Gone-Paranormal!! Thomas Edison tried to make a telephone that called the spirit world. One of the pioneers of radio believed...

Vlad the Impaler

Vlad the Impaler - Vlad Dracula - is one of history’s most brutal figures, who has enjoyed a bizarre afterlife as a cult character. Although a...

Seances

Everybody hold hands! We're going for a seance!

How long have we've been trying to talk to dead people for? And have we ever actually been...

Blitzkrieg: How Britain Invented, Then Ignored It

Here’s a special episode of Cautionary Tales, a podcast from our friends at Pushkin Industries.

On Cautionary Tales, bestselling author...

A Short History of Seances

From their origins in necromancy to their ritualisation in the religion of Spiritualism, seances have long been a staple in the occultist's...

America's Psychedelic '60s: Timothy Leary and LSD

In 1963, a Gilded Age estate in Millbrook, New York, became a venue for academic research into therapeutic uses for LSD, led by psychologist...

Nur Jahan: Empress of Mughal India

In 1611, the daughter of a Persian nobleman and widow of a subversive official, became the 20th and favourite wife of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir....

Colosseum

Nicknamed the 8th wonder of the ancient world, the Colosseum still stands in splendour today. Located in the heart of Rome, nestled at the bottom...

Elizabeth Báthory: The Vampire of Hungary

The inspiration behind countless gothic novels, Countess Elizabeth Báthory is said to be one of the most prolific serial killers of all time,...

Nuclear Fusion Power

For almost a century we’ve been trying to build a star on earth. Not easy with temperatures reaching 150,000,000℃.

Today on Patented...

Rasputin: Myth & Manhood

Was Rasputin really Russia’s greatest love machine? Did he have any healing powers? And why might his penis be pickling in a jar?

In this...

Ghosts

How long have people believed in ghosts?

Eleanor Janega is back Betwixt the Sheets with Kate to tell us why you should always stand up to...

Who were the Africans in Medieval Britain?

Earlier this month, it was reported that DNA analysis of the skeleton of a 10-year-old girl buried in Kent in the 7th century showed she was of...

The Extraordinary Life of James Harley

James Arthur Stanley Harley was a scholar, reverend, politician, and perhaps aristocrat. Born in a poor village in the Caribbean island of...