History Hit Podcasts

Agatha Christie with Lucy Worsley

Agatha Christie is the best-selling fiction writer of all time and her many detective novels, short stories and plays have gripped and entertained...

FORENSICS: Fingerprinting

We hear from London’s most inaccessible museum, the Met police’s Crime Museum, and take you back to India in the time of the British Raj. We...

Top Five Dinosaurs

They’re big. They’re fierce. And they’re extinct.

This is how today’s guest - palaeontologist, evolutionary biologist and Senior...

The Story of Castles


Castles have held a pivotal place in British life, many of them remaining today as powerful reminders of our history and sources of inspiration....

The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe. She's got to be one of the most famous people of all time, hasn't she?

But what happens when an investigative war reporter...

WW2: The Forgotten Blitz

When you think of the Blitz, you think of the Blitz on London. The two are synonymous, and not without reason. Over 57 consecutive nights and...

Eleanor of Aquitaine

From an age in which women’s lives were obscured and poorly recorded, one shines brightly from the darkness. Eleanor of Aquitaine - born...

Declaration of Independence

While the Revolutionary War was being fought in July 1776, the 13 British colonies in America came together to approve their Declaration of...

The Atomic Bomb & the Secret City

In 1939 Franklin D Roosevelt received a letter from Albert Einstein, warning him that the Nazis might be developing nuclear...

Karnak: Egypt's Greatest Temple

Located on the banks of the River Nile in Luxor, Egypt, the Karnak Temple complex is one of the largest buildings ever constructed for religious...

Slavery and the Royal African Company

The Royal African Company was set up in 1660 - by the ruling Stuart family and City of London merchants - to exploit gold fields up the Gambia...

Suleyman the Magnificent

The Lion House is a riveting new book from journalist and historian Christopher De Bellaigue, written like a novel that tells the dramatic story...

Perfume

First Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel shocked the world’s eyeballs with her fashion designs. Then she shocked its nostrils with a new smell - Chanel...

The Man Wrongfully Hanged at Cardiff Prison

In September 1952 Mahmood Hussein Mattan became the last to be executed at Cardiff Prison, but Mahmood had in fact been framed by the police and...

Forbidden Books

What makes a book bad? Does it have to be nonsensical? Heretical? Libellous? Sexy?

Well for 500 years, a panel from the Roman Catholic...

Viking Sagas

Few people in European history have had as many stories told about them as the Vikings. We know about them from novels, films, TV series and...

Fighter Jets: A History

This month marks 75 years since the establishment of the United States Air Force (USAF). So to mark this anniversary, we wanted to follow up on...

Scottish Clans

It is believed clans started to emerge in Scotland around 1100AD and were originally the descendants of kings – if not of demigods from Irish...

Art of Neolithic Orkney

Located in the Northern Isles of Scotland, Orkney is a remote and wild environment. With over 5000 years of history, this small archipelago of...

FORENSICS: The Beginning

Death by tiger bites. Death by prodding. Death from sexual excess. Deaths from over-eating and over-drinking. The opening of graves.

These...

Essex Dogs and the Crécy Campaign with Dan Jones

Dan Jones is world-famous for writing swashbuckling factual history. But now he’s turned his hand to historical fiction with a debut...