History Hit Podcasts

Mutiny on The Bounty

Numerous novels, TV shows and as many as 5 movies- including the Hollywood classic starring Clarke Gable and Marlon Brando - have immortalised the...

Ancient Americas: Teotihuacan

A jewel of Mesoamerica, Teotihuacan was a vibrant, painted city - but who built it? And who actually lived there?

In the second episode of...

Vantablack: The Darkest Material On Earth

!!!REAL LIFE INVENTOR ALERT!!!

Usually we talk about dead people on this podcast. It is history after all. But this week we’ve got living,...

How the English Accent Changed Forever

Between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, a profound transformation took place in the ways that the English language was spoken and words...

300 Years of British Prime Ministers Part 2

2/2. It's a big summer for British politics with Boris Johnson's resignation and the race between conservative hopefuls Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss...

Escaping the Blitz: A WW2 Evacuee Remembers

Today's guest Kitty Baxter was aged just nine when World War II broke out in 1939. One of five children born to a road sweeper and a cleaner,...

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...

The Witches of Warboys: England's Most Famous Witch Trial

The Cambridgeshire village of Warboys was the scene of one of the most famous English witch trials of the sixteenth century. There, the privileged...

The Oracle of Delphi

"If Croesus goes to war he will destroy a great empire." That was the prophecy the Oracle of Delphi delivered to the Lydian King - she just...

300 Years of British Prime Ministers Part 1

1/2. It's a big summer for British politics with Boris Johnson's resignation and the race between conservative hopefuls Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss...

Pyramids

The Great Pyramid of Giza was the tallest building in the world for nearly four thousand years…until it was beaten by Lincoln...

Unrest in Parliament: The Hot Summer of 1911

The summer of 1911 was a hot one. Massive strikes took place across the country, including seamen, railwaymen, coal miners, women working in food...

What the Romans Did for Us

Early Medieval Britain was more Roman than we think. The Roman Empire left vast infrastructural resources, not least roads, walls and bridges. Why...

Female Pirates

Yo ho ho, a pirate’s life for me - but what is a pirate’s life, and what was it like for women?

This is the story of Anne Bonny and Mary...

The Origins of Rome

Known as the Eternal City, ancient Rome was one of the greatest civilisations in human history, but how did it come about?

With a turbulent...

Paul Revere

His name has inspired poems, novels, songs… Paul Revere remains forever attached to his greatest accomplishment : his "Midnight Ride" on April...

Nagasaki: Friendly Fire

Warning: The events recounted in this episode may be distressing to some listeners

At 11.02 am on August 9 1945, America dropped the world's...

Samuel Pepys

The great diarist Samuel Pepys was an avid collector of books, news and gossip, and reading was a major part of his life and the lives of his...

The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb

On August 6 and 9, 1945, US B-29 bombers, dropped their nuclear bombs on the two cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands...

Ancient Americas: Debunking The Maya Apocalypse

One of the most famous, and sophisticated, cultures of Mesoamerica, why are the Maya known only for predicting the end of the world?

In the...

Transistors & Telecommunication Satellites: Bell Labs

The transistor; solar panels; the first telecommunications satellite; cell phone networks; UNIX code; information theory. All these and more were...