History Hit Podcasts

Thor: The God behind the Superhero

Few early medieval gods are as well-known and as popular as Thor. He’s currently thrilling moviegoers worldwide with his new outing for the...

When War Veterans Excavate the Anglo-Saxons

Archaeology has a lot to contribute to our knowledge and understanding of the so-called Dark Ages, and every now and then new sites are found in...

When Football Banned Women

England’s historic Euro 2022 victory on Sunday night was the most watched TV programme of the year. It feels like it's the first time women's...

Blackbeard

Think of pirates and there’s a great chance that the first image that comes to your mind is a Blackbeard look alike : a cruel captain with a...

The Trial of a Latvian Werewolf

In 1691, a peasant in Livonia - on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea - announced before a startled district court that he was a werewolf. Yet...

Taiwan: China's Ukraine?

Located just 100 miles off the coast of mainland China, the nation of Taiwan sits in the so-called 'first island chain' - a group of US-friendly...

The Defeat of the Spanish Armada

In July 1588 the Spanish Armada sailed from Corunna to conquer England. Three weeks later an English fireship attack in the Channel—and then a...

Barbie

Barbie. What is it about Barbie? Love her or loathe her this 11 ½ inch doll gets a big reaction.

Which is strange in a way because she’s...

Hannibal vs Rome: The Road to Cannae

One of the greatest military commanders in history - it's no wonder Hannibal and Rome so frequently fought.

In the second episode of our...

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...

North Korea & the Kim Dynasty

With Kim Jong-un having issued a new threat of nuclear war just this week on the anniversary of the Korean War armistice in 1953, we take a look...

Witches

What comes to your mind when you think of a witch? Broomsticks? Black cats? Warts?

Early modern witchcraft expert, John Callow, is Betwixt...

The Long Death of Slavery

We celebrate abolition - in Haiti after the revolution, in the British Empire in 1833, and in the United States during the Civil War. Yet, over...

The Tudors and Food

What food - and how much of it - did people eat in the Tudor period? Where did they get it? When did they eat it? What arrangements for cookery...

Yorkshire's Roman Mystery: The Ryedale Hoard

In May 2020, four unique Roman artefacts were unearthed near Ampleforth, North Yorkshire by two amateur metal detectorists. A bronze bust that is...

Anne of Cleves

Anne of Cleves was the ‘last woman standing’ of Henry VIII’s wives and the only one buried in Westminster Abbey. How did she manage it? Was...

Contactless Payment

*tap* *tap* *tap*

That’s the sound of physical cash being consigned to the dustbin of history by us tapping cards/phones/watches...

A Short History of the Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire was gigantic; at one point it reached the walls of Vienna to the Persian Gulf and beyond. It was established at the end of the...

The Norse Walrus Ivory Trade Crash

The first of Greenland’s Viking settlements were established in the tenth century. But by the fifteenth century, they had all but vanished,...

America's Serial Killer Family

When the Bender family disappeared from Labette county, Kansas, in 1873, they left a dozen bodies buried in the garden of their home.

But...

The Biggest Prison Breakout of WW2

During World War II, in the town of Cowra in central New South Wales, thousands of Japanese prisoners of war were held in a POW camp. On the icy...