Podcasts

Athens vs Persia: The Legend of Themistocles

A legend of the great Greek city of Athens, Themistocles rose from obscurity to save ancient Greece and helped shape one of the greatest naval...

Legends of Richard the Lionheart

Was Richard the Lionheart really England’s greatest medieval hero? Or is he one of history’s most successful myths, more heroic in legend than...

Sex Work in the American Revolution

Where the American War of Independence raged, the camp followers...followed.

Among them were sex workers, for both the American and British...

The Murder that Shook Mary Queen of Scots

On the night of Saturday the 9th of March, 1566, a pregnant Mary Queen of Scots was having a dinner party.

It was a night that ended in the...

How to Escape Alcatraz

What was it like to live on Alcatraz? And was it possible to escape? In this episode, Don speaks to a historian with the unique experience of...

The Hittites

What made the Hittites one of the great Bronze Age powers, and how did their empire survive on war, diplomacy and faith? Tristan Hughes is joined...

The Siege of Acre: The Last Battle of the Crusades

The desperate, violent last stand that ended two centuries of crusading in the Holy Land. We hear how, outnumbered, divided and desperate, the...

Elizabethans in India

How did England’s earliest travellers to India try to win favour in a Mughal golden age that scarcely noticed them?

Professor Suzannah...

The Depravity of the Marquis De Sade

Sadism - the derivation of pleasure from inflicting pain, suffering and humiliation on others - is named after this man. So what exactly did he...

How To Do Celtic Magic

What's the best cure for a hangover? What's the most effective way to curse your enemies? How do you keep demonic powers at bay?

The...

When the Mormons Rebelled Against America

Driven from the United States, the Mormons journeyed West to build a new society in the desert- one that would challenge the political, economic,...

The Victorian Sex Scandal of Fanny & Stella

The Victorians are seen as the ultimate guardians of rigid gender boundaries.

When Fanny Park and Stella Boulton transgressed those imagined...