History Hit Podcasts

Origins of the Spanish Flu

This episode features military historian Douglas Gill who has extensively researched the origins of the Spanish Influenza as it emerged in 1915...

Valkyrie: The Warrior Women of the Viking World

I was thrilled to have Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir on the pod. We talked about Viking women, old Norse-Icelandic sagas, mythology and...

Battle of Britain 'What Ifs'

Dr. Jamie Wood and Professor Niall Mackay at the University of York are mathematicians who love history. Sensible dudes. They released a paper...

A Strange Bit of History

We were delighted to have comedy royalty on the podcast. Omid Djalili talked to me about one of his earliest stage creations, first performed at...

How AI is Safeguarding Maritime Heritage

There are more historic artefacts on our ocean floor than there are in every museum in the world put together. Over thousands of years ships...

The Real Thomas Cromwell

Everyone is Thomas Cromwell obsessed at the moment. The man who rose to be the most powerful member of Henry VIII's court, his Lord Privy Seal,...

Britain's Fightback

Daniel Todman is a Professor of Modern History at Queen Mary. He has just published his epic study of how during the Second World War Britain...

How the Earth Shaped Human History

Great leaders? Industrial change? Revolutions? If you thought these were the things that shaped history, think again. Back by popular demand, I...

Mystery of the Alexander the Great Coin Hoard

Off the coast of the Gaza Strip fishermen have been discovering coins of extreme rarity and importance. They date from the brief reign of...

Small Men on the Wrong Side of History

Dan chats with journalist and author Ed West about Ed's conservative views, which make him an anomaly among his peers. They explore why...

How to Fight anti-Semitism

In this episode, Dan meets New York Times journalist and writer Bari Weiss, who grew up near and attended the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsberg,...

Jan Stangreciuk: Veteran. Hero. Guinea Pig.

Of all the clubs in the world, perhaps the most extraordinary is the Guinea Pig Club, a group of Second World War veterans that suffered terrible...

Division. Corruption. Incompetence: A History of Spain

Professor Paul Preston doesn’t pull his punches. His magisterial new history of modern Spain is called 'A People Betrayed'. He is the greatest...

The Human Tide

I was thrilled to chat to Paul Morland, a historian who uses population to explain almost all the major global shifts and events of the last two...

Coronavirus - Lessons from History

Professor John Oxford is a virologist. He is one of the world's leading experts on influenza.

He is a leader in the study of the great...

Britain in the 1980s

Dominic Sandbrook is one of Britain’s most prolific historians, working his way through a series on Britain since the Second World War. His most...

Coronavirus is NOT the plague

It came from Asia via the Middle East and Italy. But, says 17th Century historian, Rebecca Rideal, the parallels with the Black Death, The Plague,...

Champagne Riots

Rebecca Gibb is a Master of Wine. A ninja who can sniff out a Merlot from a Margaux at 50 paces. I know ABSOLUTELY nothing about wine other than I...

The Discovery of the Universe

The universe has always been there, kind of, but it took intelligent life on earth billions of years to start to grapple with its nature. Carolyn...

The First President

George. Where did it all go wrong?

George Washington could have had a comfortable career as a loyal member of HIs Majesty's Virginia militia...

The Bombing War

75 years ago this Spring, the aerial assault on Germany was reaching a crescendo as city after city was devastated by British and American bomber...