Podcasts

What Made America? The Professional Military

Today's United States of America boasts one of the largest and most expensive militaries in the world. But this wasn't always a...

The Origins of the Tank

How did century-old 'landships' developed from agricultural tractors evolve into the armoured giants of the modern battlefield? Today, we trace...

The Dark History of the Quakers

17th century England was a world turned upside down.

A civil war resulted in King Charles I being executed, and from this moment a religious...

Elizabethans in America

How did two Indigenous men help shape Elizabethan England's dreams of empire? What do these early encounters tell us about the contested...

The Cambrian Explosion: When Life Began?

538 million years ago, life on Earth changed forever. In an evolutionary burst known as the Cambrian Explosion, complex animals rapidly appeared...

The Queer Court of William Rufus

What really went on at the court of King William Rufus?

William the Conqueror's son and successor was fierce and ruthless. He taxed heavily,...

Supersluts of History: Royal Mistress Madam du Barry

Madam du Barry's life was remarkable: from rags, to riches, to... revolution. And she pi**ed off Marie Antoinette along the way, too.

How...

Eisenhower's Countdown to D-Day

On June 6, 1944, a combined Allied force carried out the largest amphibious invasion in history. They were led by an American.

What was...

Great Plague of London

What effect did the Great Plague have on Londoners, their society and the wider state?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Rebecca Rideal...

The Sicilian Catacombs of the Living Dead

*Warning: this episode contains discussions of child death*

Deep beneath the sunny streets of Palermo Sicily, the Capuchin Catacombs are...

The Pharisees

The Pharisees are one of the most familiar names in the ancient world, but are they also one of the most misunderstood?

Tristan Hughes is...

Mary Beard on Ruling the Roman Empire

What did it take to rule an empire that was never meant to have an emperor?

In this second episode of our series on the Roman Empire, we're...