History Hit Podcasts

Queen Victoria: The Woman Behind An Era

Queen Victoria was the last English monarch of the House of Hanover and gave her name to an era in British history. Although small in stature, she...

How WWI Started

110 years ago today, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire was struck down by an assassin's bullet. His death triggered one of the most...

Public Executions: A Day At London's Hanging Tree

Would you have gone? Would you have drunk with the condemned? Paid your way into their prison the night before? Public executions in London were...

Temple Mount

Temple Mount is one of the most sacred places in Jerusalem. A rocky outcrop that has become important for Islam, Judaism and Christianity and the...

Origins of the Patriarchy

Whose idea was the patriarchy? How long has it been a part of our lives? And how do we even define it?

For something that's so prevalent in...

1217: The year that forged England

Two years after King John had agreed to the terms of Magna Carta, he reneged on his word, plunging England into war. The rebellious barons...

President Benjamin Harrison: The President with a Petting Zoo

Why is the 23rd President of the United States, Benjamin Harrison, remembered as a 'Human Iceberg'? Why did it seem as though he was predestined...

Origins of the Silk Road

The Silk Road was a pivotal ancient exchange network that connected the grassy steppes of Asia and the Middle East with the Western world. The...

The Biblical Kingdom of Israel

The story of the ancient kingdom of Israel is a central part of the Old Testament. Famous for its kings like Saul, David and Solomon, the kingdom...

Women Pirates of the Caribbean

Anne Bonny and Mary Read were pirates who sailed the Caribbean in the early 18th century. For both of them, piracy offered a chance at a freedom...

Spooky Origins of the Ouija Board

Do you dare try? The Ouija board was invented in 1890. It was an idea lifted from Spiritualist devices for communicating with the dead. Find out...

Magna Carta in America

What does a document written in 1215 in England have to do with the United States? Surprisingly a lot actually! The Magna Carta is thought to have...

Incest in Ancient Egypt

From recent research we know that the great boy king Tutankhamun was a result of incest.

How did it effect him? And was incest in Ancient...

The Real Moriarty with Ben Macintyre

Adam Worth was the quintessential criminal mastermind. He faked his own death, robbed banks in the US, stole diamonds in South Africa and amassed...

The Rosetta Stone

In 1798, the young French General Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt. After successfully taking Alexandria, he ordered the reconstruction of a fort...

The First Battle of the Civil War: Fort Sumter

A 34-hour bombardment, one (accidental) death, and the start of the bloodiest war the United States has ever seen.

The Battle of Fort...

Shogun and Shinto: What Life Was Like In Feudal Japan

What was life like in feudal Japan? If you were born into the chaos of the Warring States period, would you have been a farmer, a merchant or a...

Six Wives: Katherine Howard

Six wives - six lives that we think we know everything about.  But beyond their mostly doomed marriages to Henry VIII and, in most cases,...

Ghost of Marie Antoinette

What if a leisurely visit to the Palace of Versailles transported you back to the court of Marie Antoinette — would you believe it or question...

John the Baptist

Not long after the turn of the first millennium, a Jewish prophet emerged from a period of desert solitude in the Jordan River valley. He wore...

Heracles

Tristan Hughes continues the Greek Gods and Goddesses series with today’s deity; the most popular mythical hero of them all: Heracles, or...