History Hit Podcasts

Princes in the Tower: The Tudor Pretenders?

The unsolved mystery of what happened to the Princes in the Tower - Edward V and Richard, Duke of York - is possibly English history’s greatest...

3. Thomas Cochrane: From Disgrace to Freedom Fighter

3/3. After a meteoric rise to fame, Cochrane finds himself in front of a court and stripped of his titles for fraud on the London Stock Exchange....

Napoleon's Penis & Other Iconic Body Parts From History

Perhaps without you realising it, history is marked by iconic body parts.

From Frida Khalo’s monobrow, to Queen Victoria's swollen armpit,...

The Romanovs

The Romanov family were the first imperial dynasty to rule Russia, reigning from the early seventeenth century until the Russian Revolution of...

The Tudors & the American West Coast

In the summer of 1579, Francis Drake had to land in a ‘fair and good bay’ on the western coast of the New World when his ship - The Golden...

Tudors in Love

From Henry VIII declaring himself as the ‘loyal and most assured servant’ of Anne Boleyn to the poems lavished on Elizabeth I by her suitors,...

How To Keep Fit in the Middle Ages

If your new year's resolutions include getting more exercise, drinking less, or eating well, you might be surprised to know that medieval people...

Exploding Kings & Red Hot Pokers: Gruesome Deaths of Monarchs

Edward II died by red-hot poker. William the Conqueror exploded on his way into the coffin. Mary II went down covered in so many pustules she was...

Fall of the Aztec Empire

The Aztec Empire was a large and sophisticated one, stretching at its height from the Pacific coast to the Gulf of Mexico. But in August 1521,...

Zeus

Zeus, the chief deity in Greek mythology, is the Olympian god of sky and thunder, and is king of all other gods and men.

His tale is one of...

The Slave Revolt That Created A Country

Haiti was under French colonial rule in 1791 when the revolution began, resulting in the largest and most successful slave revolt in modern...

Prohibition

On 17 January 1920, the 18th Amendment came into effect in the United States. It made the manufacture, sale and transportation of 'intoxicating...

The Black Medici Prince of Florence

In the cut-throat world of Renaissance Florence, Alessandro - the illegitimate son of a Duke and a mixed-race servant - attempts to reassert the...

Blood Countess of Hungary: Sixteenth Century Serial Killer

The inspiration behind countless gothic novels, Countess Elizabeth Báthory is said to be one of the most prolific serial killers of all time,...

Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc is a name that’s instantly recognisable to most people. A controversial figure in her own day, she has remained so ever since,...

The Assassination of Julius Caesar

March 15th 44BC is perhaps the most notorious date in all of ancient history. On that fateful day, the Ides of March, 55-year-old Roman dictator...

England & Portugal: The Oldest Alliance in the World

If you’re enjoying a glass of port during the festive period, you have the world’s oldest treaty to thank.

Winston Churchill once...

Bonnie Prince Charlie

In August, 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie led a rebellion that brought the Jacobite cause closer to seizing the throne than any other. He had landed...

The Book That Changed Sex Forever

There had been sex manuals for hundreds of years, but by the 20th century they were quite underground. That is, until the Joy of Sex was released...

The Kennedy Curse

What was it about the Kennedys that attracted so much tragedy, that many believed them to be cursed?

From plane disasters in World War 2, to...

The Rise of Christianity

In the fourth century AD, the Christian faith exploded out of Palestine, overwhelming the paganism of Rome, converting the Emperor Constantine in...