Podcasts

The Fall of the Ancient Maya

What happens when a civilisation at its peak begins to fail? Historians have long been fascinated by the Maya Collapse in the 9th century: why the...

Scotland's First Warriors

Three thousand years ago, prehistoric Scotland was a landscape of rival communities, raids and warfare. Bands of warriors fought for power and...

William Cecil: The Power Behind Elizabeth I

Who really ruled Elizabethan England?

For almost four decades, William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, guided Queen Elizabeth I through religious...

What Did The Vikings Do With Their Dead?

The world of Viking death rituals and their beliefs surrounding the afterlife is truly fascinating... What happened when a Viking died? What...

Medieval Sex Work & Brothels

**WARNING: This episode contains explicit language and sexual content

How did prostitution become so visible in medieval towns?...

Sex Lives of the Samurai

The samurai are some of the most mythologised people in history, so let's do some myth busting!

Kate is joined by Joe Nickols, who...

What Happened to the Confederates?

Across the defeated Confederacy, there had been an expectation that those who had taken up arms against their citizens would be punished. This did...

The Rise of the Ancient Maya

For more than 3,000 years, the Maya built one of the Ancient world's greatest civilisations. They raised towering pyramids in the rainforest,...

Witnesses to the French Revolution

What was the French Revolution like for those who lived through it? What can private journals reveal that speeches, pamphlets and official records...

Wild Shipwreck and Cannibal Story That Inspired Moby Dick

When a whaling ship sank in 1820, her crew were cast adrift thousands of miles from land, and faced starvation, madness, and death. Their ordeal...

The Catiline Conspiracy

In 63 BC, Rome faced a conspiracy that threatened to tear the Roman Republic apart. At its centre stood two figures: Marcus Tullius Cicero, the...

Olaf Tryggvason: Viking Warlord or Christian King?

Matt Lewis and guest Dr Eleanor Barraclough as they dive into the turbulent world of late 10th-century Scandinavia and the extraordinary life of...