History Hit Podcasts

The Battle of Midway

On the 4th of June 1942, the US Navy took on the might of Japan's Imperial Navy in the battle of Midway. It was America's Trafalgar! At the end of...

How Kateryn Parr Championed the Reformation

Henry VIII's sixth wife Kateryn Parr was a scholar and a writer in her own right. She was one of the first English women to have works published...

Margaret of Anjou

Dr. Eleanor Janega continues Gone Medieval’s special series exploring Medieval Queens with a look at Margaret of Anjou, who rose to become a...

The Bones of Anglo Saxon England

It's the 13th of December, 1642, and Parliamentarian soldiers have just stormed the city of Winchester. They burst into the city's grand cathedral...

Hammam

With their elaborate domed ceilings and ornate mosaics, these public steam baths were adopted by Muslims from the Greco-Roman world. Stemming from...

Battle of Little Bighorn

Not one of the US forces led by General George Custer into the attack on 25 June 1876 survived. But the story of 'Custer's Last Stand' as it was...

The Dead Sea Scrolls: Mysteries of Qumran

Part 1/2. Potentially one of the most important archaeological discoveries ever, the Dead Sea Scrolls - also known as the Qumran Scrolls - are a...

First Ever Submarine

400 years ago on the River Thames a mad genius showed off the world's first submarine. A crowd of thousands including King James watched as...

Sex & Scandal in Hampton Court

From Catherine Howard’s affairs whilst she was with Henry VIII, to Charles II’s mistress staging a lesbian wedding as part of a threesome…...

Sabotage & Secret Weapons: The WW2 Dirty Tricks Department

What is a bat bomb? Why would you cover a fox in radioactive paint? And who are the masterminds behind the Office of Strategic Services, the...

Emma of Normandy

Matt Lewis continues Gone Medieval’s special series showcasing Medieval Queens with a look at Emma of Normandy, the Norman-born noblewoman...

Eating with the Tudors

What did the Tudor age understand about digestion? How did this affect what foods people prepared and ate? Was there such a thing as healthy...

Ramesses the Great

One of the greatest Pharaohs from Ancient Egypt, Ramesses II is renowned for commissioning some of the most iconic architecture and art from...

Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn

This is the story of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn as you've never heard it before. From their childhoods and courtship through to their union and...

Inventing Fire: the First Spark of Humanity

Fire is the unsung hero of human evolution. We could not have turned into the big-brained, deep-thinking animals we are on raw food alone. The...

President Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, so how did it work out when he became the leader of this nation that...

Sex In Old Age: Myths, Toys & Desire

As taboos go, sex between two consenting adults should not be up there as one of them.

And yet! When we talk about sex in old age many...

My Great-Grandfather's War: Lt-Gen Thomas Snow & The Somme

Dan explores his great-grandfather's part in the First World War. Lieutenant-General Thomas Snow was a senior officer in the British Army who...

Three Mile Island: Nuclear Accident in Pennsylvania

It's the worst accident in US commercial nuclear power history. In March 1979, the Unit 2 reactor at Three Mile Island nuclear generating station...

Henry VIII’s Fool, Will Somer

In some portraits of Henry VIII there appears another, striking figure. This is Will Somer, the king’s fool, a celebrated wit who could raise...

Holy Roman Empire

Voltaire famously wrote that the "The Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.” But Dr. Eleanor...