History Hit Podcasts

Barbie: German Sex Doll to American Icon

She's an icon, a polymath, a fashionista, and she's absolutely everywhere right now.

Where did Barbie come from? What has she represented to...

The Reformation: What Catholics & Protestants Believed

In the sixteenth century, religious beliefs underwent a dramatic change. As differences between the late medieval Roman Catholic Church and the...

Chairman Mao

Leader of the Chinese Communist Party from 1949 until his death in 1976, Chairman Mao reshaped the nation's course of history, founding the...

Nazi's Most Wanted: Assassin Hannie Schaft

Known among the Nazis as "the girl with the red hair," Hannie Schaft was a resistance fighter so deadly that Adolf Hitler personally ordered her...

Stonehenge

Stonehenge. The most iconic prehistoric monument in the world. And yet its story is still so enigmatic.

In this episode, host Tristan Hughes...

Chewing Gum: From the Aztecs to Avocados

Spearmint, peppermint, double-bubble. You may think that chewing gum is a modern invention, when in fact we've been chewing the stuff since the...

Scottish Kings' Sex Lives

One thing royal families strive for is the common touch. Whilst some have struggled with it, King James IV and V in the 15th and 16th centuries...

Lost Vikings of Greenland

Is there a lost colony of Vikings somewhere in Greenland, shut off from the rest of the world? For hundreds of years, that question has taxed...

Oppenheimer

Often referred to as the father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer's work in the field of theoretical physics changed the world as we knew...

Mormons & The Founding of Salt Lake City

The Church of the Latter Day Saints is one shrouded in mystery, whispers of polygamy and is often synonymous with Salt Lake City. But where did...

Ivan the Terrible

The name Ivan the Terrible is synonymous with brutality and ruthlessness. While Western scholars insist that the first crowned Tsar of all Russia...

Homo Naledi: The First Burials?

Uncovered a decade ago in the Rising Star Cave system in South Africa, Homo Naledi's discovery has impacted paleoanthropology in ways nobody could...

Oppenheimer

On a summer morning in 1945, a device known simply as 'Gadget' was detonated. An enormous explosion tore a crater into the New Mexico desert,...

Karaoke: The History

When you think about it, the Karaoke machine is a simple invention. Basically two existing inventions, the tape deck and the microphone, were...

Black Boxes: Recording Airplanes' Final Moments

They can survive in lava for half an hour and accelerations of 3,400 Gs. Their beacons can be detected 20,000 feet beneath the waves. Most...

Wars of the Roses: Jack Cade's Rebellion Explained

It’s one of the most dramatic stories you might never have heard. Featuring a seaborne assassination, a vengeful manhunt and London Bridge in...

Althea Gibson: The Wimbledon Champion Who Beat The Odds

The world of tennis in the 1940s wasn't made for someone of Althea Gibson's background.

She was the descendent of slaves, and grew up in...

Prigozhin: The Fate of Russian ‘Favourites’

Russian history is defined by the rise and fall of favourites. Peter the Great had Menshikov, and Nicholas II had Rasputin. It's part of the...

A History of American Childhood

School, play and much less work: the idealised childhood is a very separate part of life. But how did it come to be so? And why is this perhaps...

WW2: Top 5 Strangest Weapons

They say war can be one of the biggest drivers of innovation. Inventions like radar, computers and penicillin, all developed during the Second...

Tudor Queens: The Power of Jewellery

From the mid-15th century to the mid-16th century, there were 10 Queens Consort of England, from Margaret of Anjou to Katherine Parr. For each of...