Dan Snow's History Hit artwork

Dan Snow's History Hit

1,826 episodes - English - Latest episode: 29 days ago - ★★★★★ - 3.5K ratings

History! The most exciting and important things that have ever happened on the planet. Powerful kings, warrior queens, nomads, empires and expeditions. Historian Dan Snow and his expert guests bring all these stories to life and more in a daily dose of history. Join Dan as he digs into the past to make sense of the headlines and get up close to the biggest discoveries being made around the world today, as they happen.


If you want to get in touch with the podcast, you can email us at [email protected], we'd love to hear from you!

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Episodes

Origins of Scottish Independence

June 14, 2023 23:30 - 44 minutes - 61.8 MB

For the first time in 18 years, the Declaration of Arbroath - an iconic document in the story of the struggle for Scottish independence in the 14th century - will go on public display. Dated 6 April 1320, and written by the barons and freeholders on behalf of the Kingdom of Scotland, the Declaration asks Pope John XXII to recognise Scotland's independence and to persuade Edward II of England to end hostilities against the Scots.  In this episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis finds out more f...

Wreck, Scandal & Mutiny on HMS Wager

June 13, 2023 23:30 - 27 minutes - 37.3 MB

In 1740, the Royal Navy ship The Wager set sail for the Pacific to take part in the War of Jenkins' Ear. The unfortunate ship was separated from the fleet and, after pulverising storms and outbreaks of scurvy, ended up sinking near a small island off the coast of Chile. Dan is joined by David Grann, author of the bestselling book The Wager, to tell this tale of shipwreck and mutiny on the high seas. Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore. Discover the past on History Hit ...

Ukraine's Dam Destroyed: Water as a Weapon

June 12, 2023 23:30 - 33 minutes - 45.9 MB

On the 6th of June, 2023, an explosion tore through the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine. A torrent of water cascaded downriver, flooding towns and villages, displacing thousands, and causing a catastrophic ecological disaster. Many observers suggest that this was a deliberate act of sabotage by the Russian occupiers - if true, then this would not be the first time that an army has destroyed critical infrastructure to gain the upper hand on the battlefield. Neither would it be the first time that wat...

Chevalier: France's Revolutionary Maestro

June 11, 2023 23:30 - 20 minutes - 28.5 MB

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges is perhaps the most accomplished classical musician that you've never heard of. A composer, soldier and champion fencer, this episode traces his life from the French colony of Guadeloupe to the concert halls of Paris and the battlefields of the French Revolution. So how did a man of mixed heritage overcome the prejudices of the day? And what was the significance of his achievements at the time? Dan is joined by Stephen Williams, director of the acc...

The British Empire

June 07, 2023 23:30 - 25 minutes - 34.6 MB

The British Empire was one of the most influential and far-reaching empires in history. Dan and his guest journalist and author Sathnam Sanghera remember school lessons on the small island that rose to global dominance. From the 16th century to the 20th century, the British Empire spanned continents, encompassing vast territories and diverse cultures, controlling a quarter of the planet. But, the way we've been taught about the Empire hasn't always been the full story and today historians ar...

Hiding Anne Frank

June 06, 2023 23:30 - 16 minutes - 23.4 MB

In this episode of Warfare, host James Patton Rogers is joined by Tony Phelan and Susanna Fogel, creators of the new TV series A Small Light, which explores the remarkable true story of Miep Gies, who hid Anne Frank and her family during the Holocaust. The trio discuss the character of Gies and how she went from Otto Frank's employee to hiding his whole family in the secret annexe for two years. A Small Light is currently streaming on Disney+, with two episodes released each week. You can ...

D-Day: Britain and America's 'Special Relationship'

June 05, 2023 23:30 - 26 minutes - 36.6 MB

The 6th of June, 1944 was the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany and the pinnacle of the 'special relationship' between Britain and the United States. Hundreds of thousands of Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and fought side by side to liberate Europe. But in the decades since the world has changed drastically - great powers have risen and fallen, and geopolitical realities have shifted along with them. How has the relationship fared through these tumultuous years? A...

The Ejector Seat

June 04, 2023 23:30 - 28 minutes - 38.8 MB

An ejector seat propels a human at speeds reaching 200 miles in less than a second. It can save a life... or snap a neck. John Nichol remembers pulling the ejector handle in his Tornado aircraft flying at over 500mph above the Iraqi desert, launching him back down to earth. It saved his life, but he wasn't able to recover in a hospital because he was captured and taken straight to an Iraqi prison. This makes him the most appropriate guest to take Dan through the history of the invention of t...

Love and Lust in WWII

May 31, 2023 23:30 - 22 minutes - 31.2 MB

Though rarely spoken about, love, lust and sexuality were key to many soldiers' experiences of the Second World War. Veterans might allude to them in their recollections, but what do we know about wartime experiences of sex and sexual identity? And how did this intersect with the soldiers' understandings of masculinity?For this episode that marks the beginning of Pride month, Dan is joined by Luke Turner, author of Men at War: Loving, Lusting, Fighting, Remembering, 1939 - 1945. Luke has ass...

Murder in the Roman World

May 30, 2023 23:30 - 41 minutes - 57.2 MB

The Ancient Romans are often thought of as ahead of their time. They invented concrete, sophisticated road systems and even underfloor heating. But their approach to murder is starkly different to how the modern world recognises it, and frankly, it’s a bit weird. These people saw 26 emperors murdered in one 50-year period and would watch people being killed for entertainment in the Colosseum. Today Kate is Betwixt the Sheets with Emma Southon to talk about murder in Ancient Rome. You can ...

Why Empires Fall

May 29, 2023 23:30 - 41 minutes - 57.1 MB

For centuries, the Roman Empire commanded unparalleled control over the world around it. It expanded its borders through trade and conquest, sucking resources from the periphery into its thriving centre - Rome. And then, suddenly, everything changed. The Empire entered a state of crisis, and rapidly disintegrated. The West has experienced a similarly dramatic rise and fall over the last 3 centuries, moving from an era of global dominance to one of economic stagnation and political division. ...

How the Mongols Changed the World

May 28, 2023 23:30 - 19 minutes - 26.9 MB

After the death of Chinggis Khan, the founder and first Emperor of the Mongol Empire, the land became the largest contiguous empire in history. The Horde, the western portion of the Mongol empire, was the central node in the Eurasian commercial boom of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and was a conduit for exchanges across thousands of miles. A force in global development as important as Rome, the Horde left behind a profound legacy in Europe, Russia, Central Asia, and the Middle Eas...

5. Story of England: Modern Warfare

May 25, 2023 23:30 - 1 hour - 90.4 MB

From the First World War to the Cold War, conflict in the 20th century has been crucial in shaping England as we know it. This is the final episode of Dan’s epic adventure, taking him deep inside the famous White Cliffs of Dover with Gavin Wright, into the complex warren of tunnels that became the first line of England’s defence in WWII - overlooking the channel for the ships of modern invaders. He discovers how wars on distant frontlines changed life in England, from the very organisation o...

4. Story of England: Industrial Revolution

May 24, 2023 23:30 - 58 minutes - 80.8 MB

Modern England as we know it started in the industrial heart of Ironbridge in Shropshire- now a verdant gorge that once was black with smog, fire and slag heaps. Dan tries his hand at casting iron at one of the last working foundries in the country and gets the scoop on the scandals of Georgian high society with historian Catherine Curzon. The Regency period was a wild time of £15,000 pineapples, the marriage market and the tell-all memoir of a famous courtesan who named and shamed the Duke ...

3. Story of England: Tudor Feuds, Explorers and Fanatics

May 23, 2023 23:30 - 52 minutes - 71.7 MB

The Tudors were the dynasty that had it all- power, family feuds, sex and scandal. Dan couldn't do a history of England without a hearty helping of our favourite family and for this episode, he's joined in the Elizabethan garden at mighty Kenilworth Castle by Dr Joanne Paul who tells the intricate story of the powerful Queen Elizabeth I and her mutual infatuation with Sir Robert Dudley, to whom she gifted the castle. Meanwhile, pirate expert and historian Angus Konstam delves into tales of p...

2. Story of England: Medieval Invaders

May 22, 2023 23:30 - 59 minutes - 82.4 MB

Great Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, bloodshed at the battle of Hastings, Bubonic Plague and Roland the celebrity flatulist. As dawn breaks, Dan walks the beach at Pevensey where William the Conqueror and his Norman Invaders landed in 1066, but not before getting a quick lesson from Medieval Historian Dr Levi Roach in what’s always been called the ‘Dark Ages'. Next, Dan swings by Dover Castle to Dover castle to learn about courtly life, clashing knights, princesses and jesters and travels east to the...

1. Story of England: Stone Age to Roman Days

May 21, 2023 23:30 - 50 minutes - 69.8 MB

Dan begins his ultimate historical road trip at the mysterious plinths at Stonehenge in the South-West of England. Dan uncovers how the stones arrived in Salisbury all the way from Western Wales and unravels the ancient burial practices of England’s early humans with English Heritage curator Heather Sabire. He hears how England was once populated by rhinos and elephants from the Natural History Museum’s Professor Chris Stringer. Passing through Old Sarum, the site of an Iron Age hillfort, Da...

Henry III vs. Simon de Montfort

May 17, 2023 23:30 - 43 minutes - 60.3 MB

After speaking to Gone Medieval in April 2022 about the first volume of his magisterial biography of Henry III, David Carpenter promised Matt Lewis that he would pay the podcast a return visit when the second volume came out. Henry III 1258-1272: Reform, Rebellion, Civil War, Settlement picks up the story when Henry is 51 years old. He's been monarch for 42 years and might have been looking forward to a quieter twilight to his reign. But he was in for the rudest of awakenings.  This episode...

Britain's WWII Lumberjills

May 16, 2023 23:30 - 24 minutes - 33.9 MB

The Second World War placed a tremendous strain on Britain's natural resources. One of the most important materials for fuelling the war effort was wood - used to make everything from ammunition boxes to Spitfires, Britain's timber would be harvested at an unprecedented rate during the war. It was a forgotten army of women who stepped up to make this happen, felling trees through freezing winters, splitting logs in hazardous sawmills and managing entire forestry operations. So what did this...

Nazi Codebreaking with Betty Webb

May 15, 2023 23:30 - 27 minutes - 37.9 MB

Betty Webb is the last known living veteran who worked on both German and Japanese codes at Bletchley Park and Dan got an invite to her 100th birthday party over the weekend. Codebreaking, secrets and dancing were all part of daily life at Bletchley Park, she joined Dan on the podcast back in 2021 to tell him all about her incredible time at the place that enabled the Allies to win WWII. You can take part in our listener survey here. If you want to get in touch with the podcast, you can em...

The Haitian Revolution and King Henri Christophe

May 14, 2023 23:30 - 37 minutes - 51.1 MB

In the summer of 1791, thousands of enslaved people in Saint Domingue, as Haiti was then known, cast aside their shackles and revolted against French colonial rule. The Haitian Revolution lasted for over a decade, and Haiti became the first independent country to be founded by former enslaved people. Among the key leaders of the revolution was a man named Henri Christophe. Born an enslaved person, Christophe served in the American Revolutionary War, fought in the Haitian Revolution and beca...

Dan Explains: The Dambusters Part 2

May 10, 2023 23:30 - 41 minutes - 56.6 MB

On the night of the 16th May, 1943, Operation Chastise commenced - 133 RAF airmen in their iconic Lancaster bombers took off from England, bound for Germany. Armed with specially designed 'bouncing bombs', the highly trained crews were tasked with destroying key installations in Germany's industrial heartland, the Ruhr Valley. It was an audacious mission of unprecedented precision, from which over a third of the airmen would never return. The Dambusters Raid, as it came to be known, is remem...

Dan Explains: The Dambusters Part 1

May 09, 2023 23:30 - 40 minutes - 55.9 MB

On the night of the 16th of May, 1943, 133 RAF airmen in their iconic Lancaster bombers took off from England, and headed for Germany. Armed with specially designed 'bouncing bombs', the highly-trained crews were tasked with interrupting German industry by destroying three enormous dams in the Ruhr Valley. It was a risky mission of unprecedented precision, from which over a third of the aircrew would never return. The Dambusters Raid, as it came to be known, is remembered as one of the great...

Dan Snow's Story of England COMING SOON

May 09, 2023 15:37 - 1 minute - 2.12 MB

Tales of feuding monarchs, bloody battles, plagues, explorers and scandals. In a special mini-series dropping from the 22nd May 2023 in this feed, Dan hits the road for a 5-day road trip to bring listeners his favourite parts of England's epic history. He dashes through one million years from Stonehenge to the Hastings battlefield across to the heart of industry at Ironbridge and ends in York’s Cold War Bunker to tell England’s story from the beginning to the present day with help from the c...

Ruling as a Renaissance Queen

May 08, 2023 23:30 - 22 minutes - 31.4 MB

The 16th century in Europe was an age of great Queens. But just because they were in charge, didn't always mean they were powerful or safe; it was tough being a queen in the Renaissance and. Author and Former Professor of French at The George Washington University Leah Redmond Chang joins Dan to delve into the fascinating and complicated lives of three queens: Catherine De Medici, a noblewoman in one of the most important families of the Renaissance, who married the King of France and found ...

Knossos

May 07, 2023 23:30 - 49 minutes - 68.2 MB

The legend of the Minotaur and its labyrinth has captivated us for centuries, but is there any evidence of it really existing? In this episode, Tristan visits the Ashmolean museum in Oxford to interview Dr. Andrew Shapland, the curator of a new exhibition exploring the Bronze Age settlement of Knossos in Crete - the home of the mythical King Minos, the Minotaur and the labyrinth. Together they explore ancient artefacts that hint at human sacrifices being carried out, and find out through a...

Tocqueville: The Search for Liberty, Equality & Democracy

May 03, 2023 23:30 - 27 minutes - 37.8 MB

In 1831, the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville left the troubled continent of Europe and set sail for America. Travelling in the shadow of the French Revolution, his goal was to learn about the world's largest democracy and work out how France could move forward. He would eventually publish a remarkable account of life and politics in the United States that became one of the best 19th century accounts of the burgeoning democracy. But Tocqueville would go on to travel to a myriad of oth...

Lord Byron: Incest, Adultery & Daddy Issues

May 02, 2023 23:30 - 46 minutes - 63.9 MB

*WARNING there are adult words and themes in this episode* How debaucherous do you have to be to be remembered as the original bad boy? How mad, bad and dangerous to know was Lord Byron? And how much of it did he get from his family? For this episode, Kate is joined by Emily Brand, the author of ‘The Fall of the House of Byron: Scandal and Seduction in Georgian England’. From incest to murder - this family must have made for a very awkward dinner party. Poems by George Gordon Byron read b...

J.R.R. Tolkien and the First World War

May 01, 2023 23:30 - 31 minutes - 44 MB

J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth is perhaps the most captivating fantasy world ever created. His mythology and folklore continues to influence the work of writers, film-makers, musicians and artists to this day. He first conceived of the idea during the First World War, and built his world to examine the fear and courage, despair and hope that he witnessed. So how exactly did this brutal, bloody war help to shape Middle-earth? Dan is joined today by John Garth, an award-winning Tolkien biograph...

The Battle of Agincourt

April 30, 2023 23:30 - 31 minutes - 43.1 MB

The Battle of Agincourt looms large in the English historical and cultural imagination, this explainer wades through the mythology to help listeners really understand this infamous battle. From almost the moment the battle finished the myth of Agincourt was being spun. Henry V milked the victory for all its worth to secure his reign and it has continued to play a prominent role in the British psyche ever since inspiring both Shakespeare and Churchill amongst others. It was however a crushin...

Mary, Queen of Scots on Film: The Historians’ Verdict

April 26, 2023 23:30 - 32 minutes - 45.2 MB

What do you get when you bring together five top historians to debate Mary, Queen of Scots on film? History with the gloves off - our second special episode of Not Just the Tudors Lates! This time, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb takes as her starting point the tragic life of the Scottish Queen and her relationship with her rival and cousin Queen Elizabeth I. Suzannah is joined once again by Dr Joanne Paul, Jessie Childs, Alex von Tunzelmann and Professor Sarah Churchwell to compare the various...

Assassins vs Templars: The Crusades

April 25, 2023 23:30 - 37 minutes - 84.9 MB

This is the first episode of a special series that we made in collaboration with Ubisoft, the developers of the Assassins's Creed franchise. In Assassins vs Templars, we immerse ourselves in the real history that inspired the first game, exploring the rise and fall of The Knights Templar and the Assassins, speaking to leading historians to uncover the real histories behind key characters in the game, and unearthing the folklore around the mythical Holy Grail. In this episode, we go back to ...

Commando Training in Scotland

April 24, 2023 23:30 - 29 minutes - 40.5 MB

The commandos have become a byword for elite raiding and cutting-edge military operations. They were set up during the Second World War in June 1940, following a request from Winston Churchill, for special forces that could carry out raids against German-occupied Europe. As Monty Halls says, they were 'well trained men who wreaked havoc'. But to be the best you have to train the hardest and where better and more challenging than the wild and rugged highlands of Lochaber, Scotland. In today'...

The History of Coronations

April 23, 2023 23:30 - 35 minutes - 48.9 MB

As preparations for the Coronation of King Charles III get underway, you're going to see words everywhere like 'anointing,' 'enthronement,' and 'crowning.' Despite how medical they sound, they are in fact ceremonial acts steeped in centuries of British history and tradition. There'll be talk of Edward the Confessor's crown, the absence of the controversial Koh-i-noor Diamond and something called the Stone of Scone. If you're excited to see history in action or wondering if it's worth the co...

Empire State Building

April 19, 2023 23:30 - 43 minutes - 60.6 MB

When it was completed in 1931, the Empire State Building became the tallest building in the world. While it has long been surpassed, it is still one of the most recognised skyscrapers on the planet, synonymous with the city in which it stands. Its imposing but elegant art deco design is a tribute to the roaring ’20s from which it came. Carol Willis, author of Form Follows Finance: The Empire State Building tells Don how it became a monument to the golden age of the skyscraper. Produced by B...

Britain's Maritime History

April 18, 2023 23:30 - 28 minutes - 39.1 MB

Is it even possible to imagine what Britain would have been without seafaring? Braving the waters beyond our harbours can be traced back eight and a half thousand years - the earliest boats made crossings as soon as Britain broke away from the continent. You can trace the ages of Britain through the vessels that have been launched to and from her shores - Roman warships, Viking longships, William the Conqueror's flagship Mora and many more besides. In this episode recorded at the 2022 Chalk...

The Mystery of the Frogman Lionel Crabb

April 17, 2023 23:30 - 28 minutes - 39.9 MB

On the night of the 19th of April, 1956, the decorated navy diver Lionel Crabb went missing. A veteran of the Second World War, Crabb had been sent on a secret mission by MI6 to investigate a Soviet cruiser in Portsmouth Harbour. After pulling on his diving gear and checking his oxygen supply, Crabb slipped into the dark waters, never to be seen alive again. Was he killed by the Soviets? Was he killed by the Brits? Or can this all be chalked up to a bewildering accident? To this day, the gov...

The Koh-i-Noor Diamond

April 16, 2023 23:30 - 31 minutes - 43.4 MB

The enormous Cullinan Diamond will be on display at Charles III Coronation, but the diamond that's missing - the Koh-i-Noor - is the one that everyone's been talking about. Its splendour captured the eyes and imaginations of rulers for centuries, from the Persian conqueror Nader Shah to Queen Victoria. But how did this symbol of Mughal power and prestige come to hold a central role in the British coronation ceremony? Dan is joined by journalist and historian Shrabani Basu as she traces the s...

The Spy Behind the Iron Curtain

April 12, 2023 23:30 - 25 minutes - 35.1 MB

This episode contains high-speed chases, modified cars and a mission to uncover secret enemy technology. It's everything you'd find in a James Bond movie, but also on a Cold War BRIXMIS mission- one that today's guest Dave Butler was part of, gathering intelligence on Soviet firepower as Britain prepared for World War Three. During their time in East Germany, Dave and his fellow officers were given the opportunity to legally break the speed limits and laws and ignore the police; it was dang...

Vikings in Spain

April 11, 2023 23:30 - 32 minutes - 44.2 MB

When we think of Vikings, we tend to picture them in the colder climates of Northern Europe, and not so much in the warmer regions of Spain and the Mediterranean beyond. However, joining Dr. Cat Jarman today is Dr. Irene García Losquiño, a researcher whose work is uncovering Viking activity on the Iberian peninsula, shedding new light on the lives they lived there beyond the raiding we know about. This episode was edited by Stuart Beckwith and produced by Rob Weinberg. If you'd like to le...

The Katyn Massacre

April 11, 2023 08:28 - 38 minutes - 53.1 MB

Dan explains what happened in the spring of 1940 when the Soviet secret police executed over 22,000 Polish prisoners of war at three secluded sites in the Soviet Union. Sanctioned by Stalin and the most senior members of the Communist Party, this flurry of mass killings has become known collectively as the Katyn Massacre. It drove a wedge between the Allied Powers and cemented the Polish government in exile against Stalin's regime. To this day, it remains an extremely charged topic for Russi...

The Assassination that Ended South African Apartheid

April 09, 2023 23:30 - 28 minutes - 38.6 MB

The assassination of Chris Hani was a pivotal moment in the dismantling of South African apartheid. On the 10th of April, 1993, he was shot dead as he returned to his home in a quiet suburb of Johannesburg. Negotiations between Nelson Mandela's party and the ruling apartheid government had stalled, and the country was as close as it had ever been to civil war. The murder of Nelson Mandela's heir apparent forced the negotiators back to the table, where they would finally set a date for South ...

The Rise and Fall of Saddam Hussein

April 05, 2023 23:30 - 41 minutes - 56.8 MB

Perhaps one of the best-known modern dictators, Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq for nearly 30 years before eventually being overthrown in 2003 by the US Coalition. Known for his authoritarian rule, the use of chemical weapons against his own people, and multiple invasions of neighbouring countries - Saddam Hussein's legacy is a dark one. But how did he become President of Iraq in 1979, and what did the Iraqi people really think of him? In the latest episode of our Iraq mini-series, reflecting on ...

Massacre on the Slave Ship Zong

April 04, 2023 23:30 - 19 minutes - 26.3 MB

Please note, this episode contains descriptions of racial violence that some listeners may find disturbing. In November 1781, a British slave ship carrying hundreds of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic began to run out of water. The ship was called the Zong, and her crew decided to save their own lives by throwing enslaved Africans overboard. In a sinister twist, they would later file an insurance claim on the lives of those they killed, treating them simply as cargo. This appalling epi...

Operation Paperclip: America's Nazi Scientists

April 03, 2023 23:30 - 23 minutes - 32.2 MB

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the Allied Powers sent research teams into the ruins of the Third Reich to cherry-pick the best German engineers and scientists. The goal was to integrate them into their own R&D programmes and exploit Nazi technology to beat the Soviets in the arms race. Operation Paperclip saw thousands of scientists relocated to the United States, even though many of them had been complicit in Nazi war crimes. So which technologies did they salvage from the wrecka...

The Rise of Zelenskyy

April 02, 2023 22:30 - 23 minutes - 32.1 MB

Volodymyr Zelenskyy's meteoric rise to power has been packed with drama and action. His journey has taken him from a Russian-speaking, aspiring diplomat to a TV comedian and finally, one of the most recognisable politicians on the planet. Having once been firmly rooted in Russian culture, he is now the greatest symbol of defiance to a Russian invasion that has wreaked havoc in his country. But what caused this shift? How did controversy mire his early years in office? And what can we expect ...

Septimius Severus

March 30, 2023 22:30 - 40 minutes - 55.7 MB

Given his incredible career, you'd perhaps expect the name of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus to be better known. Born in North Africa in 145AD, he rose to power after distinguishing himself as a military commander at a time of great instability in the Roman Empire. Finally bringing the Year of the Five Emperors to an end, Severus was in power for nearly two decades - so how did he end up perishing in York? In this episode, Tristan welcomes back author (and Severus' unofficial 21st Century ...

The Space Shuttle

March 29, 2023 23:30 - 22 minutes - 30.9 MB

Over a period of 30 years, NASA's Space Shuttle program contributed to some of space exploration's most important achievements, as well as some of its greatest tragedies. Affectionately known as 'space trucks', the reusable shuttles hauled crew, satellites, parts of the Hubble Space Telescope and modules for the International Space Station into Earth's orbit across a staggering 135 missions. However, two of these missions would end with catastrophic failure and the deaths of 14 crew members....

Scott's Last Days in the Antarctic

March 28, 2023 23:30 - 34 minutes - 47.2 MB

Captain Robert Falcon Scott died in his tent in Antarctica in March 1912 during his failed effort to become the first person to reach the South Pole. He'd just missed out to the Norwegians under explorer Roald Amundsen. You might think the British had no chance from the beginning- Amundsen's crew were wearing sealskins and using dogs, sledding 50 miles a day while Scott's team were outfitted in kit from Bond Street, covering just 10 miles a day. The motorised vehicles they took lasted only a...

HMS Victory

March 27, 2023 23:30 - 26 minutes - 36.9 MB

During the Battle of Trafalgar, the men on the gun decks of HMS Victory felt the heat of fire from above and from below; they dodged enemy cannon balls shot from just 2 metres away. HMS Victory was the flagship of Nelson's fleet during that historic clash with the French and Spanish on the 21st of October 1805. She is a mighty vessel to behold; at over 70m long, 6000 oaks were felled for her planking and 27 miles of rope used for her rigging. She was and still is a feat of engineering with i...

Guests

Marc Morris
7 Episodes
Dan Jones
5 Episodes
Roger Moorhouse
4 Episodes
Sarah Churchwell
4 Episodes
Sarah Parcak
3 Episodes
Shashank Joshi
3 Episodes
anita rani
2 Episodes
Giles Milton
2 Episodes
Paddy Ashdown
2 Episodes
Adam Tooze
1 Episode
Alexander Betts
1 Episode
Anne Applebaum
1 Episode
Antony Beevor
1 Episode
Barack Obama
1 Episode
Ben Rhodes
1 Episode
Bernard Cornwell
1 Episode
Brian Klaas
1 Episode
Charles Moore
1 Episode
Chris Smith
1 Episode
David Cannadine
1 Episode
David Christian
1 Episode
Fred Kaplan
1 Episode
George Orwell
1 Episode
Heather Knight
1 Episode
John King
1 Episode
Jonathan Phillips
1 Episode
Kate Williams
1 Episode
Leonardo da Vinci
1 Episode
Margaret MacMillan
1 Episode
Mark Forsyth
1 Episode
Martin Kemp
1 Episode
Michael Palin
1 Episode
Misha Glenny
1 Episode
Molly Oldfield
1 Episode
Niall Ferguson
1 Episode
Orlando Figes
1 Episode
Philippa Gregory
1 Episode
Rutger Bregman
1 Episode
Shashi Tharoor
1 Episode
Stephen Fry
1 Episode
Tony Robbins
1 Episode
Victor Hugo
1 Episode
Vincent van Gogh
1 Episode

Books

Myth and Reality
1 Episode
The Secret History
1 Episode

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