Dan Snow's History Hit
1,842 episodes - English - Latest episode: 26 days ago - ★★★★★ - 3.5K ratingsHistory! 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
Massacre on the Slave Ship Zong
April 04, 2023 23:30 - 19 minutes - 26.3 MBPlease 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 MBIn 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 MBVolodymyr 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 MBGiven 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 MBOver 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 MBCaptain 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 MBDuring 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...
How to Prepare for Nuclear War
March 26, 2023 23:30 - 26 minutes - 37.1 MBWith Putin's war in Ukraine raging on, the threat of a nuclear conflict feels as real as ever. But since the Iron Curtain fell, our understanding of what to do in the event of a nuclear strike has waned. In this episode, we look to the past to discover the extraordinary things that the British government have done to prepare the nation for nuclear war. What plans did they put in place, and would they have worked if the missiles had started flying? Dan is joined by Julie McDowall, an expert o...
Cooking for Churchill: Georgina Landemare
March 24, 2023 00:30 - 47 minutes - 64.8 MBClear soup, Irish stew and steamed puddings - this was the war work of Georgina Landemare, the Churchills' longest-serving cook. Throughout the war years, Georgina served the Prime Minister, delegations of diplomats and the occasional royal, as well as the other staff of 10 Downing Street, Chequers and the War Rooms. Annie Gray is back with Kate today to introduce us to Georgina; why she went into the service industry, where she learnt to cook the French way, and how she managed to make th...
The Great Storm of 1703
March 23, 2023 00:30 - 24 minutes - 34 MBA Stuart time capsule has emerged from beneath the sand after 320 years. In early December 1703, barometers across South-Eastern England plunged as a cyclone made landfall in Britain leaving a path of destruction in its wake. In London, the roof of Westminster Abbey was ripped off and hundreds of ships in the Thames smashed together and left in heaps. 2000 Chimney stacks were destroyed and Queen Anne cowered in the cellar of St James Palace. But the biggest damage was done to the Royal Navy...
Islam vs Christendom
March 22, 2023 00:30 - 48 minutes - 67.2 MBAs two of humanity's great religions, Islam and Christianity have shaped much of the world's history. Empires across the globe have risen and fallen under their influence, and there have been many occasions for them to go head-to-head on the battlefield. So what have been some of the greatest military clashes between Islam and Christianity? Dan is joined by Sir Simon Mayall, a former Middle East Senior Adviser at the UK Ministry of Defence, to discuss three key clashes; the Siege of Jerusale...
A Short History of Bank Collapses
March 21, 2023 00:30 - 27 minutes - 37.7 MBLooking back at the past few weeks, it seems like banks are collapsing left, right and centre; but what exactly does this mean for us? Are these inconsequential blips on the financial radar, or will they herald the beginning of a major banking crisis? On today's episode, Dan is joined by Charles Read, who teaches economics and history at the University of Cambridge, to walk us through why these collapses happen, whether they can be predicted, and what their repercussions are. Produced by Ja...
Soviet "Bone Music"
March 20, 2023 00:30 - 19 minutes - 26.4 MBWhile rifling through a stall at a flea market in Leningrad- now St Petersburg- composer and music producer Stephen Coates came across something unusual. It looked like a vinyl record, but when he held it up to the light, he noticed he could see the pattern of human bones on it. It was a bootlegged record made from an old x-ray. He dubbed his find "Bone Music" and set out to find out more about this ghostly flexi-disc, and the many others he soon found like it. Known as "music on the ribs" ...
The Death of Amy Dudley
March 17, 2023 00:30 - 39 minutes - 54.5 MBOn 6 September 1560, Amy Robsart Dudley died after falling down a staircase at Cumnor Place in Oxfordshire. But did she fall? Was she pushed? Or did she throw herself down the stairs? These questions exercised Tudor courtiers and foreign ambassadors at the time. The truth mattered because Amy was the wife of Queen Elizabeth I’s leading courtier and very close friend, Robert Dudley, and his wife’s death could clear the way for Elizabeth to marry Dudley. But in practice, the circumstances of A...
Satire & Scandal in Georgian England
March 16, 2023 00:30 - 21 minutes - 29.5 MBCan we trace the 'British sense of humour' back to the Georgian period? It was an age of royal madness, political intrigue, the birth of modern celebrity, the French revolution, American independence and the Napoleonic Wars so the satirists of Georgian Britain had plenty to work with. In the late 18th century, artists like Thomas Rowlandson, James Gillray and Isaac Cruikshank took on the establishment with cartoons, forever changing how we the public view those in power. History Hit presente...
What is a Fascist?
March 15, 2023 00:30 - 26 minutes - 37.2 MBThis is everything you ever wanted to know about fascism. Are the British government's new proposals to stop refugee boats arriving fascistic? Were the 2021 insurrectionists at the Capitol building fascists? Is Muslim persecution in India today fascism in action? They're certainly attacks on democracy but can they accurately be described as fascism? Dan puts that question to a world-leading expert in today's episode, Roger Griffin, Emeritus Professor in Modern History at Oxford Brookes Univ...
The Glencoe Massacre
March 14, 2023 00:30 - 43 minutes - 60.1 MBGlencoe in the Scottish highlands is a beautiful landscape with a dark past. While folks from all over the world travel to this beautiful valley to hike, in 1692 it was the site of a treacherous massacre that had repercussions for Scotland and England into the next century. Scottish government troops had been sent on orders from King William III of England, to make an example of the MacDonald clan who had missed the deadline to pledge their allegiance to him as the new monarch. Government so...
Samuel Adams
March 10, 2023 00:30 - 34 minutes - 47.4 MBOne of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Samuel Adams was a political force of nature. Stacy Schiff tells Don how Adams, fuelled by discontent under British rule, instilled a revolutionary spirit in his peers. The result was the Declaration of Independence - and the fight to earn it. Produced by Benjie Guy. Mixed by Joseph Knight. Senior Producer: Charlotte Long. If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit ...
The Psychiatric Hospital that Fought the Nazis
March 09, 2023 00:30 - 25 minutes - 34.8 MBThere are descriptions of suffering early in this episode that some listeners may find distressing. As hospitals and institutions across the European frontline were taken over to serve the war effort in the 1940s, what happened to psychiatric hospitals, housing some of the continent's most vulnerable in often prison-like conditions? Well, approximately 45,000 psychiatric patients died of starvation and disease in France alone. One psychiatrist described the scenes he witnessed during that ...
The Women Who Organised the Battle of Britain
March 08, 2023 00:30 - 29 minutes - 41 MBIn a suburb of North-West London, among housing estates and residential streets lies a secret bunker, you may never have heard of it but it's one of the most important World War Two sites in Britain. Here, deep underground, the RAF built its Uxbridge headquarters where it commanded the defence of the country in the Battle of Britain. The pilots who fought in the skies are rightly hailed as heroes and affectionately known as 'the few', but they wouldn't have been able to do what they did with...
Uniting Europe After WWII
March 07, 2023 00:30 - 27 minutes - 38.2 MBCount Coudenhove-Kalergi was one of the most influential 20th Century European thinkers that you've never heard of. He was a pioneer of European integration, advocating for the free movement of people across European borders, a common currency and a single passport. Unsurprisingly, his ideas attracted the ire of right-wing thinkers across the continent; Hitler angrily denounced him in Mein Kampf, and even today he is the subject of a right-wing antisemitic conspiracy theory called 'The Kaler...
The Making of 'All Quiet on the Western Front'
March 06, 2023 00:30 - 24 minutes - 33.6 MBAll Quiet on the Western Front is the 2022 film adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's famous anti-war novel. Told from the German perspective, it presents a gruelling depiction of life and death in the First World War, emphasising the despair and disillusionment of the soldiers who fought in it. The film has enjoyed great success, having already won seven BAFTA Awards and been nominated in nine categories at the upcoming 95th Academy Awards. But what does it take to transform a film like this...
Lady Hamilton: Nelson's Mistress
March 02, 2023 00:30 - 35 minutes - 48.8 MBThe Kim Kardashian of Georgian England; she was a young housemaid who became one of the most famous socialites in the Western world and stole the heart Lord Nelson. Emma Hamilton, born Amy Lyon, grew up in abject poverty and at 13 travelled to London from Wales, where became a service maid. She was enthralled by the beauty and glamour of the actresses in Covent Garden and would miss work to go see them, eventually getting herself fired. She ended up destitute on the street until self proclai...
The Mysterious Voynich Manuscript
March 01, 2023 00:30 - 25 minutes - 35.2 MBMatt Lewis continues his Mystery Month on Gone Medieval with another tantalising enigma of the Middle Ages - possibly the most mysterious manuscript that exists anywhere in the world. Carbon-dated to the early 15th century, the Voynich manuscript is hand-written in an unknown script, embellished with illustrations and diagrams, showing people, fantastical plants and astrological symbols. Yet the origins, authorship, and purpose of the manuscript continue to baffle experts, which have even i...
Sabotage, Nazis and the Atomic Bomb: Operation Gunnerside
February 28, 2023 00:30 - 30 minutes - 41.5 MBIn late February 1943, Norwegian commandos were given the details of their mission, Operation Gunnerside. Their job would be to sabotage the Vemork heavy water facility in Norway, hindering German industry and their development of the atomic bomb. Before they left, Norwegian Royal Army Colonel and pioneering chemist, Leif Tronstad, told his soldiers, “I cannot tell you why this mission is so important, but if you succeed, it will live in Norway’s memory for a hundred years.” Fully aware of t...
Enheduanna: The World's First Author
February 27, 2023 00:30 - 23 minutes - 32.8 MBIt's hard to imagine a time when we didn't write things down- on stone, papyrus or parchment. Who was the first to actually put 'pen to paper' and write. Well, her name was Enheduanna. She was an Akkadian poet, writer and high priestess, remembered as the first named author in recorded history. She lived in the 3rd millennium BCE in the city-state of Ur, and was a figure of immense significance in the Mesopotamian world. As the high priestess of the moon god Nanna, she would help to cement t...
Russia & Ukraine: A Year of War
February 24, 2023 00:30 - 1 hour - 100 MBOn the 24th of February, 2022, the world looked on in disbelief as Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. One year on he shows no signs of easing his commitment to the conflict, despite the many setbacks that Russian forces have faced. The question is, why hasn't Russia's invasion gone to plan? Where did they get it wrong, where have the Ukrainians got it right, and how can we make sense of the conflict as it stands today? To answer these questions, we are joined by confli...
History of Britain's Black Airmen
February 23, 2023 00:30 - 40 minutes - 55.8 MBWhen you think of some of the remarkable feats of airpower throughout history, you might think of the Dambusters, or the Battle of Britain. But what about some of the untold stories of Britain's remarkable black airmen? Since the early 20th Century, black airmen played vital roles as pilots, ground crew, and even resistance fighters across the world wars and beyond. But what do we actually know about these exceptional figures? In this episode, James is joined by author K.N. Chimbiri to shin...
History of Britain's Black Airmen
February 23, 2023 00:30 - 40 minutes - 55.8 MBWhen you think of some of the remarkable feats of airpower throughout history, you might think of the Dambusters, or the Battle of Britain. But what about some of the untold stories of Britain's remarkable black airmen? Since the early 20th Century, black airmen played vital roles as pilots, ground crew, and even resistance fighters across the world wars and beyond. But what do we actually know about these exceptional figures? In this episode, James is joined by author K.N. Chimbiri to shin...
Sophie Scholl: Standing Up to the Nazis
February 22, 2023 00:30 - 37 minutes - 51.6 MBSophie Scholl was an anti-Nazi political activist who stood up to the regime as a student under the Third Reich and paid with her life. Sophie lived, like most middle class Germans, very comfortably under the Nazi regime - if you kept your head down, you didn't have anything to fear. But Sophie and her brother Hans refused to stay silent on what they saw happening. Her activism began when she was forced to do National Labour Service in the form of passive resistance to the military-like reg...
Rosa Parks
February 21, 2023 00:30 - 22 minutes - 31.7 MBOn the 1st of December, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. After taking her seat in the section designated for people of colour, Rosa was asked to move for white passengers that wanted to sit down. She refused, and was arrested. This incident has become one of the most infamous examples of segregation in the U.S., and Mrs. Parks has gained an iconic status in the civil rights movement. A lifetime of activism and campaigning earned her the title, ‘the first lady of civil r...
How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Humanity
February 20, 2023 00:30 - 29 minutes - 40.2 MBWe think of our natural environment as a subset of history, like studying the history of warfare or economics. But in truth, climate is the driving force of humanity, and understanding our climate helps us to understand life on earth in an entirely different way. Of all natural disasters, earthquakes are amongst the most impactful and the most destructive. The tragic Turkey–Syria earthquake on the 6th of February, 2023 came with a deadly cost, and will likely change the futures of both natio...
Aphrodite: Goddess of Love
February 17, 2023 00:30 - 50 minutes - 69.9 MBThis episode contains graphic references. Aphrodite is the goddess of love and beauty in Greek mythology. Her origin story is one of the more colourful ones, being born from the foam of Uranus’s castrated genitals. Her life is no less dramatic, and one where love and war are intimately connected. She is unhappily married to the son of Zeus and Hera, Hephaestus, yet carries on her affair with Ares, God of War, and her competitive relationship with Hera and Athena results in the beginning of...
Spies in the Sky
February 16, 2023 00:30 - 29 minutes - 40.2 MBSpy balloons are really blowing up right now. The US has shot down one confirmed Chinese balloon and has engaged several other unidentified flying objects. But like so many things we cover on this podcast, it's an old method in a new outfit. Spy balloons for reconnaissance go back all the way to the French Revolution and pop up again in the American Civil War. To talk through the history of spying from the sky, Dan is joined on the podcast by the curator at the International Spy Museum Dr A...
The Tragedy of HMS Captain
February 15, 2023 00:30 - 34 minutes - 47.4 MBAs a crew of over 500 boarded HMS Captain in the autumn of 1870, none of them knew their fate was sealed in the offices of the dockyard. The Captain was one of the Royal Navy’s first steam powered battleships- both innovative and formidable - three masts with wrought iron armour, but it was no match for the treacherous storm it came up against one September night in the Bay of Biscay. As the Captain was battered and swallowed by the Atlantic, the men onboard suffered terribly: some washed ...
Nicholas Said: The Extraordinary Life of a Traveller, Soldier and Translator
February 14, 2023 00:30 - 33 minutes - 557 MBThis is the remarkable story of Nicholas Said - born into a wealthy Muslim family in the ancient Bornu Empire, his childhood was interrupted when, aged 13, he was sold into slavery. His journey would take him across Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, and bring him into contact with illustrious figures like Tsar Nicholas I and Queen Victoria. As a free man, he would join one of the first African American regiments in the Union Army and fought in the American Civil War. Dean Calbreath is a...
The Muppets Take Moscow!
February 13, 2023 00:30 - 33 minutes - 45.8 MBCar bombings, assassinations and a military takeover: these are just some of the things American TV producer Natasha Lance Rogoff and her team faced when trying to bring The Muppets to the former USSR in the 1990s. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russia that emerged was a chaotic, sometimes violent free-for-all for western investors and oligarchs, swooping in to buy up businesses, natural resources and really anything they could. For regular Russians, they had to navigate a new,...
Pre-historic Women
February 10, 2023 00:30 - 29 minutes - 482 MBFor years we've understood that in the prehistoric hunter-gather world, the men did the hunting and the women did the gathering. Prehistoric man went on adventures, invented, created and drew, whereas prehistoric women stayed home, educated children and carried out domestic chores. Well, research now shows that this wasn't the case. Researchers are taking a closer look at our distant ancestors and breaking stereotypes about early women. Dan is joined by Thomas Cirotteau, co-author of the boo...
Dan, The Skeletons and The Battle of Waterloo
February 09, 2023 00:30 - 36 minutes - 50.6 MBDan Snow’s History Hit hits the road to Belgium and the Waterloo Battlefield to see the soldier’s bones found in an attic earlier this month. The Battle of Waterloo is often remembered for its great leaders; Napoleon, Wellington and Blücher. Or, for its sweeping strategic importance but what did the ordinary fighting men endure? We went to the Waterloo Battlefield to learn about the almost apocalyptic reality of the battle with thick quagmires of mud and the bodies of both soldiers and hor...
Medieval Leaders and Queens: Aethelfled, Hildegard & Jadwiga.
February 08, 2023 00:30 - 36 minutes - 50.7 MBAethelfled, a warrior queen who crushed the Vikings, Jadwiga, the first Queen Regent of Poland and Hildegard of Bingen, an 11th-century polymath abbess who became a 20th-century feminist icon and saint. Art and cultural historian Dr Janina Ramirez joins Dan on today's episode to tell the stories of three incredible medieval women. They all ruled, influenced and changed history but are often left out of the narrative of the Middle Ages. Janina's new best-selling book 'Femina: A New History o...
The Real Casanova
February 07, 2023 00:30 - 27 minutes - 37.2 MBContent Warning This episode contains adult themes and language that may not be suitable for children. On this special network crossover episode we're calling 'History Hit in the Sheets', host of our chart-storming 'Betwixt the Sheets' podcast Kate Lister joins Dan to unravel the stories, adventures and troubled legacy of Casanova. Sex - lots of sex. That's what we think of when we think of Giacomo Casanova, Italy's most prolific lover and adventurer. But, there was much more to this Venet...
The Murder of Charles I
February 06, 2023 00:30 - 30 minutes - 42.2 MBIt's 1660 and General Edward Whalley and his son-in-law board a ship bound for the New World. They're on the run, wanted for the murder of King Charles I. His execution, the culmination of the English Civil War, sees control taken from the royalists by Oliver Cromwell and his parliamentarians for ten years. But, when the royalists return to power, an epic manhunt ensues for the fugitives hiding out in America. This is the plot of celebrated author Robert Harris' new historical novel Oblivio...
Sex
February 03, 2023 00:30 - 21 minutes - 30 MB250 million years ago the armour-plated Placoderm fish invented the act of sex as we know it. Hubba Hubba. Dive into the historical sack as we go in search of the origins of nature’s greatest-ever invention. Dallas’s guest on this episode is Australian palaeontologist John Long, author of The Dawn of the Deed. Produced by Freddy Chick. The senior producer is Charlotte Long. If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History H...
The End of Stalingrad
February 02, 2023 00:30 - 42 minutes - 57.9 MBStalingrad is one of the most titanic and totemic battles of the Second World War. Millions were killed, the city itself was utterly shattered by fighting and the seemingly unbeatable Wehrmacht suffered a catastrophic rout like never before. But what made the Soviet victory possible; what happened to the men from both sides who fought in the rubble and snow of Stalin's city; and what were the consequences, both on the Eastern Front and around the world, of this savage clash of arms? To find...
Normans, Romans and Victorians: History of England's New Forest
February 01, 2023 00:30 - 21 minutes - 29.2 MBWhere can you find an Iron Age fort, Roman kilns, trees built for Nelson's navy and the hunting lodge of William the Conqueror? In the place that Dan calls home: the New Forest in the South of England. In this special episode of the podcast sponsored by BMW and National Park's Recharge in Nature project, Dan joins his good friend and local archaeologist Richard Reeves for an afternoon under the canopy and over the heathland to dig into the deep history of this ancient woodland so named at th...
Normans, Romans and Victorians: History of England's New Forest
February 01, 2023 00:30 - 21 minutes - 29.2 MBWhere can you find an Iron Age fort, Roman kilns, trees built for Nelson's navy and the hunting lodge of William the Conqueror? In the place that Dan calls home: the New Forest in the South of England. In this special episode of the podcast sponsored by BMW and National Park's Recharge in Nature project, Dan joins his good friend and local archaeologist Richard Reeves for an afternoon under the canopy and over the heathland to dig into the deep history of this ancient woodland so named at th...
The Truth About Area 51
January 31, 2023 00:30 - 22 minutes - 31.2 MBFake moon landings, aliens and secret weapons; conspiracy theories about Area 51 abound but what exactly is it, and do we know anything about it with certainty? Dan is joined by Annie Jacobsen, investigative journalist and author of Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base, to find out what really goes on in this mysterious Air Force installation. They discuss dirty bomb tests, nuclear explosions in space and soviet hoaxes. Produced by Mariana Des Forges and Jame...
Pacification in the Vietnam War
January 30, 2023 00:30 - 46 minutes - 63.6 MBThis year marks the 50th anniversary of the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. It was one of the most costly conflicts that the U.S. has ever fought, causing immense loss of life on all sides. US intervention was defined by the strategy of 'pacification', but what exactly did this entail, and did it really work? Dan is joined by the expert on this subject, historian Robert Thompson, author of Clear, Hold, and Destroy, to learn about pacification in Vietnam's Phú Yên province. John H...
Anne Frank's Life After Her Arrest
January 27, 2023 00:30 - 33 minutes - 46.2 MBAnne Frank’s diary is one of the most famous accounts of the Jewish experience during the Second World War, giving us a deeply personal glimpse into the life-in-hiding of a prolific young writer. But on the 1st August 1944, the diary abruptly ends - the Franks, van Pelses and Fritz Pfeffer had been discovered by the Gestapo. In this episode, we’ll find out what happened to them between their arrest and Anne’s tragic death in 1945. Dan is joined by Bas von Benda-Beckmann, historian and co-aut...
Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu
January 26, 2023 00:30 - 44 minutes - 61.5 MBThe Three Musketeers paints a picture of King Louis XIII of France as a rather weak monarch controlled by his powerful chief minister Cardinal Richelieu. Louis’ reign is generally thought of as being the beginning of the “age of absolutism” when ministers like Richelieu were in the ascendancy and the power of the court and courtiers declined. But was this really the case? In this episode of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Dr. Marc Jaffré, who believes it’s time to ...