History Podcasts
The History Hit network gives you access to a growing range of podcasts presented by and featuring historians at the forefront of research and debate.
Scroll down to listen to the most recent episodes from our network.
Dan Snow’s History Hit explores the deep history behind today’s headlines – giving you the context to understand what is going on today. Everything has a history, every challenge made easier by understanding its nature, its genesis. In a world of fast opinions, we put historians into the debate, women and men who bring real knowledge built over careers spent researching.
The Ancients, hosted by historian Tristan Hughes, is dedicated to discussing our distant past. Historians and archaeologists join Tristan to discuss specific themes from antiquity, from Neolithic Britain to the Fall of Rome.
Professor Suzannah Lipscomb presents Not Just the Tudors. Together with expert interviewees, she covers the sweeping range of the early modern period: everything from the Aztecs to witches, Velázquez to Shakespeare, Mughal India to the Mayflower.
Gone Medieval is hosted by historians Matt Lewis and Eleanor Janega, who shine a light on one of the most fascinating yet misunderstood periods of history: the Middle Ages. In each episode, experts lead listeners beneath the skin of captivating stories to uncover new insights.
In Betwixt the Sheets join historian, Kate Lister as she unashamedly roots around the topics which seem to have been skipped in history class. Everything from landmark LGBTQ+ court cases, to political scandal, to downright bizarre medieval cures for impotence.
In American History Hit, join Don Wildman twice a week for your hit of American history, as he explores the past to help us understand the United States of today. We’ll hear how codebreakers uncovered secret Japanese plans for the Battle of Midway, visit Chief Powhatan as he prepares for war with the British, see Walt Disney accuse his former colleagues of being communists, and uncover the dark history that lies beneath Central Park.
After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal joined History Hit’s award-winning podcast network in October 2023, hosted by actor, writer and historian Anthony Delaney and writer, broadcaster, historian Maddy Pelling. Together, the duo unpick history’s spookiest, strangest and most sinister stories – from the disappearance of HMS Terror to the origins of Halloween.
War historian and broadcaster James Rogers hosts our Warfare podcast, which opens up fascinating new perspectives on how conflict has shaped and changed our world. James teams up with fellow historians, veterans, and experts to reveal astonishing new histories of inspirational leadership, breakthrough technologies, and era defining battles.
Patented, hosted by Dallas Campbell, dives into stories of flukey discoveries, erased individuals and murky marketing ploys with the help of experts, scientists and historians.
Click on any of the listings below to listen to the most recent episodes from our network.
All Podcasts
43:00
Real Wives of Dictators | Jiang Qing, Chairman Mao's Wife
28 March 2025For better or (mostly) worse, Jiang Qing left her mark on the 20th century.
Even before she was married to Chairman Mao, Jiang was a...
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1:04:38
Joanna: Eleanor of Aquitaine's Fierce Daughter
28 March 2025The courageous life of Joanna Plantagenet extends far beyond her mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and her 'brave and heroic' brother Richard the...
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1:05:37
THE LEADERS: Roosevelt
28 March 2025How instrumental was Roosevelt in the Allied victory? He'd guided America through the Great Depression, he changed American society and his...
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48:30
Battle of Iwo Jima
27 March 202580 years ago, the battle of Iwo Jima came to an end on 26 March 1945. After 36 days of fighting, nearly 7,000 US Marines had been killed and...
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52:27
Easter Rising: Build-Up To Irish Rebellion
27 March 2025(Part 1/2) With Britain engaged in the First World War in Europe, Irish rebels sensed an opportunity.
Irish revolutions had fought for...
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40:26
Aphra Behn: Revolutionary, Author, Spy
27 March 2025Aphra Behn was a true original. Not only was she the first woman to earn a living by writing, she was also a spy, a political propagandist and a...
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43:13
Jurassic America
27 March 2025Tristan Hughes explores Ancient America's true age; how 19th-century fossil discoveries across North America revealed a history far older than...
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30:11
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
26 March 2025He was responsible for the fastest trains in history. He built innovative new hospitals for Florence Nightingale. His vessels shattered records...
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49:31
The Murder That Shook Edwardian Britain
25 March 2025When the music hall dancer, Belle Ellmore, disappeared in January 1910, it was her performing colleagues who raised the alarm.
Her murder by...
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1:00:27
Welsh Folk Tales
25 March 2025Dr. Eleanor Janega welcomes Russ Williams, author of 'Where the Folk? A Welsh Folklore Road Trip', to delve into the rich tapestry of Welsh...
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38:14
Confederacy: Myth of the Lost Cause
24 March 2025How do you justify a war you lost, and that destroyed countless homes, businesses, towns and families? This was a question facing the southern...
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42:29
Black Death: 5 Strangest Cures
24 March 2025It was a plague like no other. It provoked strange cures like no other. Anthony Delaney takes Maddy Pelling in search of the oddest cures...
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51:13
Ranjit Singh: India’s Sikh Warrior King
24 March 2025Of the many empires that have risen and fallen throughout history, Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India draws our attention to one of the...
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44:00
Dr Faustus: Pacts with the Devil
24 March 2025Professor Suzannah Lipscomb steps into the electrifying world of Elizabethan theatre to unravel the dark allure of Christopher Marlowe's Dr....
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53:36
THE LEADERS: Hirohito
24 March 2025Was Hirohito really as passive as history has painted him? Emperor Hirohito stood at the head of Japan’s war machine, yet after 1945, both the...
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57:17
The Fall of Athens
23 March 2025In 404 BC, Athens faced total defeat. Once the dominant power of the Greek world, their navy was shattered, their food supply cut off, and on the...
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59:47
Medieval Jerusalem
21 March 2025Imagine walking where those who shaped your deepest beliefs have walked...
Matt Lewis is joined by archeologist Professor Jodi Magness to...
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40:00
Real Wives of Dictators | Nadya Alliluyeva, Stalin's Wife
21 March 2025Nadezhda Alliluyeva was born into a revolutionary family, but was it always her fate to marry Joseph Stalin?
She was independent,...
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42:39
The Rise & Fall of The Moors in Spain
21 March 2025In 711 an Arab and Berber army crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and invaded the Iberian Peninsula. Seven years later, their conquests had birthed...
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40:35
What If JFK Wasn't Shot?
20 March 2025The biggest counterfactual that hangs on the assassination of JFK is this: Would JFK have launched a ground war in the jungles of Vietnam? Don...
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34:45
Final Days of Joan of Arc: Trial & Execution
20 March 2025(Part 2/2) Joan of Arc, mystic leader of a French army, was captured and sold to the English who tried her as a witch. What do the final days of...
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