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
30:45
Tudor Poet Anne Askew: Heretic or Martyr?
7 July 2022Born in 1521, Anne Askew was condemned as a heretic for her radical Protestantism beliefs during the reign of Henry VIII. Tortured and executed...
Listen Now
28:24
Rise of Rome: The First Samnite War
7 July 2022In this first episode of a two-parter on the Samnite Wars, we focus in on one of Rome’s greatest rivals in early Italy. Based in modern day...
Listen Now
36:28
Boris Johnson: Removing a Prime Minister
6 July 2022It's been an extraordinary day in British politics with dozens of Conservative MPs handing in their resignations and expressing a lack of...
Listen Now
43:57
Cryonics: Living Forever?
6 July 2022Often mistakenly called Cryogenics, Cryonics is the speculative practice of preserving and storing recently dead bodies at very low temperatures...
Listen Now
28:20
The Forgotten Massacre at Dartmoor Prison
5 July 2022During the War of 1812, the last time Britain and the United States went to war with each other, more than six thousand American sailors ended up...
Listen Now
40:15
Alfred the Great
5 July 2022Alfred the Great - King of the West Saxons and later King of all the English not under Scandinavian rule - is the only English King to be given...
Listen Now
41:24
The Medieval Bishop's Sex Workers
5 July 2022Outside Medieval London’s city walls, Southwark was a land without rules. It was the place where people went to partake in theatre, watch bear...
Listen Now
39:40
The Life of Malcolm X
4 July 2022Born Malcolm Little in 1925, Malcolm X would become human rights activist— a prominent African American minister and figure during the civil...
Listen Now
47:36
Surviving Plague in Florence
4 July 2022Between 1630 and 1631, the city of Florence suffered its last epidemic of plague. Some 12% of the city's population of 75,000 perished.
In...
Listen Now
41:23
The Life of Anne Frank
4 July 2022It's exactly 80 years since Anne Frank and her family went into hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Perhaps the most well-known Jewish victim of...
Listen Now
32:53
The Real Alexander Hamilton
3 July 2022How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence impoverished...
Listen Now
35:11
Video Games
3 July 2022A whistle stop tour of the 50 year history of video games — and all the innovations along the way, from our TV sets to virtual...
Listen Now
51:01
Prehistoric Rock Art of Atlantic Europe
3 July 2022Dozens of incredible examples of prehistoric rock art have been found across western Europe in recent decades - but what do they...
Listen Now
31:37
The Medieval Origins of Fairy Tales
2 July 2022When we think of fairy tales, we think of imprisoned maidens, turreted towers, magic spinning wheels, wicked witches and demonic dwarves and...
Listen Now
37:34
The Korean War: A Forgotten Conflict?
1 July 2022Millions dead. A higher proportion of civilian casualties than in World War Two. America, Britain, Russia & China all involved in a conflict...
Listen Now
34:37
The First Queer Activist
1 July 2022On 29 August 1867, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs stood in front of the Congress of German Jurists in Munich and urged them not to extend sodomy laws...
Listen Now
43:26
Viking Voyages and Legends
30 June 2022In the dying days of the eighth century, the Vikings erupted onto the international stage with brutal raids and slaughter. The medieval Norsemen...
Listen Now
41:45
Elizabeth I: Last Days and Legacy
30 June 2022In the last years of Elizabeth I’s reign, many of the preoccupations of earlier decades had been abated. Mary, Queen of Scots had finally been...
Listen Now
46:06
Growing your Own Drugs with James Wong
30 June 2022Did you know around 50% of all medicinal drugs are derived from plants?
James Wong is a gardener, ethnobotanist, broadcaster and proud owner...
Listen Now
42:24
Sparta and the Nazis
30 June 2022Ancient Sparta was co-opted by the Nazis as a supposed model civilisation for the Third Reich’s twisted racial and martial...
Listen Now
1:04:53
The Death of Alexander the Great Explained
29 June 2022Alexander the Great’s untimely death at Babylon in 323 BC triggered an unprecedented crisis across his continent-spanning empire.
Within a...
Listen Now