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
30:00
Codebreaking at Bletchley Park
11 May 2022Bletchley Park, Britain's key decryption centre during WWI, is known for the success of breaking the Nazi Enigma codes - experts have suggested...
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32:12
Operation Pedestal with Sir Max Hastings
11 May 2022By the summer of 1942 Malta had been under siege by Axis forces for over a year and the situation on the island was bleak with food and fuel...
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37:03
Prozac
11 May 2022How — and why — did Prozac become the best-selling antidepressant of all time?
As it is Mental Health Awareness Week, we are...
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28:59
Mental Health in Victorian Britain
10 May 2022This week is Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK so we’ve got a special episode exploring the surprising way Victorians approached mental...
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29:37
The First English Autobiographer: Margery Kempe
10 May 2022Margery Kempe was an English Christian mystic, known for writing "The Book of Margery Kempe", a work considered by some to be the first...
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38:37
Bedlam
10 May 2022Bedlam: a scene of uproar and confusion, a noisy situation with no order or, originally, the slang name for a mental hospital in London… which...
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28:54
The 1650s: Britain's Decade Without a Crown
9 May 2022In 1649 Britain was engulfed by revolution. Charles I was executed for treason and within weeks the English monarchy had been abolished and the...
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32:53
How to Treat Depression in 17th Century England
9 May 2022To mark Mental Health Awareness Week, Not Just the Tudors casts a 21st century eye over "one of the most perplexing, elusive, attractive, and...
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43:13
Black Ops: A Life in the CIA
9 May 2022Enrique ‘Ric’ Prado found himself in his first firefight at age seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the...
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22:45
VE Day
8 May 2022For most of us, VE Day conjures up black and white images of carefree servicemen and women dancing and beaming in Trafalgar Square, of Churchill...
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35:39
LSD
8 May 2022How did LSD go from accidental discovery to the counter cultures go to drug?
On April 19th 1943 Albert Hoffman had the first ever LSD trip...
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32:53
Pandora
8 May 2022According to Greek myth, Pandora was the first human woman - moulded from the earth by Hephaestus on the instruction of Zeus himself.
We've...
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38:47
The Wars of the Roses: Origins
7 May 2022The Wars of the Roses is a complex and fascinating period of English history that dominates the second half of the 15th century and leads to the...
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42:18
Declaring The War On Drugs
6 May 2022As the Cold War came to an end, US President George H.W. Bush defined his 1992 election bid in terms of the War on Drugs. It was said that there...
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45:28
Tudor Sex
6 May 2022WARNING: This episode includes adult themes and explicit words.
Why did Henry VIII want everyone to know about his wet dreams? What animal...
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36:50
Diving for Lost Slave Shipwrecks
5 May 2022From the 16th to the 19th centuries, European slave traders forcibly uprooted millions of African people and shipped them across the Atlantic in...
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43:43
Sex & The Tudors
5 May 2022There’s not an infinite number of ways that humans can act on sexual desire. Human bodies haven’t changed, but the cultural landscape around...
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35:14
Gardening for Mental Health with Sue Stuart-Smith
5 May 2022It’s Mental Health Awareness Week this month, and Jimmy will be joined by a selection of guests who will tell us how nature can have an impact...
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25:12
The World of Stonehenge
5 May 2022Described as the "most important piece of prehistoric art to be found in Britain in the last 100 years", an elaborately decorated 5000 year-old...
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25:41
Agincourt: Myths Explained
4 May 2022Agincourt is a name which conjures an image of plucky English archers taking on and defeating the arrogant and aristocratic knights of the French...
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22:53
Hitler's American Gamble
4 May 2022The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941 remains etched in public memory as the turning point of WW2. But in fact, it was Hitler’s...
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