History Podcasts | History Hit

 

 

History Hit 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

38:30

Condoms

23 March 2022

As today’s guest puts it, there have been condoms for as long as there have been penises. But, how did condoms as we know them — thin, latex...

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22:21

Germany & The USSR: Secret Interwar Allies

23 March 2022

After the First World War the German Army was in crisis. Limited in the size and its equipment by the Versailles Treaty which ended the war, it...

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23:02

The Fall of France 1940: How it Influenced the US

23 March 2022

Shocked by the fall of France in 1940, panicked U.S. leaders rushed to back the Vichy government despite their Nazi sympathies. This policy caused...

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1:43

INTRODUCING Betwixt the Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

22 March 2022

Why did kings and queens have spectators on their wedding night? Who had the very first boob job? And did our ancestors have their unmentionables...

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34:36

Early Medieval Ireland

22 March 2022

The dynamics in everyday life in the Medieval period may seem drastically different compared to how we live today. From traditions, gender, power,...

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54:17

Mary Queen of Scots with Kate Williams

22 March 2022

Dan is joined by Professor Kate Williams to discuss the rise and fall of Mary Queen of Scots, one of the most dramatic and tragic figures of the...

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40:52

The End of Monasteries

21 March 2022

The dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII ended almost a millennium of monastic life in England, resulting in a dislocation of people...

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36:21

The British Way of War

21 March 2022

His ideas were cast aside in the early 20th century, but later went on to help Allied forces win the Second World War, but who was Julian Corbett...

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35:08

The Confederate States of America

21 March 2022

The Confederacy was more than an army. It was a national project. A whole state, albeit an internationally unrecognised one, formed between...

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36:17

Military Drones

20 March 2022

Drone technology has transformed the way we wage war today. They have been key in every major conflict since at least 2008, including the current...

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49:51

Young Caesar vs Marc Antony

20 March 2022

What happened after the Ides of March? How did the Romans go from co-ordinated assassinations to the Pax Romana? From Tyranny to prosperity? In...

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26:23

Prison Camps in WW2 Britain

20 March 2022

From the summer of 1940, approximately 30,000 so-called ‘enemy aliens’ were indefinitely sent to internment camps across...

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43:25

Lost Towns of Britain

19 March 2022

It's hard to imagine the familiar places around you disappearing forever. But all across Britain, there are once inhabited towns and...

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31:18

200 Years of British-Russian Relations

18 March 2022

Russia and the UK have very different political structures and ambitions, from their alliance at the Battle of Navarino in 1827 to the historic...

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44:48

ENDURANCE22: Questions & Reflections

18 March 2022

To mark the end of a truly epic journey, Dan wanted to hear from you -the listeners- those that have dedicatedly followed the story of...

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52:48

Henry VIII's Courtier, Sir Thomas Wyatt

17 March 2022

No one represented the complexities of the court of Henry VIII better than Sir Thomas Wyatt, a skilled diplomat who was forced to live with the...

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38:45

Saint Patrick

17 March 2022

Man, myth or legend... who was the real Saint Patrick? Did he really banish all the snakes from Ireland? Where does the shamrock tradition come...

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49:26

What Is an Oligarch?

17 March 2022

The use of the word ‘Oligarch’ has been increasingly rampant across international news outlets since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine just weeks...

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40:51

Beekeeping with Bez from the Happy Mondays

17 March 2022

Bez from the Happy Mondays: dancer, rockstar and...beekeeper?!

Bez, who has kept bees for more than seven years, shares some hilarious...

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35:33

The Steam Engine and Simultaneous Invention

16 March 2022

The revolution in speed ground to a halt in the 1960s. The previous half-century saw great leaps in how quickly people could get from place to...

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33:04

Putin's Rise to Power

16 March 2022

In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we wanted to take a closer look at Russian President, Vladimir Putin's rise to power. We've dug...

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