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
Travel in the Ming Dynasty
7 February 2022Around the same time as the Mayflower was landing at Cape Cod, on the other side of the world tourism was thriving in China, giving rise to a...
Listen NowFall of Singapore: Britain's Worst Military Defeat?
7 February 2022In the midst of World War Two, the 7th of February marks the beginning of the week long battle between the Japanese Empire and the British over...
Listen NowThe Origins of London
6 February 2022London is today one of the greatest cities in the world, and the story of its origins is fittingly spectacular. Founded by the Romans as Londinium...
Listen NowAlexander's Successors at War: The Spartan Adventurer
6 February 2022Tristan of The Ancients podcasts has published his first book, Alexander’s Successors at War: The Perdiccas Years. Focussing in on 323 –...
Listen NowEly Cathedral: 700 Years Since Disaster
5 February 2022During the early hours of February 13 1322, disaster struck at the vast cathedral on the Isle of Ely in Cambridgeshire, known now as the Ship of...
Listen NowThe Winter War: Lessons for Ukraine
4 February 2022Molotov Cocktails, stealth skiing, and a ruined Birthday party for Stalin? What exactly happened in the Winter War of 1939-40 between Russia and...
Listen NowENDURANCE22: Dan Sets Sail for Antarctica!
4 February 2022The expedition has begun and Dan is here to answer your questions about all things Endurance22, the expedition to find Shackleton’s lost...
Listen NowEdward VI: The Last Boy King
3 February 2022Edward VI, son of Henry VIII, became King of England at the age of nine. All around him loomed powerful men who hoped to use him to further their...
Listen NowThe Phoenician World
3 February 2022Imagine you are a traveller sailing to the major cities around the Mediterranean in 750 BC. You would notice a remarkable similarity in the dress,...
Listen NowBuilding the Eden Project with Sir Tim Smit
3 February 2022Since the Eden Project opened its doors in 2001, more than 19 million people have visited and it’s contributed more than £1.9 billion to the...
Listen NowRussia's Threat to Invade Ukraine
3 February 2022Amid Moscow’s increasing build-up of troops along the Ukrainian border and the preparation of infrastructure for a possible invasion, tensions...
Listen NowBattle of Britain: What Were the Germans Thinking?
2 February 2022Were the German Luftwaffe the mighty Goliath to Britain's David during the Battle of Britain, or were they in fact more evenly matched? And what on...
Listen NowThe Troubles: How It Started
2 February 2022With Kenneth Branagh film, Belfast, hitting cinemas - we run down the historical background of the early years of the decades-long conflict in...
Listen NowThe Vikings from East to West
1 February 2022To mark the US release of our very own Dr Cat Jarman’s incredible book River Kings: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk...
Listen NowThe Forgotten Einstein
1 February 2022John von Neumann is one of the most influential scientists to have ever lived, a man who was in his day as well-known as Einstein and considered...
Listen NowIntroducing: On Jimmy's Farm
31 January 2022Join celebrity farmer, ecologist and conservationist, Jimmy Doherty, on his farm as he talks to eco-experts and well-known faces about trying to...
Listen NowAntwerp: Renaissance Europe's Dazzling Sea Port
31 January 2022Antwerp during the Renaissance was as sensational as nineteenth-century Paris or twentieth-century New York. For half the sixteenth century, it...
Listen NowBloody Sunday: 50 Years On
31 January 2022Half a century ago on January 30 1972, British soldiers shot dead 14 unarmed protesters during a civil rights march in the Bogside area of Derry,...
Listen NowThe Execution of Charles I
31 January 2022On the 30th January, 372 years ago, Charles I, king of Great Britain and Ireland, stepped out of the Banqueting House in Whitehall, to be beheaded...
Listen NowAlexander's Successors at War: The Spartan Adventurer
30 January 2022It’s here! Today is the publication date of Tristan’s first book, Alexander’s Successors at War: The Perdiccas Years. Focussing in on...
Listen NowAfter Nuremberg
30 January 2022The 1950s in West Germany saw a sharp decline in Nazi war crimes investigations and trials. Instead, there were campaigns for amnesties and...
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