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
36:54
Surprising History of Redheads: From Prehistoric Gingers to Ed Sheeran
12 July 2024Boudica. Elizabeth I. Ed Sheeran. The history of the redhead goes back thousands of years, and it fluctuates from prejudice in medieval Europe, to...
Listen Now
45:51
Henry II & Thomas Becket: A Doomed Friendship
12 July 2024It's 1163; Thomas Becket has cast off the shackles of his working class roots to become King Henry II's right-hand man. He is appointed to the...
Listen Now
38:14
President Grover Cleveland: Panic in the Second Term
11 July 2024What caused the economic panic of 1893? In this episode we are delving into the event that made Grover Cleveland's second term so different from...
Listen Now
1:02:28
Birth of the Iron Age
11 July 2024It’s the end of the 12th century BC, and a once remarkable Near eastern world lay in ruin. Drought, warfare, famine, earthquakes, plague - all...
Listen Now
57:26
Tutankhamun's Curse
11 July 2024Untimely deaths followed the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb by Howard Carter. Coincidence or ancient curse? When the tomb of King Tutankhamun was...
Listen Now
26:24
The First Japanese Visitor to Elizabethan England
11 July 2024In November 1588, a 21-year-old Japanese man called Christopher met Queen Elizabeth I. On the way, he had already become the first recorded...
Listen Now
42:17
Britain's Secret Atomic Tests in Australia
10 July 2024During the 1950s, in the remote expanses of Australia's outback, the British government conducted a series of clandestine nuclear tests. These...
Listen Now
44:38
Was Scott's Antarctic Expedition Sabotaged?
9 July 2024In the winter of 1911, Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his party set out into the frozen heart of Antarctica. Battling blizzards and treacherous...
Listen Now
37:13
Pope vs. Emperor: An 11th Century Crisis
9 July 2024When you think of drama in the medieval period the appointment of bishops would not naturally come to mind. But the Investiture Controversy is...
Listen Now
40:16
Queer London & The Post-War Moral Panic
9 July 2024In the wake of the Second World War, a moral panic swept through Britain around a rise in homosexuality.
London was the heart of this scare...
Listen Now
52:22
Communism in America
8 July 2024The history of the United States' relationship with communism is one littered with fear and persecution. So where did the American Communist Party...
Listen Now
37:44
Zionism in Texas
8 July 2024What do you know about Galveston, Texas? Perhaps you've heard about the disastrous hurricane of 1900, perhaps not. This was also likely the case...
Listen Now
37:30
Charles II's Lost Queen: Catherine de Braganza
8 July 2024Despite Catherine of Braganza's crucial place in British history, she has always been overshadowed by stories of Charles II’s many mistresses...
Listen Now
32:09
Emperor Heraclius: Rome vs Persia
7 July 2024Emperor Heraclius took the Byzantine Empire from its lowest ebb to its greatest heights. After years of turmoil at the hands of invading Persian...
Listen Now
34:10
Bell Witch of Tennessee: America's Greatest Ghost Story
7 July 2024It's America's greatest ghost story: the 1817-1821 haunting of a rural family by a mysterious entity—sometimes violent, sometimes mischievous,...
Listen Now
41:11
The Bronze Age Brotherhood of Kings
7 July 2024More than 3,000 years ago, a coalition of Bronze Age rulers existed across the Near Eastern world. Kings reigning over great Bronze age powers...
Listen Now
47:09
Emperors & Scandals in Ancient Rome with Mary Beard
5 July 2024What happens at a Roman emperor's dinner party? Why would you be lucky to get out alive? And how are emperors even chosen?
Joining Kate...
Listen Now
30:38
How Parliament Came to Westminster
5 July 2024Parliament is perhaps the single most significant institution in the United Kingdom. Like anything worthwhile, it's a medieval creation. But why...
Listen Now
36:28
What is Populism? From the Farmers' Alliance to Trump
4 July 2024In the long unanswered question of whether the established elite truly support the concerns of ordinary people, a supposed hero arises:...
Listen Now
51:42
Domina: Women Who Shaped Rome
4 July 2024The crisis of the Roman Republic is a period littered with iconic male power players. Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Pompey, Brutus and the Gracchi...
Listen Now
47:11
Ultimate Tudor Spy-Master: Robert Cecil
4 July 2024Robert Cecil, statesman and spymaster, stood at the heart of the Tudor and then Stuart state, a vital figure in managing the succession from...
Listen Now