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
51:35
Mythbusting Medieval Buildings
15 November 2024What is a leper squint? Are the marks scratched into the exterior walls of churches from damned souls trying to claw their way in?
Join Matt...
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36:17
Catherine of Aragon | Secret Lives of the Six Wives
15 November 2024We know the fates of Henry VIII's wives, but what were these iconic women really like?
In the first episode of this limited series, Secret...
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40:58
Gladiators: The Real Spartacus
15 November 2024Spartacus is probably the most famous gladiator in history but how much of his legend is actually true? Dan is joined by Dr Rhiannon Evans, from...
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40:26
A CIA Man in China: 20 Years Imprisoned
14 November 2024This is the story of America's longest held prisoner of war. John 'Jack' Downey, an American CIA operative, was imprisoned by the Chinese for 21...
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38:50
Witchfinder General
14 November 2024In the aftermath of the Civil War, a remote corner of Essex witnessed the most brutally devastating witch-hunt in English history. A dangerous...
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37:44
Queen Victoria's Funeral & the Cult of Death
14 November 2024Queen Victoria was synonymous with grief and the Victorian cult of death. Yet her own funeral wasn't that at all. Today Dan O'Brien explains to...
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54:35
Caracalla & Geta: The Real Emperors of Gladiator II
14 November 2024The new Hollywood blockbuster Gladiator II features two of Rome's most villainous emperors - the brothers Caracalla and Geta.
And in today's...
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47:54
Gladiators: Myths vs Reality
13 November 2024Join Dan at Rome's Colosseum as he separates fact from fiction in the world of the gladiators. He traces the origins of gladiatorial fighting from...
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49:24
El Cid: Spain's Medieval Mercenary
12 November 2024Rodrigo Díaz - known as el Cid - lived a violently colourful life in 11th Century Spain. By turns an ambitious military leader, exile and brutal...
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44:35
Gladiators' Sex Lives
12 November 2024Who really were the gladiators of Ancient Rome?
With them once again hitting the big screens this month, we wanted to take you back a couple...
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48:43
Gladiators: The Colosseum
11 November 2024Join Dan on an adventure in Rome as he traces the true history of the gladiators. He begins his story in 64 AD with the great fire of Rome that...
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1:14:08
Shackleton's Endurance Expedition
11 November 2024In this dramatic episode, Dan tells the incredible story of how Shackleton saved every single man on the fated Endurance expedition from perishing...
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24:50
Nazis in America: Fascism in the 1930s
11 November 2024In 1933, The Pittsburgh Courier published an editorial entitled 'Hitler Learns from America'. So how and why was fascism on the rise in the...
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37:55
Invisible Activists of the Reformation
11 November 2024The names that spring first to mind in the Reformation of Christianity tend always to be male. But women were central to these extraordinary...
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48:21
The Borgias: History's Most Villainous Family
11 November 2024The Borgias are a lynchpin in the history of the Italian Renaissance. Their tale of intrigue, corruption and cut-throat ambition still inspires...
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37:26
Final Days of Captain Cook
11 November 2024The violent death of Captain James Cook, British explorer, on a Hawaiian beach in 1779 has become the stuff of legend. Should we believe the story...
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50:58
The Minotaur
10 November 2024Half man and half bull, the Minotaur is one of the most famous, and scariest, monsters of Greek mythology.
The story goes that it was...
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55:07
The Battle of Agincourt
8 November 2024Join Matt Lewis and Professor Michael Livingston to unravel the legendary Battle of Agincourt.
They cover the lesser-known strategic...
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58:08
The Real Sylvia Plath
8 November 2024** TW: This episode contains themes of suicide **
Sylvia Plath was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.
During and...
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35:30
Presidents' Private Lives
7 November 2024With the US election happening, we wanted to take a look back at the presidents from the past what we know about their sex lives.
Which...
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42:45
Ghosts of Hampton Court Palace
7 November 2024The ghost of Catherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII, screaming down a corridor. A nursemaid's spinning wheel clicking in the walls. Robed...
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