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
46:39
Dan's History Heroes: Britain's Greatest Soldier, Part 1
17 June 2024This is the story of Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, Britain's most extraordinary soldier. The one-handed, one-eyed, walking stick-wielding war hero...
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40:53
Presidential Pardons: Mormons, Conscientious Objectors & January 6th
17 June 2024In the US Constitution, the President of the United States is granted the right to pardon those convicted of federal crimes.
But how do they...
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41:30
Six Wives: Anne of Cleves
17 June 2024Six wives - six lives that we think we know everything about. But beyond their mostly doomed marriages to Henry VIII and, in most...
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41:06
The ‘Genius’ Killer
17 June 2024The so-called 'Genius' Killer was a murderer who seemed to be both philosopher and psychopath, whose brain was one of the largest ever recorded....
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49:22
Origins of the Celts
16 June 2024The Celts are an ancient people shrouded in mystery and intrigue. In the minds of most people the word ‘Celt’ refers to the people of Iron Age...
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37:59
The Rise and Fall of the Ku Klux Klan
15 June 2024With a sinister hierarchy of "grand wizards" and "dragons," hooded Klansmen concealed their identities as they unleashed a reign of terror on...
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45:43
Tudor Lesbians
14 June 2024Throughout history, it's mostly been queer men who were persecuted under the historical sodomy laws, but the Tudor period saw a spike in women...
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38:51
Rise of the Crusader States
14 June 2024The Crusader states in the Near East were created after the First Crusade in order to keep hold of the territorial gains made by those known in...
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35:15
President Grover Cleveland: Honest to a Fault?
13 June 2024They say that honesty is the best policy, but was this the case for Grover Cleveland? He may be the only president to have served two...
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38:10
Prison Hulks: Floating Hells for Convicts
13 June 2024Convicts, illegal dissections, disease, all taking place on ships described as "Wicked Noah's Arks" where conditions were even worse than in...
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34:26
Shakespeare's Players: Burbage and Kempe
13 June 2024Among the male players who performed thousands of new plays in the Elizabethan repertory, the most famous were Richard Burbage and Will Kempe,...
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48:03
Civil War Rivals: Robert E. Lee vs Ulysses Grant
12 June 2024100 years ago, in the spring of 1864, the Overland Campaign ignited a ferocious clash between two titans of US military history: Ulysses S. Grant,...
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44:12
Moses & The Exodus
12 June 2024The story of Moses and the Exodus is one of the oldest and most well known in history. It is full of instantly recognisable episodes like the...
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42:15
The Early Years of the British Empire
11 June 2024The British weren't always imperial global players with an empire of viceroys, redcoats and industrialised trade systems. The early years of the...
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56:25
The Betrayal of Mary Queen of Scots
11 June 2024Mary Queen of Scots had a life that resembled a Game of Thrones plot: she had awful taste in men, and a cousin in Queen Elizabeth I of England,...
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46:02
Edward the Confessor
11 June 2024One of the last kings of Anglo-Saxon England, Edward the Confessor regained the throne for the House of Wessex and is the only English monarch to...
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29:49
The Challenger Disaster
10 June 2024On January 28, 1986, the nation watched in horror as the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all seven crew...
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46:32
Enfield Poltergeist: 1970's Suburban Horror
10 June 2024The Enfield Poltergeist is Britain's most infamous haunting - set in the late 1970s on the outskirts of London, it continues to be told and...
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43:44
Six Wives: Jane Seymour
10 June 2024Six wives - six lives that we think we know everything about. But beyond their mostly doomed marriages to Henry VIII and, in most cases,...
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50:58
Lost on Mount Everest: The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine
9 June 2024Dan unravels the mystery surrounding George Mallory and Andrew Irvine's daring attempt to conquer Mount Everest in 1924 - a feat that could have...
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36:24
The War on Crime: The 1930s and the New Deal
9 June 2024How did the United States go from a country defined by its lawlessness in the 1920s and early 1930s, to one where many political standpoints rest...
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