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
39:40
The Library of Alexandria
25 April 2024The Library of Alexandria was one of the most important and most celebrated buildings of the ancient Mediterranean. It was a great hub of learning...
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35:31
The Birth of Science in 16th Century Europe
25 April 2024The traditional view of the birth of modern science places it firmly in the 17th century with such huge names as Bacon, Descartes, Newton, and...
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32:28
Cannibalism in Scotland: Legend of Sawney Bean
24 April 2024According to legend, Sawney Bean and Agnes "Black" Douglas raised a clan of cannibals in a remote Scottish cave. They killed and ate unlucky...
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48:26
Rwandan Genocide Explained
23 April 2024Warning: This episode contains some upsetting descriptions of human suffering.
The Rwandan Genocide is a dark and pivotal moment in modern...
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40:24
Medieval Italy
23 April 2024The huge peninsula of what we today call Italy saw waves of invasions and sweeping changes over the course of the Medieval period, with huge...
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44:06
Ancient Greek Sexual Health: Wandering Wombs & Headless Beetles
23 April 2024If there’s one thing you’ll find out from this episode, it’s that the Ancient Greeks were better at philosophy than...
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46:10
Pontius Pilate
22 April 2024Pontius Pilate was the Roman Prefect of Judea during the reign of Emperor Tiberius and is most famous for condemning Jesus of Nazareth to death by...
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40:46
Founding Father: Who Was John Hancock?
22 April 2024An iconic signature on the Declaration of Independence - that is what John Hancock is best known for. But how did he come to be the first...
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33:44
What is the Yeti?
22 April 2024Did you know legendary mountaineer Edmund Hillary found evidence of the Yeti? Or that David Attenborough is on board with the idea it exists?...
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25:48
How Spices Shaped the Modern World
22 April 2024In the 16th century, spices drove the world economy, creating riches on an unprecedented scale. Spanish and Portuguese explorers competed to find...
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31:27
The Battle of Crécy
21 April 2024The English won a decisive battlefield victory over the French in the first decade of the Hundred Years' War. At the Battle of Crécy, an...
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48:49
Apollo: God of the Sun
21 April 2024Apollo, the favourite son of Zeus and twin brother of Artemis, was a Greek God with many faces. Perhaps most famous as Phoebus, the God of the...
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38:55
Iran & Israel: From Allies to Enemies
20 April 2024On the 1st of April, 2024, a presumed Israeli airstrike destroyed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing 13 people. Amongst them was a...
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46:34
How the Plantagenets Built England
19 April 2024Six Plantagenet kings ruled between 1199 and 1399 - two centuries that witnessed civil war, deposition, the murder of kings and the ruthless...
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44:04
Sex in the Aztec Empire
19 April 2024The Aztec Empire might conjure up images of human sacrifice.
And whilst religious violence was part of their society, theirs was also a very...
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25:42
The 1921 Murder Farm Massacre: Slavery After the Civil War
18 April 2024During the spring of 1921, eleven bodies were found in in rural Georgia. These men were victims of horrific murders, and also of a more widespread...
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34:26
Elizabeth I: Make-Up & Beauty Tips
18 April 2024What do we know about what Elizabeth I actually looked like? How was her appearance altered through the use of cosmetics? Portraits suggest...
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46:04
The Goths
17 April 2024The Goths are renowned for many things, not least sacking Rome in 410 AD and helping to bring about the fall of the Western Roman Empire. They...
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38:21
The Georgian Husband with Fourteen Wives
17 April 2024Charles Hamilton allegedly had fourteen wives according to the newspapers, but the headline was that Charles used to be called Mary. In the 18th...
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22:27
Mao's China, The Berlin Wall and WWII Egypt: Witnessing History with Peter Snow
16 April 2024As a foreign correspondent for ITN in the 70s, Peter Snow remembers handing tins of film to strangers on airport runways, hoping they would take...
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41:58
The Battle of El-Alamein Explained
16 April 2024Fought in the second half of 1942, the Battles of El Alamein were a series of climactic confrontations in Egypt between British Imperial and...
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