History Podcasts | History Hit

 

 

History Hit 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

34:20

Harold Godwinson: The Last Anglo-Saxon King

20 February 2024

Dr Eleanor Janega and Matt Lewis uncover the stories of the protagonists and events that led up to the Battle of Hastings. There’s Harold...

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37:23

Tulsa Massacre: Violence, Resilience & Rebirth

19 February 2024

The city of Tulsa is perhaps best known in history books for the events of 1921. In 36 hours, hundreds of residents of the Greenwood district were...

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34:18

The Rise and Fall of Britain's Islands

19 February 2024

How did Britain's islands become woven into our collective cultural psyche? Traversing Irish poetry, Renaissance drama and Restoration utopias,...

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20:26

Greek Myths: The Furies

19 February 2024

The gods and goddesses of Ancient Greece have been written about for thousands of years. From their home atop Mount Olympus, they reigned over the...

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38:37

The Real Hannibal Lecter

18 February 2024

At the tender age of 23, Thomas Harris, author of The Silence of the Lambs, was sent to interview a convicted murderer inside a Mexican prison....

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25:03

The Last Gay Men Executed in Britain

18 February 2024

Why was Georgian Britain's penal code so bloodthirsty when it came to homosexuality? Was Britain unusually cruel in this regard? And does this...

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32:58

Ice Age Britain: Finding the First Homo sapiens

17 February 2024

Roughly 40,000 years ago, Ice Age Britain was undergoing a transformation. 

The first modern humans, Homo sapiens, were arriving and...

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41:08

Sex Work in the Middle Ages

16 February 2024

Medieval England was not subtle.

Take sex work, for example. You knew exactly where to go, because the streets were labelled accordingly....

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26:33

President James Buchanan: The Worst President Ever?

15 February 2024

From 1857 to 1861, James Buchanan held the office of President of the United States. It was a pivotal moment in the history of America, a bitterly...

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51:44

Sulla

15 February 2024

Lucius Cornellius Sulla Felix is one of the most important Roman statesmen of antiquity. An inspiration to figures such as Julius Caesar, Sulla...

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28:38

Origins of the Condom

15 February 2024

The first surviving mention of condoms dates from the mid-16th century, in the writings of an Italian anatomist better known for the discovery of...

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34:53

Murder in Henry VIII's England

15 February 2024

In a world before police, what happened when someone was murdered? How were murderers caught? How did the wheels of justice turn?

We talk to...

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27:11

Medieval Mass Murdering Monk: Malmesbury Abbey

15 February 2024

Malmesbury Abbey in Wiltshire was an institution of national significance from the late seventh century until the dissolution of the monasteries...

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34:02

Life and Death in Greco-Roman Egypt

14 February 2024

In its final centuries, Ancient Egypt was conquered by the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans, beginning with the invasion of Alexander the Great...

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28:08

The Great Pyramid of Giza

13 February 2024

Built by Pharaoh Khufu some 4,500 years ago, the Great Pyramid was the first ancient wonder to be built and is the only one still standing....

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22:28

Rameses The Great

13 February 2024

Was Rameses really that great or just an excellent self-promoter? Well, as Dan learns in this episode, a little bit of both. He reigned for 66...

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34:35

The Mystery of the Medieval Green Children

12 February 2024

Two green children walked into the village of Woolpit in Suffolk, England, sometime in the 12th century. They said they were from a magic land...

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38:15

The Surprising History of 'Karens'

12 February 2024

What do Alexa, Adolf and Karen have in common?

They're all names that have plummeted in popularity.

The most recent, Karen, is largely...

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41:27

Fairies in the Early Modern Era

12 February 2024

In the early modern period, belief in fairies was quite commonplace. But put all thoughts of Tinkerbell aside!  These fairies were...

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29:15

Medieval Apocalypse

12 February 2024

In the early 12th century, when England was suffering wave after wave of Viking invasions, many wondered how God could allow their kingdom to be...

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48:15

The Clinton Scandals

11 February 2024

From financial to conspiratorial to sexual, the words 'Clinton' and 'scandal' are regularly found in each others' vicinities. But why?

Don...

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