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
29:30
Japan's Tokugawa Shogunate
11 January 2024The Warring States period brought Japan to its knees. It was a time of turbulence and treachery, with rival warlords fighting bitterly for control...
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40:53
The First Irish
10 January 2024Over 10,000 years ago, many believe Ireland was a place where hunter-gatherers roamed. A place where the earliest human communities exchanged...
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25:48
The Plague of Athens
10 January 2024In 430 BC, in the midst of the Peloponnesian War, the powerful city-state of Athens was struck down by a disastrous plague. Athenians fell sick...
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42:14
Swearing: A F**king Long History
9 January 2024Have you ever wondered where the &%@! swear words come from? Well today, Kate is going Betwixt the Sheets to find out.
Linguist...
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49:34
President Zachary Taylor
8 January 2024Once the most popular man in America, hero of the Mexican-American war Zachary Taylor is our twelfth President and the subject of this...
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40:05
Ireland's Bloodiest Murders: Maamtrasna Murders
8 January 2024One summer night in 1882 the Maamtrasna Valley in the West of Ireland became forever notorious when three generations of the Seoige (Joyce) family...
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33:39
Harold Godwinson
8 January 2024All this month on Gone Medieval, Dr. Eleanor Janega and Matt Lewis uncover the stories of the protagonists and events that led up to the Battle of...
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36:32
Elizabeth I's Spymaster, Walsingham
7 January 2024For anyone studying the politics of the 1570s-80s, it would be hard to avoid Elizabeth I’s ‘spymaster’ Sir Francis Walsingham, who seemingly...
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41:43
Jericho
6 January 2024The ancient city of Jericho is often thought to be the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in the world. Made famous by the biblical tale of...
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35:35
The Ancient Origins Of Sex
5 January 2024Going back hundreds of thousands of years, bumping uglies had to start somewhere.
What was the first sexual position? Was sex even for...
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38:21
The WW2 Witch Trial of Hellish Nell
4 January 2024What made a working class woman from Edinburgh become such a threat to British intelligence services during the Second World War, that they tried...
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32:47
The Tet Offensive: Turning Point of the Vietnam War?
4 January 2024January, 1968. Fighting in Vietnam has been ongoing since the 1950s. Ho Chi Minh and the leaders of the communist forces in Hanoi have concocted a...
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38:19
Tower of London: Most Infamous Prisoners
4 January 2024From William Wallace and King Henry VI, to Anne Boleyn and Sir Walter Raleigh, London's iconic Tower of London has held some of history's most...
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47:58
How to Survive in Ancient Rome
4 January 2024This episode contains a reference to animal cruelty
Would you be able to survive in ancient Rome?
Today, Tristan Hughes is joined by...
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51:51
Medieval Werewolves, Ghosts & Zombies
4 January 2024How did Medieval people fight against the Undead? What motivated their Ghosts? And why do stories of Werewolves persist until today?
Anthony...
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58:51
Princes in the Tower: The Tudor Pretenders?
4 January 2024The unsolved mystery of what happened to the Princes in the Tower - Edward V and Richard, Duke of York - is possibly English history’s greatest...
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51:02
3. Thomas Cochrane: From Disgrace to Freedom Fighter
3 January 20243/3. After a meteoric rise to fame, Cochrane finds himself in front of a court and stripped of his titles for fraud on the London Stock Exchange....
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50:16
2. Thomas Cochrane: The Battle of Basque Roads
3 January 20242/3. Thomas Cochrane and his crew of the HMS Imperieuse embark on their greatest and most audacious scheme yet; Cochrane leads a flotilla of...
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39:06
1. Thomas Cochrane: The Real Master and Commander
3 January 2024Dan tells a story as dramatic, unlikely and exciting as any ever penned by an author about one of Britain's greatest sailors. Thomas Lord Cochrane...
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38:20
Napoleon's Penis & Other Iconic Body Parts From History
2 January 2024Perhaps without you realising it, history is marked by iconic body parts.
From Frida Khalo’s monobrow, to Queen Victoria's swollen armpit,...
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29:39
The Romanovs
2 January 2024The Romanov family were the first imperial dynasty to rule Russia, reigning from the early seventeenth century until the Russian Revolution of...
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