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
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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36:52
The Tudors & the American West Coast
1 January 2024In the summer of 1579, Francis Drake had to land in a ‘fair and good bay’ on the western coast of the New World when his ship - The Golden...
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39:23
Tudors in Love
1 January 2024From Henry VIII declaring himself as the ‘loyal and most assured servant’ of Anne Boleyn to the poems lavished on Elizabeth I by her suitors,...
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30:48
How To Keep Fit in the Middle Ages
1 January 2024If your new year's resolutions include getting more exercise, drinking less, or eating well, you might be surprised to know that medieval people...
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38:50
Exploding Kings & Red Hot Pokers: Gruesome Deaths of Monarchs
1 January 2024Edward II died by red-hot poker. William the Conqueror exploded on his way into the coffin. Mary II went down covered in so many pustules she was...
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39:28
Fall of the Aztec Empire
1 January 2024The Aztec Empire was a large and sophisticated one, stretching at its height from the Pacific coast to the Gulf of Mexico. But in August 1521,...
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53:20
Zeus
31 December 2023Zeus, the chief deity in Greek mythology, is the Olympian god of sky and thunder, and is king of all other gods and men.
His tale is one of...
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45:16
The Slave Revolt That Created A Country
29 December 2023Haiti was under French colonial rule in 1791 when the revolution began, resulting in the largest and most successful slave revolt in modern...
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41:00
Prohibition
28 December 2023On 17 January 1920, the 18th Amendment came into effect in the United States. It made the manufacture, sale and transportation of 'intoxicating...
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45:26
The Black Medici Prince of Florence
28 December 2023In the cut-throat world of Renaissance Florence, Alessandro - the illegitimate son of a Duke and a mixed-race servant - attempts to reassert the...
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