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
57:04
Witches of St Osyth
26 September 2023In March 1582, a number of women from the small Essex village of St Osyth were hanged for the crime of witchcraft. Several others, including one...
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32:14
Polari: The Secret Language of Gay Men
26 September 2023It's a credit to the resilience of the gay community that when society tried to outlaw and silence them, they just created a language of their own...
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47:35
The Battle of Midway
25 September 2023On the 4th of June 1942, the US Navy took on the might of Japan's Imperial Navy in the battle of Midway. It was America's Trafalgar! At the end of...
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52:55
How Kateryn Parr Championed the Reformation
25 September 2023Henry VIII's sixth wife Kateryn Parr was a scholar and a writer in her own right. She was one of the first English women to have works published...
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35:29
Margaret of Anjou
25 September 2023Dr. Eleanor Janega continues Gone Medieval’s special series exploring Medieval Queens with a look at Margaret of Anjou, who rose to become a...
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27:14
The Bones of Anglo Saxon England
24 September 2023It's the 13th of December, 1642, and Parliamentarian soldiers have just stormed the city of Winchester. They burst into the city's grand cathedral...
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42:04
Battle of Little Bighorn
24 September 2023Not one of the US forces led by General George Custer into the attack on 25 June 1876 survived. But the story of 'Custer's Last Stand' as it was...
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33:44
The Dead Sea Scrolls: Mysteries of Qumran
24 September 2023Part 1/2. Potentially one of the most important archaeological discoveries ever, the Dead Sea Scrolls - also known as the Qumran Scrolls - are a...
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39:38
First Ever Submarine
24 September 2023400 years ago on the River Thames a mad genius showed off the world's first submarine. A crowd of thousands including King James watched as...
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43:56
Sex & Scandal in Hampton Court
22 September 2023From Catherine Howard’s affairs whilst she was with Henry VIII, to Charles II’s mistress staging a lesbian wedding as part of a threesome…...
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36:01
Sabotage & Secret Weapons: The WW2 Dirty Tricks Department
21 September 2023What is a bat bomb? Why would you cover a fox in radioactive paint? And who are the masterminds behind the Office of Strategic Services, the...
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38:21
Emma of Normandy
21 September 2023Matt Lewis continues Gone Medieval’s special series showcasing Medieval Queens with a look at Emma of Normandy, the Norman-born noblewoman...
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51:09
Eating with the Tudors
21 September 2023What did the Tudor age understand about digestion? How did this affect what foods people prepared and ate? Was there such a thing as healthy...
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50:07
Ramesses the Great
21 September 2023One of the greatest Pharaohs from Ancient Egypt, Ramesses II is renowned for commissioning some of the most iconic architecture and art from...
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45:17
Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
20 September 2023This is the story of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn as you've never heard it before. From their childhoods and courtship through to their union and...
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36:38
Inventing Fire: the First Spark of Humanity
20 September 2023Fire is the unsung hero of human evolution. We could not have turned into the big-brained, deep-thinking animals we are on raw food alone. The...
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42:07
President Thomas Jefferson
19 September 2023Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, so how did it work out when he became the leader of this nation that...
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49:14
Sex In Old Age: Myths, Toys & Desire
19 September 2023As taboos go, sex between two consenting adults should not be up there as one of them.
And yet! When we talk about sex in old age many...
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48:00
My Great-Grandfather's War: Lt-Gen Thomas Snow & The Somme
18 September 2023Dan explores his great-grandfather's part in the First World War. Lieutenant-General Thomas Snow was a senior officer in the British Army who...
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33:10
Three Mile Island: Nuclear Accident in Pennsylvania
18 September 2023It's the worst accident in US commercial nuclear power history. In March 1979, the Unit 2 reactor at Three Mile Island nuclear generating station...
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46:12
Henry VIII’s Fool, Will Somer
18 September 2023In some portraits of Henry VIII there appears another, striking figure. This is Will Somer, the king’s fool, a celebrated wit who could raise...
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