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
31:19
The 20th Century Arms Race
25 June 2023The 20th century heralded a revolution in how wars are fought. From military strategy and planning to the weapons and equipment used on the...
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35:23
War Crimes in Afghanistan
25 June 2023This episode contains references to extreme violence and content that some listeners may find disturbing.
The allegations of war crimes in...
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40:42
Achilles
25 June 2023This episode contains themes of a sexual nature
Achilles is one of the greatest heroes in Greek mythology. The son of Peleus, a Greek King,...
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34:55
McDonald's: Roadside Stand to Worldwide Brand
25 June 2023Every second McDonald’s sells 75 hamburgers. It serves 70 million customers each day (more than the population of the UK). All this began at a...
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39:05
WW2: Forgotten Mission of the 6888th Battalion
23 June 2023This episode contains references to highly offensive racist language and events.
In February 1945, with the war in Europe still raging,...
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51:13
Ragnar Lothbrok: The Viking Legend
23 June 2023The ninth century Danish king and warrior Ragnar Lothbrok became notorious again most recently through the TV series The Vikings. But what do we...
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44:36
History of Camp: From Oscar Wilde to James Bond
23 June 2023As the old adage goes, attitude is everything. And if there’s one attitude that stands proud above the rest it’s the utterly fabulous,...
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31:13
The CIA & MI6: The Real Special Relationship?
22 June 2023Behind the handshakes of leading politicians, beyond the trade deals and beneath mutually beneficial military deals, how has the 'special...
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56:10
Shakespeare's London: Going to the Theatre
22 June 2023In this third special episode of Not Just the Tudors celebrating the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio,...
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44:23
Origins of Water
22 June 2023When you envision what Earth was like 4.5 billion years ago, shortly after its creation, images of dust-filled air and raging volcanoes tend to...
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30:58
The Windrush Generation & Scandal
21 June 2023The journey of the Empire Windrush that docked in Essex with 1,027 passengers & at least two stowaways on 22nd June 1948 has come to define a...
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35:53
Kitchens
21 June 2023Who invented the Kitchen? It might seem silly to ask that but there is in fact one kitchen that people point to as the mother-of-all-kitchens. It...
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17:42
The Titanic Wreck
20 June 2023In 1912 Titanic departed on her first and last voyage from Southampton, sinking over 2 miles to the bottom of the dark North Atlantic Ocean,...
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47:24
Dick Pics: The History
20 June 2023Depictions of dicks have been an obsession in art for as long as art has been around, but the act of sending a real life image of ones penis is a...
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37:54
The Crusades and Ireland
20 June 2023Ireland has long been overlooked in the context of crusading. It has not only been largely absent from accounts of crusades and crusading, it has...
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19:45
George VI and Elizabeth, Queen Mother
19 June 2023This episode brings the marriage of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother to life, from the uproar of King Edward VIIIs abdication...
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24:54
The Long Death of Slavery
19 June 2023We celebrate abolition - in the United States during the Civil War and on Juneteenth, in Haiti after the revolution, and in the British Empire...
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44:55
Elizabeth I’s Royal Tours
19 June 2023Every spring and summer of her 44 year reign, Queen Elizabeth I insisted that her court go "on progress" — royal visits to towns and...
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41:49
5 Assassinations That Changed History
19 June 2023Assassins have been plotting, murdering, and executing for thousands of years—from the famed Ides of March to forgotten British Prime Ministers....
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26:01
The Stonewall Uprising
18 June 2023Pride month happens in June in commemoration of the Stonewall Uprising that took place in the summer of 1969 after police undertook a routine raid...
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33:47
Pride Flag: Birth of a Rainbow
18 June 2023The first ever Pride Flag was 30 ft high and 60 ft wide. A suitably epic beginning for a flag that has had a massive impact on the...
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