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
31:17
First Ladies of the United States
9 March 2023Don talks to former White House reporter Kate Andersen Brower about how the role of First Lady has changed - and stayed the same - since the...
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41:21
Septimius Severus
9 March 2023Given his incredible career, you'd perhaps expect the name of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus to be better known. Born in North Africa in 145AD,...
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47:51
The Myth of 'Western Civilisation'
9 March 2023'Western Civilisation' is often thought of as a continuous thread through the centuries - from classical antiquity to the countries of the modern...
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25:12
The Psychiatric Hospital that Fought the Nazis
9 March 2023There are descriptions of suffering early in this episode that some listeners may find distressing.
As hospitals and institutions across...
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29:27
The First Computer Program
8 March 2023This is the story of the first modern computer program and the extraordinary woman who wrote it, Klara von Neumann.
The program Klara wrote...
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29:44
The Women Who Organised the Battle of Britain
8 March 2023In a suburb of North-West London, among housing estates and residential streets lies a secret bunker, you may never have heard of it but it's one...
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41:59
From Eve to Austen: Women in Literature
7 March 2023Why might a woman have willingly confined herself to a cell for the rest of her life? Why have so many female authors in history published under...
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39:38
Medieval Women with Eleanor Janega
7 March 2023What made for the ideal woman in the Middle Ages? In her new book The Once and Future Sex, Dr. Eleanor Janega looks at what beauty,...
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27:38
Uniting Europe After WWII
7 March 2023Count Coudenhove-Kalergi was one of the most influential 20th Century European thinkers that you've never heard of. He was a pioneer of European...
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36:56
New Amsterdam
6 March 2023Before New York was New York, it was New Amsterdam. Dutch colonists arrived on the East Coast in the early 17th century, creating the New...
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34:09
Katherine of Aragon: England's First Renaissance Queen
6 March 2023In preparation for International Women's Day this Wednesday, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb takes a look at a Queen whose reputation has largely been...
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39:50
Tony Blair & The Iraq War
6 March 2023March 2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the Iraq war, seeing US and British troops enter the country - the legalities of which are still debated...
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24:20
The Making of 'All Quiet on the Western Front'
6 March 2023All Quiet on the Western Front is the 2022 film adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's famous anti-war novel. Told from the German perspective, it...
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37:48
Keyboards
5 March 2023The keyboard on the first ever commercially successful typewriter and the keyboard on your smartphone are separated by a gulf of time and...
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42:34
Dinosaurs: The Last Days
5 March 2023Around 66 million years ago, an asteroid the size of Mount Everest slammed into our planet, triggering the mass extinction of the dinosaurs and...
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23:35
Erotic Medieval Poet: Gwerful Mechain
4 March 2023Wales in the Medieval period had a thriving bardic tradition and one poet is particularly fascinating. Gwerful Mechain lived in the second half of...
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38:23
The History of Periods
3 March 2023‘It’s my time of the month’, ‘the painters are in’, ‘aunt flo is visiting’, or a simple ‘I’m on the rag’
Periods are a...
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18:05
1917 Russian Revolution with Antony Beevor
3 March 2023One of the most significant events of the 20th century, the 1917 Russian Revolution saw the overthrow of the Tsar and the birth of a new communist...
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22:02
The Last Nuremberg Prosecutor
3 March 2023102 year old Ben Ferencz is the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials and a direct witness to the horrors of the Nazi death camps....
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37:04
George III - The Last King of America
2 March 2023George III is forever known as the king who lost the 13 American colonies. In the US he is thought of by many as a tyrant king, taxing and...
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36:51
Jews & the Inquisition in Italy
2 March 2023Between 1598 and 1785, the Papal or Roman Inquisition in Modena, Northern Italy, put 393 Jews on trial. Regarded as infidels, Jews were accused...
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