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
40:39
The First Humans
2 March 2023Where do humans come from? Or, perhaps more interestingly, who did humans evolve from? A question once posed by the likes of Charles Darwin and...
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35:25
Lady Hamilton: Nelson's Mistress
2 March 2023The Kim Kardashian of Georgian England; she was a young housemaid who became one of the most famous socialites in the Western world and stole the...
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30:51
Filing Cabinets: How They Changed the World
1 March 2023It’s perhaps the most overlooked invention of all time. Consigned to a forgotten corner in the basement of history. The Filing...
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25:28
The Mysterious Voynich Manuscript
1 March 2023Matt Lewis continues his Mystery Month on Gone Medieval with another tantalising enigma of the Middle Ages - possibly the most mysterious...
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28:40
Vikings & The Rus in Medieval Ukraine
28 February 2023One year ago, Russia invaded Ukraine. While the invasion and subsequent war have largely been driven by modern geopolitics, the history of...
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45:14
The Real Bridgerton
28 February 2023The first series of Bridgerton broke viewership records and became the biggest series on Netflix ever when it first came out. But a raunchy period...
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30:02
Sabotage, Nazis and the Atomic Bomb: Operation Gunnerside
28 February 2023In late February 1943, Norwegian commandos were given the details of their mission, Operation Gunnerside. Their job would be to sabotage the...
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41:15
The Race That Sold The Car To America
27 February 2023On a cold winter morning in February 1908, six cars lined up in Times Square, attempting to be the first to drive from New York to Paris, the long...
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37:12
The 1954 Guatemalan Coup D'état
27 February 2023As Cold War tensions escalated in the early 1950s, the White House became obsessed with one core goal: Containing Communism. Nowhere was this more...
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23:43
Enheduanna: The World's First Author
27 February 2023It's hard to imagine a time when we didn't write things down- on stone, papyrus or parchment. Who was the first to actually put 'pen to paper' and...
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40:27
The Death of Amy Dudley
27 February 2023On 6 September 1560, Amy Robsart Dudley died after falling down a staircase at Cumnor Place in Oxfordshire. But did she fall? Was she pushed? Or...
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48:48
Shirin: Heroine of Iran
26 February 2023Princess, Queen, and political influencer - Shirin should be a name as famed as Cleopatra, but how come so few know of her? Coming to influence in...
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30:03
Instant Noodles
26 February 2023In the year 2000 Japan was asked what its greatest invention of the twentieth century was. They had a LOT to choose from. The Walkman. The bullet...
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35:33
Birth of Cornwall
25 February 2023In the fifth century, Western Europe began remaking itself in the turmoil that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire. In south-west...
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37:03
Putin's Invasion of Ukraine: 1 Year On
24 February 2023One year ago today, on February 24th 2022, the world watched as Russia launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine. Despite intelligence gathered...
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36:52
Wedding Dresses
24 February 2023In the UK, just over half of people above the age of 16 are married. Whether in a registry office, a place of worship or a remote beach somewhere...
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1:12:41
Russia & Ukraine: A Year of War
24 February 2023On the 24th of February, 2022, the world looked on in disbelief as Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. One year on he shows...
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48:09
America and the Haiti Revolution
23 February 2023The revolution in Haiti freed the country from French control and created the first Black republic after years of fighting, in 1804. Leslie...
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35:25
The Origins of Buddhism
23 February 2023One of the oldest religions in the world, Buddhism is practiced by over 400 million people today, but where did it originate from? Pioneered by...
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30:41
The Blood Countess: Elizabeth Bathory
23 February 2023In the early seventeenth century, a Hungarian aristocrat called Erzsébet Báthory - or Elizabeth Bathory - was accused of murdering more than 600...
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40:33
History of Britain's Black Airmen
23 February 2023When you think of some of the remarkable feats of airpower throughout history, you might think of the Dambusters, or the Battle of Britain. But...
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