History Hit Podcasts

Mormons & The Founding of Salt Lake City

The Church of the Latter Day Saints is one shrouded in mystery, whispers of polygamy and is often synonymous with Salt Lake City. But where did...

Ivan the Terrible

The name Ivan the Terrible is synonymous with brutality and ruthlessness. While Western scholars insist that the first crowned Tsar of all Russia...

Homo Naledi: The First Burials?

Uncovered a decade ago in the Rising Star Cave system in South Africa, Homo Naledi's discovery has impacted paleoanthropology in ways nobody could...

Oppenheimer

On a summer morning in 1945, a device known simply as 'Gadget' was detonated. An enormous explosion tore a crater into the New Mexico desert,...

Karaoke: The History

When you think about it, the Karaoke machine is a simple invention. Basically two existing inventions, the tape deck and the microphone, were...

Black Boxes: Recording Airplanes' Final Moments

They can survive in lava for half an hour and accelerations of 3,400 Gs. Their beacons can be detected 20,000 feet beneath the waves. Most...

Wars of the Roses: Jack Cade's Rebellion Explained

It’s one of the most dramatic stories you might never have heard. Featuring a seaborne assassination, a vengeful manhunt and London Bridge in...

Althea Gibson: The Wimbledon Champion Who Beat The Odds

The world of tennis in the 1940s wasn't made for someone of Althea Gibson's background.

She was the descendent of slaves, and grew up in...

Prigozhin: The Fate of Russian ‘Favourites’

Russian history is defined by the rise and fall of favourites. Peter the Great had Menshikov, and Nicholas II had Rasputin. It's part of the...

A History of American Childhood

School, play and much less work: the idealised childhood is a very separate part of life. But how did it come to be so? And why is this perhaps...

WW2: Top 5 Strangest Weapons

They say war can be one of the biggest drivers of innovation. Inventions like radar, computers and penicillin, all developed during the Second...

Tudor Queens: The Power of Jewellery

From the mid-15th century to the mid-16th century, there were 10 Queens Consort of England, from Margaret of Anjou to Katherine Parr. For each of...

Napoleon

Did Napoleon really come from nothing and conquer everything? The release of the trailer for Ridley Scott's new epic biopic film has created hot...

Jersey: Ice Age Island

The largest of the Channel Islands, when you think of Jersey, it's doubtful that Neanderthals, Woolly Mammoths, and Woolly Rhinoceroses come to...

Ectoplasm: Seances & the Rise of Spiritualism

Communicating with the dead has a long and winding history. The rise of seances and the showmanship of paranormal activity rose to prominence in...

Mozart's Sex Life

When we think of the biggest pop icons of all time, we might reach for Madonna, Elvis, or yes, even Michael Jackson. 

One name that’s...

Ukraine: War Crimes & Cluster Bombs

As over a year passes since the Bucha Massacre, new information and intelligence on Russian war crimes continues to emerge from the conflict. With...

Beowulf

Composed towards the end of the first millennium, Beowulf is the classic Anglo-Saxon epic poem that transcends its time to shed light on...

Helen of Troy with Natalie Haynes

Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships - but is there more to her than a beautiful face? Commemorated throughout history in...

Nixon in Moscow: The Kitchen Debate

Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev. Leading figures of the United States and the Soviet Union respectively, in a verbal debate about capitalism...

Elizabethan Rivals: Francis Bacon & Edward Coke

As Queen Elizabeth I lays dying, King James VI of Scotland is waiting to accede to the throne of England. But who will thrive and who will fall...