History Podcasts | History Hit

 

 

History Hit 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

34:39

4. Tutankhamun: Inside the Tomb

4 November 2022

4/4. Dan descends the very same stone steps into Tutankhamun's tomb that Carter did, 100 years earlier. From within the chamber, Dan and...

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35:09

Becoming FDR

3 November 2022

In August 1921, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was 39 years old, he contracted Polio, paralysing him from the waist down. Jonathan Darman tells Don...

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47:57

Tutankhamun

3 November 2022

Tutankhamun is one of the most famous names in ancient history. Known as the 'Boy King', he ascended the Egyptian throne at the age of 9 and ruled...

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46:49

Mary I: Myths Vs. Reality

3 November 2022

Queen Mary I was the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. She reigned - as England’s first Queen Regnant - between 1553-1558. Unlike...

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24:41

3. Tutankhamun: The Life of a Boy Pharaoh

3 November 2022

3/4. How much do we know about Tutankhamun, his short life and even shorter reign? Dan unravels the complicated legacy of Tutankhamun's...

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29:22

Online Advertising

2 November 2022

What was the first ever internet ad? When was the last time someone actually clicked on one? What happened to all the proper ads with catchy...

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25:57

2. Tutankhamun: The Discovery of a Lifetime

2 November 2022

2/4. Dan dives into Carter’s obsession with Tutankhamun and the trials and idiosyncrasies that made him the right man for the discovery. Dan...

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26:24

Vikings in Britain: New Evidence

1 November 2022

Archeological evidence of the Vikings as far north as Northumbria has practically been non-existent. On Gone Medieval in May 2021, Dr. Cat Jarman...

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48:16

Gothic Fiction

1 November 2022

From Dracula, to Frankenstein, to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, to Twilight’s Edward Cullen…when did our fascination with gothic fiction...

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35:44

Tutankhamun: The Valley of the Kings

1 November 2022

1/4. On the West Bank of the Nile in Luxor lie the burial chambers of some of Ancient Egypt's greatest pharaohs - Ramses II, Seti I and...

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32:51

Sleepy Hollow & the Haunted Hudson

31 October 2022

On Halloween, Elizabeth Bradley tells Don about Washington Irving's famous story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, its headless horseman and the...

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36:27

Sorcery and the Tudor Court

31 October 2022

It's a little known fact that the Tudor monarchs and their councillors used - and feared - magic and the occult. At this time of great religious...

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30:23

Tactical Nuclear Weapons

31 October 2022

In a scathing attack on the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared the world faces its most dangerous decade since WW2 - having...

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27:54

Smugglers of Jamaica Inn

31 October 2022

Stories of shipwrecks, smugglers and ghosts. Built in the mid-18th century, over the years many of the Jamaica Inn's patrons have been less...

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40:04

Ukraine's Ancient Greek City

30 October 2022

Located in modern day Ukraine, Olbia was the largest ancient Greek settlement on the coast of the Black Sea. A mix of Scythian and Greek culture,...

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41:01

Paranormal Technology

30 October 2022

Welcome to Patented-Gone-Paranormal!! Thomas Edison tried to make a telephone that called the spirit world. One of the pioneers of radio believed...

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51:58

Vlad the Impaler

29 October 2022

Vlad the Impaler - Vlad Dracula - is one of history’s most brutal figures, who has enjoyed a bizarre afterlife as a cult character. Although a...

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44:49

Seances

28 October 2022

Everybody hold hands! We're going for a seance!

How long have we've been trying to talk to dead people for? And have we ever actually been...

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38:48

Blitzkrieg: How Britain Invented, Then Ignored It

28 October 2022

Here’s a special episode of Cautionary Tales, a podcast from our friends at Pushkin Industries.

On Cautionary Tales, bestselling author...

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28:26

A Short History of Seances

27 October 2022

From their origins in necromancy to their ritualisation in the religion of Spiritualism, seances have long been a staple in the occultist's...

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40:48

America's Psychedelic '60s: Timothy Leary and LSD

27 October 2022

In 1963, a Gilded Age estate in Millbrook, New York, became a venue for academic research into therapeutic uses for LSD, led by psychologist...

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