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
30:31
King Cnut & the End of the Viking Age
27 September 2022Dr. Cat Jarman concludes her month-long series about her favourite, specialist subject - the Vikings.
Cnut the Great became King of England...
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21:03
A Short History of the Bank of England
26 September 2022As the UK's bond market has suffered its biggest fall in decades and the pound has reached its lowest ever price against the US dollar, Dan talks...
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29:00
Hollywood Blacklist
26 September 2022After World War 2 ended, the Nazis defeated, America feared communist infiltration of its institutions, among them, Hollywood.
In November...
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48:21
War Crimes
26 September 2022Warning: This episode contains content that some listeners may find upsetting
No matter the war being fought, it's a sad fact that war...
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43:32
The Sinking of the Mary Rose
26 September 2022Exactly forty years ago, in a groundbreaking and spectacular piece of marine conservation that captured the imagination of the world, the Mary...
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38:50
Agatha Christie with Lucy Worsley
25 September 2022Agatha Christie is the best-selling fiction writer of all time and her many detective novels, short stories and plays have gripped and entertained...
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41:04
FORENSICS: Fingerprinting
25 September 2022We hear from London’s most inaccessible museum, the Met police’s Crime Museum, and take you back to India in the time of the British Raj. We...
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45:44
Top Five Dinosaurs
25 September 2022They’re big. They’re fierce. And they’re extinct.
This is how today’s guest - palaeontologist, evolutionary biologist and Senior...
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42:19
The Story of Castles
24 September 2022Castles have held a pivotal place in British life, many of them remaining today as powerful reminders of our history and sources of inspiration....
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40:19
The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe
23 September 2022Marilyn Monroe. She's got to be one of the most famous people of all time, hasn't she?
But what happens when an investigative war reporter...
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22:41
WW2: The Forgotten Blitz
23 September 2022When you think of the Blitz, you think of the Blitz on London. The two are synonymous, and not without reason. Over 57 consecutive nights and...
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53:05
Eleanor of Aquitaine
22 September 2022From an age in which women’s lives were obscured and poorly recorded, one shines brightly from the darkness. Eleanor of Aquitaine - born...
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28:16
Declaration of Independence
22 September 2022While the Revolutionary War was being fought in July 1776, the 13 British colonies in America came together to approve their Declaration of...
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27:28
The Atomic Bomb & the Secret City
22 September 2022In 1939 Franklin D Roosevelt received a letter from Albert Einstein, warning him that the Nazis might be developing nuclear...
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39:34
Karnak: Egypt's Greatest Temple
22 September 2022Located on the banks of the River Nile in Luxor, Egypt, the Karnak Temple complex is one of the largest buildings ever constructed for religious...
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34:51
Slavery and the Royal African Company
22 September 2022The Royal African Company was set up in 1660 - by the ruling Stuart family and City of London merchants - to exploit gold fields up the Gambia...
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33:59
Suleyman the Magnificent
21 September 2022The Lion House is a riveting new book from journalist and historian Christopher De Bellaigue, written like a novel that tells the dramatic story...
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34:57
Perfume
21 September 2022First Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel shocked the world’s eyeballs with her fashion designs. Then she shocked its nostrils with a new smell - Chanel...
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26:39
The Man Wrongfully Hanged at Cardiff Prison
20 September 2022In September 1952 Mahmood Hussein Mattan became the last to be executed at Cardiff Prison, but Mahmood had in fact been framed by the police and...
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44:00
Forbidden Books
20 September 2022What makes a book bad? Does it have to be nonsensical? Heretical? Libellous? Sexy?
Well for 500 years, a panel from the Roman Catholic...
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36:52
Viking Sagas
20 September 2022Few people in European history have had as many stories told about them as the Vikings. We know about them from novels, films, TV series and...
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