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
44:33
The Origins of Rome
21 July 2022Known as the Eternal City, ancient Rome was one of the greatest civilisations in human history, but how did it come about?
With a turbulent...
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41:40
The Venetian Inquisition
21 July 2022From the sixteenth century through to the end of the eighteenth century, the Venetian government and the Roman Catholic Church jointly established...
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28:36
The Apollo Programme with Kevin Fong
20 July 2022Getting to the moon was no easy feat, no matter how confident President Kennedy may have sounded in his famous 1961 speech. NASA built a team from...
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29:35
Baby Formula
20 July 2022The United States has been suffering from a baby formula shortage for months now. It’s shown how reliant we are on this one commodity. People...
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15:11
Hatshepsut: The Temple of Egypt's Female Pharaoh
19 July 2022On the West Bank of the Nile in Luxor, Egypt sits a temple considered to be one of the great architectural wonders of ancient Egypt. The memorial...
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30:13
How Trees Gave Places Their Names
19 July 2022Trees have been universally important to humanity throughout history - not only as the source of fruits and nuts, but also wood for tools, weapons...
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54:14
Abortion in the US
19 July 2022In this episode we are looking into the first time abortion was made illegal in the US. This is the first of a special two-part series looking at...
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26:13
Formidable Heroines of History
18 July 2022From the notorious thief Mary Frith in the seventeenth century to industrialist and LGBT trailblazer Anne Lister in the nineteenth, these heroines...
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40:54
The Real Bin Laden
18 July 202218 minutes. That's how much extra time the US Navy Seals had during their raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. In that time...
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40:48
Anne of Cleves
18 July 2022Anne of Cleves was the ‘last woman standing’ of Henry VIII’s wives and the only one buried in Westminster Abbey. How did she manage it? Was...
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17:38
My Life as a Child Prisoner of War
17 July 2022The Imperial Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began on December 25, 1941, after the then Governor, Sir Mark Young, surrendered the British Crown...
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51:56
The Sumerians
17 July 2022Despite being one of the first civilisations in human history, Sumer is not as well-known as other Bronze Age societies such as Babylonia and, of...
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35:00
Measurements
17 July 2022A pint might be Britain’s most beloved measurement. But what’s the name for the distance a reindeer can walk before it needs to pee?
The...
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37:15
England & France: Two Houses, Two Kingdoms
16 July 2022The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were a time when the close friendship or petty feuding between monarchs could determine the course of...
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55:13
Women of the Wild West
15 July 2022From a rifle-carrying brothel madam to missionaries walking for months on end; from the Native American First Ladies of settler outposts to the...
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56:59
The Korean War: HMS Belfast with Veteran Ron Yardley
15 July 2022Moored in the River Thames, the HMS Belfast is an important part of the Imperial War Museums and a brilliant learning resource for those who...
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45:04
Beer
14 July 2022Pint, bottle, schooner, tinny … no matter how you drink it, beer is undeniably a part of social life here in Britain and around the...
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45:07
The Man who Wrote Robinson Crusoe: Daniel Dafoe
14 July 2022In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Professor Alan Downie about Daniel Dafoe, whose life was at least as...
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1:00:22
The Rise of Cleopatra
14 July 2022Famed across the ages and around the world - everyone knows the name Cleopatra. But how did she become one of the most infamous women in...
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28:21
Wars in the Atlantic World
13 July 2022How has warfare shaped the way humans live in the Atlantic World? Well, a lot. Military campaigns from the late Middle Ages to the Age of...
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40:58
Waterloo Uncovered: Bones from the Battlefield
13 July 2022Join James for this special episode as we take an exclusive look at an astonishing discovery made at the Waterloo battlefield in...
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