Dan Snow's History Hit

<p>In this podcast, Dan Snow is joined by Professor Mark Bailey, High Master of St Paul's School, London and Professor of Later Medieval History at the University of East Anglia to delve into the topic of The Black Death. They discuss how it emerged and spread throughout the world, what impact it had on society and how it would return every few decades over the 400 years that followed.</p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about some of the greatest speeches ever made in the House of Commons, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Sex. There's a lot of it about. We talk about war, chaos and atrocities on this podcast a lot although, thankfully, few of us have first hand experience of them. Yet we rarely talk sex. Which is odd. Sex is what got us here in the first place and nearly all of us will experience it in some form through our lives. I talked to Dr Kate Lister about the ways in which society dictates how sex is culturally understood and performed have varied significantly through the ages. Dr Lister runs the brilliant digital project Whores of Yore and has just written the brilliant Curious History of Sex. We chatted about why humans are the only creatures that stigmatise particular sexual practices, and sex remains a deeply divisive issue around the world. This was a fascinating chat.</p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about some of the greatest speeches ever made in the House of Commons, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>I was thrilled to be joined by Mark Vincent, an expert in criminal subculture and prisoner society in Stalinist Labour camps. Mark has looked at thousands of journals, song collections, tattoo drawings and slang dictionaries to reveal a hidden side of Gulag daily life. In this podcast, he also explained how these criminal habits laid the foundations for the Russian mafia.</p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about some of the greatest speeches ever made in the House of Commons, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Dr Helen McCarthy, lecturer in modern British history at the University of Cambridge, joins Dan to discuss the complicated past of working motherhood. They consider how women have been excluded from the world of work as well as attempts to break into it, and how these developments have informed our views on gender, work and equality in Britain today.</p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about some of the greatest speeches ever made in the House of Commons, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>In this podcast I was joined by Margaret MacMillan, professor at St Antony's College, Oxford University and author of 'Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War'. We discussed the effects WWI had on the world, and how Europe began to rebuild in the years that followed.</p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about some of the greatest speeches ever made in the House of Commons, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>In this episode, Dan chats to British naval historian and maritime artist, Richard Endsor, about seventeenth century ship building. It was the developments of this period that would enable Britain to extend it's maritime reach across the oceans, eventually encompassing territory on every continent.</p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about some of the greatest speeches ever made in the House of Commons, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>I was joined by Kevin Fong, who took me through one of the most extraordinary stories in the history of exploration. Apollo 13 was the seventh crewed mission on the Apollo space programme, and their third attempt to land on the moon. But after an oxygen tank in the command module ignited early on in the mission, the three astronauts got much more than they bargained for. As each of the systems in the space craft began to shut down one after another over a course of four excruciating days, it seemed impossible they would come out alive.</p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p><br></p><p>Emily Brand has written a brilliant book about the Byrons. Not just the great romantic, poet and adventurer, George Gordon Byron, but his parents and grandparents who are equally as deserving of our attention. I loved this opportunity to delve into 18th Century British life. There are admirals, villains, heroines and lovers all over the place. One family give us an entree into a world different to ours yet tantalisingly similar. </p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about some of the greatest speeches ever made in the House of Commons, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>In September 1918 David Lloyd George, the charismatic wartime Prime Minister, visited the city of Manchester, attended a vast public gathering and then collapsed. He spent the next week and a half confined to the Manchester Town Hall in a hastily assembled private hospital ward. He needed assistance breathing. His valet said it was touch and go as to whether he would survive. He did pull through but a vast number of his fellow Brits did not. The country was in the grip of an influenza pandemic, known as Spanish Influenza. It is interesting that Lloyd George was in Manchester because it was under the care of one of the most remarkable public health officials in British history, James Niven. His rapid response the pandemic, his insistence on a public information campaign and closing of mass gatherings meant that Manchester suffered fewer deaths than other big cities like London. </p><br><p>In this podcast I talk to Mark Honigsbaum who has written extensively about the Influenza and Niven. We talked about sick Prime Ministers and social distancing. Please check out Mark's podcast Going Viral for more on this and the historical resonances of the present crisis. </p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Professor Frank Snowden is currently on lockdown in Rome, experiencing at first hand life in a pandemic. For years he has written about the great waves of disease that swept across the world in the past. Now he is experiencing one. I talked to him about what pandemics have done to us. How they have changed our societies, nudged us towards the present and whether this outbreak might refocus us to give previous pandemics the attention they deserve. </p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about some of the greatest speeches ever made in the House of Commons, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Our museums are full of stuff taken, bought, stolen and gifted from foreign countries. It feels like we face a reckoning. What shall we do with it?</p><br><p>I talked to two authors of new books that wrestle with this. Christopher Joll is a former soldier who deals specifically with the spoils of war, while Alice Proctor thinks more generally about all objects and where they are best placed and how best to interpret them. </p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about some of the greatest speeches ever made in the House of Commons, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Poison, swordplay and bloodshed. Shakespeare’s characters met their ends in a plethora of gruesome ways. But how realistic were they? And did they even shock audiences who lived in a time of plague, pestilence and public executions, a time when seeing a dead or dying body on the way home from the theatre were high. I was joined by the wonderful Dr Kathryn Harkup, a chemist and author, on a tumultuous journey through the most dramatic and memorable parts of Shakespeare’s work. </p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>The last great battle of the Second World War was fought on the island of Okinawa. After 83 blood-soaked days, almost a quarter of a million people lost their lives. The death toll included thousands of civilians lost to mass suicide - convinced to do so by Japanese propaganda. I invited Saul David on the podcast to tell me about this shocking - often overlooked - chapter of the Second World War. A chapter which was central to Truman’s decision to use the atomic bombs in August 1945. </p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>This episode features military historian Douglas Gill who has extensively researched the origins of the Spanish Influenza as it emerged in 1915 and 1916 in northern France. Douglas has worked alongside leading virologist, and previous guest on Dan's podcast, John Oxford, to track the initial cases of this particularly violent strain of influenza which would go on to kill millions of people across the globe. </p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>I was thrilled to have Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir on the pod. We talked about Viking women, old Norse-Icelandic sagas, mythology and poetry. Who were these Viking women who were champions on the battlefield, did they really exist, and is there much historic evidence? Jóhanna answered all these questions drawing upon the latest archaeological evidence. It seems the lives of Viking women were far more dynamic than we might imagine. Enjoy!</p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Dr. Jamie Wood and Professor Niall Mackay at the University of York are mathematicians who love history. Sensible dudes. They released a paper which sent the rest of the history world into a meltdown when they tried to use the statistics of airframe losses from the Battle of Britain to test just how close Germany might have come to victory in the battle. Essentially (I think but then again I am totally innumerate) they tested what would happen if the loss ration on certain days had been replicated consistently. Anyway I wouldn't read my take on it, give it a listen and see if it makes sense to you. I loved these guys and I hope we get to work together again. </p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>We were delighted to have comedy royalty on the podcast. Omid Djalili talked to me about one of his earliest stage creations, first performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1993. Over the next four years it was performed 109 times in 10 different countries. The backdrop of this epic storytelling piece was the tumultuous expectation for a Promised One in Persia in 1844. The claims made by a young merchant of Shiraz - who became known as the Bab - caused a revolution, and laid the foundations for the Baha'i Faith - which numbers some seven million followers around the world today. Omid, who grew up in an Iranian Baha'i family, gave a fascinating insight into his relationship with history, comedy and family. Enjoy. </p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> Use code 'pod1' for a month free and the first month for just £/€/$1.</p><br><p>For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>There are more historic artefacts on our ocean floor than there are in every museum in the world put together. Over thousands of years ships carrying every conceivable cargo have sunk in the rivers and oceans of the world. Protecting them is an enormous challenge. </p><br><p>Thankfully there are heroes out there who are taking on that challenge. In this episode I was lucky enough to talk to maritime archaeologist Jessica Berry, CEO of MAST (Maritime Archaeological Sea Trust) and her colleague Nick Wise. Nick is CEO of OceanMind. OceanMind is a not for profit which specialises in using the latest technology, unleashing the full potential of the latest AI from Microsoft. </p><br><p>Together their two organisations have now set up the Maritime Observatory. This will protect underwater heritage from illegal looting - people going down, and ripping off bits of wrecks. So what Microsoft AI, and OceanMind's technology, allows MAST to keep an eye on ships behaving suspiciously on the surface in areas of important maritime wreck and heritage sites. </p><br><p>All this means that wrecks can be looked after, war graves can be respected, in just the same way we should be looking after our vital fisheries and our maritime protected areas. </p><br><p>To learn more go to Microsoft.com/ai </p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV We have got a special offer on at the moment- use code 'pod3' for a month free and the first THREE months for just £/€/$1 per month.</p><p>For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Everyone is Thomas Cromwell obsessed at the moment. The man who rose to be the most powerful member of Henry VIII's court, his Lord Privy Seal, Principal Secretary and Chancellor. He was a driving force behind the English Reformation and constitutional changes that emphasised the centrality of Parliament, but his current mighty reputation depends on the fictional trilogy of the genius novelist Hilary Mantel. On this podcast I talk to another genius, Tracy Borman, historian and curator of Historic Royal Palaces, a biographer of Cromwell about the reality behind the literary legend. </p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> We have got a special offer on at the moment - use code 'pod1' for a month free and the next month for just £/€/$1.</p><br><p>For information regarding your data privacy, visit <a href="http://acast.com/privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">acast.com/privacy</a></p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Daniel Todman is a Professor of Modern History at Queen Mary. He has just published his epic study of how during the Second World War Britain fought back from near disaster to triumph. It opens with the fall fall of Singapore Feb 1942 and ends with Britain’s post war experiment in social democracy well underway. </p><br><p>Speaking to him amidst the Covid crisis was particularly fascinating. I was able to ask just why states are able to do and pay for in moments of extreme drama. Dan always encourages me to think differently about the past. This episode was certainly no exception. </p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> We have got a special offer on at the moment- use code 'pod1' for a month free and the first month for just £/€/$1.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Great leaders? Industrial change? Revolutions? If you thought these were the things that shaped history, think again. Back by popular demand, I was thrilled to be joined by bestselling author Lewis Dartnell. </p><br><p>He explained how modern political and economic patterns correlate with events which happened not decades or centuries ago, but hundreds of millions of years before human civilisations existed. Pretty mind-blowing stuff. </p><br><p>Perhaps more relevant than ever in these uncertain and weird times, it’s never been more compelling to understand Earth’s impact on the shape of human civilisations. Enjoy. </p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> We have got a special offer on at the moment- use code 'pod3' for a month free and the first THREE months for just £/€/$1 per month.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Off the coast of the Gaza Strip fishermen have been discovering coins of extreme rarity and importance. They date from the brief reign of Alexander the Great in the Third Century BC.</p><p>Strangely, months later, a collection of very very similar coins were sold in a London auction house. What's the story here? Were they illegally trafficked? And what does that tell us about the antiquities found in some of the world's most troubled regions?</p><p>I talked to Sarah Saey a lead producer for the BBC who broke this story, and also to producer Hazem Balousha in Gaza itself. It is a fascinating piece of archaeological sleuthing that took me from the chaos following the death of Alexander to the modern antiquities trade....</p><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> We have got a special offer on at the moment- use code 'pod3' for a month free and the first THREE months for just £/€/$1 per month.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Dan chats with journalist and author Ed West about Ed's conservative views, which make him an anomaly among his peers. They explore why conservatives have lost almost every political argument since 1945, and why Ed worships on the altar of Edmund Burke.</p><br><p><br></p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

In this episode, Dan meets New York Times journalist and writer Bari Weiss, who grew up near and attended the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsberg, Pensylvania. In 2018 this synagogue was the site of the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in American history. Dan and Bari delve into the long history of anti-Semitism, from 2nd century BCE to our modern era. <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

Of all the clubs in the world, perhaps the most extraordinary is the Guinea Pig Club, a group of Second World War veterans that suffered terrible injuries and were then treated by pioneering surgeon Archibald McIndoe. Today there are only a handful left. Dan visits Jan Stangreciuk, one of the few surviving members, to hear his remarkable life story. <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Professor Paul Preston doesn’t pull his punches. His magisterial new history of modern Spain is called 'A People Betrayed'. He is the greatest living authority on Spain and he is not a fan of how that country had been governed. In this podcast he tells me a sorry story of corruption, war and brutality. And that's before the 20th Century even kicks off. This podcast, unusually, made me feel profoundly sad. </p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' for a month free and the first month for just £/€/$1</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>I was thrilled to chat to Paul Morland, a historian who uses population to explain almost all the major global shifts and events of the last two centuries. Using the power of sheer numbers, Paul has the answer to all the big questions - why China is going to get old long before it gets rich, why Russia is heading for disaster and the future is African, and why fertility rates are plunging where we would least expect it.</p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> Use code 'pod1' for a month free and the first month for just £/€/$1</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Professor John Oxford is a virologist. He is one of the world's leading experts on influenza.</p><br><p>He is a leader in the study of the great Influenza outbreak of 100 years ago that killed upwards of 50 million people around the world.</p><br><p>I talked to him today to ask him, what are the key lessons that we can learn from past outbreaks.</p><br><p>The best way to support the History Hit team who produce this podcast is to subscribe to History Hit TV. The whole podcast archive is exclusively on there, along with hundreds of history documentaries. Use the code pod1 to get 30 days free and then your first month for just £1. Please signup at <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> Thank you!</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Dominic Sandbrook is one of Britain’s most prolific historians, working his way through a series on Britain since the Second World War. His most recent book examines the pivotal early years of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership. In this podcast, Dominic and I discuss the social change of the tumultuous 1980s, a decade of the personal computer, snooker, Spandau Ballet, the Falklands War, and of course, The Iron Lady. </p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod6' at checkout for six weeks free. </p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>It came from Asia via the Middle East and Italy. But, says 17th Century historian, Rebecca Rideal, the parallels with the Black Death, The Plague, are not helpful.</p><p>It was great to catch up with Rebecca again on the podcast. She tells me what effect plague had on British people and society when it struck throughout the 17th Century. Her ultimate conclusion seems to be: be very very grateful that youre not living three hundred years ago.</p><p>Catch Rebecca and other wonderful historians on my new history channel, History Hit. There are also ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films. Please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> Use code 'pod6' at checkout for six weeks free.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Rebecca Gibb is a Master of Wine. A ninja who can sniff out a Merlot from a Margaux at 50 paces. I know ABSOLUTELY nothing about wine other than I like drinking it. So we had a lot to talk about.</p><br><p>She has written a fascinating research paper on the riots that tore through the region of Champagne just before the First World War as the small wine growers rose up against the power of the big Champagne brands. This story has it all: invasive species, globalisation, climate crisis, superbrands, booze and artisanal production.</p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> Use code 'pod6' at checkout for six weeks free.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>The universe has always been there, kind of, but it took intelligent life on earth billions of years to start to grapple with its nature. Carolyn Collins Peterson is a science writer who charts the progress of astronomy through the observatories used throughout history, from the earliest such as Stonehenge, to places like Birr Castle with its Leviathan telescope used by Herschel. </p><br><p>As always the compressed timescale of the major discoveries in astronomy left me amazed. in just a few generations we have gone from squinting at the nearest celestial bodies to sending manmade objects beyond our solar system. </p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod6' at checkout for six weeks free.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>George. Where did it all go wrong?</p><br><p>George Washington could have had a comfortable career as a loyal member of HIs Majesty's Virginia militia and colonial grandee. But no, he had to go and roll the dice.</p><br><p>I am thrilled in this episode to be talking to historian Alexis Coe about her new biography of Washington. She has a fresh take on the first President, but no less scholarly for that.</p><br><p>Young George Washington was raised by a struggling single mother, demanded military promotions, caused an international incident, and never backed down - even when his dysentery got so bad he had to ride with a cushion on his saddle. But after he married Martha, everything changed. Washington became the kind of man who named his dog Sweetlips and hated to leave home. He took up arms against the British only when there was no other way, though he lost more battles than he won.</p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> Use code 'pod6' at checkout for six weeks free.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>75 years ago this Spring, the aerial assault on Germany was reaching a crescendo as city after city was devastated by British and American bomber fleets. History Hit TV have just launched a major documentary to mark this anniversary featuring veterans and historians like Max Hastings and Victoria Taylor. In this podcast one of our contributors, the hugely popular James Holland, joins me to talk about why and how the bombing reached such catastrophic levels and whether it actually shortened the Second World War.</p><p>From the earliest days of the war when the RAF confined themselves to dropping propaganda leaflets to the murderous bombing on Pfrozheim in late February 1945 which utterly destroyed most of the medieval city and killed a third of its population, James talks me through what both sides hoped to achieve from aerial bombing and how they went about it.</p><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to <a href="http://www.historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.HistoryHit.TV</a> Use code 'pod6' at checkout for six weeks free.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Dan made a stupid comment on twitter. Irish history twitter melted down. So we did a pod on why. </p><br><p>100 years ago the Irish War of Independence was being fought in Ireland as the UK government sought to keep Ireland within the Union while the Irish independence fighters seized control of much of the countryside. </p><br><p>Dan and Finn Dwyer, host of the Irish History Podcast, had a good chat about the war and why, under no circumstances at all, must you never ever refer to it as a civil war. </p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Channel Islands. Dan went to meet four people who remember the war years on the islands and hear their experiences of occupation. <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Natalie Zemon Davis is a legend. One of the most influential and versatile contemporary historians. A pathbreaking scholar of early modern European social and cultural history, she has also explored the Mediterranean world as seen by Leo Africanus and the culture of slavery in Suriname.</p><p>She was born on 8 November 1928 and she is still working. She is currently an Adjunct Professor of History and Anthropology and Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto in Canada. Her work originally focused on France, but has since broadened to include other parts of Europe, North America, and the Caribbean. For example, Trickster Travels (2006) views Italy, Spain, Morocco and other parts of North Africa and West Africa through the lens of Leo Africanus's pioneering geography. It has appeared in four translations, with three more on the way.</p><p>She is a hero to many historians and academics, as <em>"one of the greatest living historians", constantly asking new questions and taking on new challenges, the second female president of the American Historical Association (the first, Nellie Neilson, was in 1943) and someone who "has not lost the integrity and commitment to radical thought which marked her early career"</em></p><p>As a Canadian and a lover of history- this was a very special podcast for me.</p><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, signup to <a href="http://historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">HistoryHit.TV</a>. Use code 'pod3' at checkout.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Annie Gray is a wonderful historian and broadcaster. Her latest project is a biography of the woman who cooked for Churchill. Georgina Landemare was one of the few people able to cope with the demands, eccentricities and public nudity that came with working for the Churchills. Where all the other servants came and went fairly rapidly, she remained in the family's service and helped Churchill through the war years, not just feeding him but helping his efforts to lead or cajole by providing sumptuous meals for him, his guests and subordinates.</p><p>I talked to Annie about what was like being a woman in domestic service in this period as well as the challenges of working for Winston.....</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Eamonn O'Keeffe is a young Oxford Researcher in the midst of a PhD. He stopped off in Wakefield Library to look at a journal Yorkshire farmer Matthew Tomlinson to see if the author had any opinions on the subject of his research: military music. Tomlinson did not. However what O'Keeffe found in the diary proved of infinitely greater interest to the general public than a passion for marching bands. In an entry for 1810 Tomlinson argues that homosexuality is natural. He therefore questioned the death penalty’s application for homosexual activity and sodomy. How can man punish what God has ordained? The announcement of the discovery went viral and I had to get him on the podcast. By chance I am also a big fan of 18th and early 19th Century military music so I got two for the price of one.</p><br><p>For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, signup to <a href="http://historyhit.tv/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">HistoryHit.TV</a>. Use code 'pod3' at checkout.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>We are a land animal. But millions of us have taken to the sea to live, fight, travel, eat, escape and seek fame and fortune. I am obsessed with the sea. On how humans have built ever more efficient and capable ships to exploit its riches and opportunities. This is an conversation I’ve been longing to have. David Abulafia has written massive, beautiful, scholarly books about the oceans and his most recent, The Boundless Sea, is a masterpiece.</p><p>He and I chatted about why and how humans have taken to the sea in ships and why what happens on the water affects politics, economics and societies on the land.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>This is the most remarkable father and son story I have ever come across.</p><p>We are still marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz here at History Hit and this time I am talking to historian Jeremy Dronfield about an astonishing true story of horror, love and impossible survival. In 1939, Gustav Kleinmann, a Jewish upholsterer in Vienna, was arrested by the Nazis. Along with his sixteen-year-old son Fritz, he was sent to Buchenwald in Germany, where a new concentration camp was being built.</p><p>They helped build Buchenwald, young Fritz learning construction skills which would help preserve him from extermination in the coming years. But it was his bond with his father that would ultimately keep them both alive. When the fifty-year-old Gustav was transferred to Auschwitz--a certain death sentence--Fritz was determined to go with him. His wiser friends tried to dissuade him--"If you want to keep living, you have to forget your father," one said. Instead Fritz pleaded for a place on the Auschwitz transport. "He is a true comrade," Gustav wrote in his secret diary, "always at my side. The boy is my greatest joy. We are inseparable."</p><p>Gustav kept his diary hidden throughout his six years in the death camps--even Fritz knew nothing of it.</p><p>We talked about this very rare diary, Fritz's own accounts, and other eyewitness testimony, and built a picture of this extraordinary father and son team.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

Toby Green has been fascinated by the history of West Africa for decades after he visited as a student and heard whispers of history that didn’t appear in text books. Years later he wrote ‘Fistful of Shells,’ a survey of West Africa and West-Central Africa before the slave trade, and the effect the arrival of Europeans had on those societies. I asked him about what we know about that history and how integrated this region was into the global economy. We also explored the impact of the slave trade on West Africa itself, how it turned the ruling elites against their populations which they now saw as fodder for slave traders.  <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

There is almost no end to the dark secrets that emerge from the smashed ruins of 1945 Europe. Dr Florian Huber has spent years researching the fascinating story of the epidemic of suicide that spread through Germany as they faced certain defeat in 1945. Some people committed suicide after suffering atrocities at the hands of the soviets, others because of the trauma of allied bombing and the destruction of the conflict around them. But many did so because they did not wish to live in a world without Nazism. Dr Huber has even interviewed people whose parents tried to kill them as young children. It is a dark secret in modern German society and his book provoked an outpouring of similar stories when it was published. <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

In the 1930s Lady Lucy Houston was one of the richest women in England and a household name, notorious for her virulent criticisms of the government, but politics had been far from her mind when, as young Fanny Radmall, she had set out to conquer the world. Armed with only looks and self-confidence, she exploited the wealth and status of successive lovers to push her way into high society. Seeking influence in national politics, Lady Houston financed the first flight over Mount Everest, backed secret military research, and facilitated the development of the Spitfire aircraft. She even purchased a newspaper. Seeking to expose the Prime Minister as a Soviet agent and promote Edward VIII as England's dictator, Lucy was loved as a patriot but loathed as a troublemaker. Historian Teresa Crompton talks Dan through the life of a once famous woman, now totally forgotten.  <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig are both Pulitzer Prize winning journalists at the Washington Post.</p><br><p>They've written a new book with yet more revelations from inside the Trump White House so Dan seized the opportunity to ask just how insane the whole thing is.</p><br><p>That's it really.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>75 years ago this week Dresden, in Saxony, known as the ‘jewel box’ because of its stunning architecture was obliterated by British and American bombers. The flames reached almost a mile high. Around 25,000 people were thought to have been killed. The novelist Kurt Vonnegut was there. It was he who wrote that the smouldering landscape was like walking on the surface of the moon. Even in the immediate aftermath it was controversial. Churchill instantly appeared to regret it. The Nazi government dramatically inflated the death toll to cast themselves as much the victims of monstrous violence as the Jews, Slavs, Poles, Romany and other groups they had murdered on an industrial scale. </p><br><p>In this podcast Dan talks to Sinclair McKay about his new book about Dresden. They met in Coventry. A city also infamous for destruction from above during the Second World War. Today the two cities are twinned, united by the shock of firestorms delivered from above. </p><br><p>Was it a war crime? Was it necessary? Why did it happen? Dan asks Sinclair about one of the Second World War's most controversial moments. </p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

Paul Lay, editor of History Today, has written a great book about the rise and fall of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate (1653–1659), England's sole experiment in republican government – and one of the most extraordinary but neglected periods in British history. Having won two civil wars, conquered Ireland and Scotland and seen off Charles II, in 1653 Oliver Cromwell assumed the title of 'Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. But, as Paul explained to Dan, crafting a lasting, stable and legitimate alternative to monarchy was a lot more complicated.... <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>'We are very very vulnerable' says the brilliant science author and journalist Laura Spinney. </p><br><p>Her fantastic book 'Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World' is a shocking account of the flu pandemic that killed tens of millions of people a century ago. </p><br><p>What was Spanish Flu and what lessons are there for us today? As the coronavirus sweeps across China this is a really important conversation about flu, anti-microbial resistance and whether we should be scared.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>Derek Niemman and Noemie Lopian work together. Two people from very different backgrounds, they tour the world telling people about their family stories.</p><p>Author and writer Derek Niemann discovered only a few years ago that the grandfather he never knew had been an SS officer, in charge of slave labourers in the Nazi concentration camps.</p><p>Dr Noemie Lopian is the daughter of Holocaust survivors: at the age of 10, her mother had a Gestapo pistol pointed at her head. Her father survived four years of slave labour and concentration camps. Noemie translated herfather's gripping and deeply humane memoir of those years - The Long Night.</p><p>The crimes committed by and against their forebears have drawn Noemie and Derek to form a highly unusual and indeed possibly unique partnership. In 2019, Noemie and Derek began sharing their stories as a warning of the perils of extremism and to inspire greater understanding.</p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

<p>75 years ago this spring a fascinating but forgotten battle was fought in the dying days of the Second World War. A group of Georgians rose up against their German overlords on the Dutch island of Texel. Thousands of Georgians served in the Soviet forces during World War II and among those who were captured, given the choice of “starve or fight”, some took up the German offer to don Wehrmacht uniforms. </p><p> </p><p>When the opportunity arose, the Georgians took the decision to rise up and slaughter the Germans, seizing control of the island. In just a few hours, they massacred some 400 German officers using knives and bayonets to avoid raising the alarm. </p><br><p>Hitler urged retaliation and it wasn't until 12 days after war had ended that Canadian forces landed on the island and finally put an end to the slaughter. In this podcast Dan is joined by author Eric Lee to hear how he uncovered this little known story. </p><p> </p><p> </p> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>