Dan Snow

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Just a warning, this episode contains discussions that might not be suitable if you're listening with your kids.

Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History.

We're going to be talking about of history's greatest headline makers, the original celebrity bad boy.

Yes, yes, it's time, we're going there.

Today, we're talking about Lord Byron.

Poet, politician of sorts, lover, exile, self-starred rebel, romantic...

Hideous, hideous partner, and eventually freedom fighter.

He appalled and titillated Regency Britain's polite society.

He set hearts racing.

He managed to keep a bear as a pet.

And he just made lots of really, really terrible decisions.

And yet, strangely, made them look glamorous at the same time.

He was born into a Britain that was experiencing multiple revolutions.

The Industrial Revolution, huge leaps in technology, changes in the way that people lived.

People were becoming subordinated to machines.

People were leaving the countryside and entering these massive, dark, smoky cities.

There were questions about how we ought to organize ourselves in this new world.

Who should get the profit?

Who should get the surplus value from all this labor?