Dan Snow's History Hit

How and Why History: Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages

18 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the Middle Ages, the Holy Land, as well as sites in Europe and around Britain became popular sites for pilgrimage. It was believed that praying at ...

Stealing from the Saracens: Islam and European Architecture

17 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

From Notre-Dame Cathedral to the Houses of Parliament, European architecture is indebted to the Muslim world. Diana Darke joined me on the pod to disc...

Britain in The Great War

16 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was thrilled to be joined by Simon Heffer, author of biographies on the historian and essayist Thomas Carlyle, the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams a...

VJ Day: 75 Years

15 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

75 years ago today, on 15 August 1945, Victory over Japan Day marked the end of one of the most devastating episodes in British military history, and ...

Chinese Philosophy

14 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Puett is Professor of Chinese History at Harvard and has lectured widely at the world's leading universities. His course in Chinese philosophy...

The Korean War: An American Perspective

13 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was thrilled to be joined by H. W. Brands. He's authored 30 books on American history and his works have twice been selected as finalists for the Pu...

Vindolanda

12 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Dan finds out what's going on with recent excavations at Vindolanda, one of the largest Roman forts near Hadrian's Wall. All manner of discoveries hav...

How and Why History: Europe's Witch Craze

11 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In 1597, King James VI of Scotland published a compendium on witchcraft called Daemonologie that laid down the kind of trial and p...

History's Documents

10 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this pod I was joined by two people who have played quite an important part in my life: my mum and dad (known to the rest of the world as Peter Sno...

Nagasaki

09 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The second atomic strike on the city of Nagasaki is less well known than the one a few days earlier on Hiroshima, but was it more influential in forci...

Refugees, Sexual Violence and the Fall of the Third Reich

08 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Dan speaks to award-winning political correspondent and commentator, Svenja O'Donnell, about her remarkable grandmother's personal st...

Pertinax. Son of a Slave to Emperor of Rome.

07 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The son of a former slave, Pertinax was the Roman Emperor who proved that no matter how lowly your birth, you could rise to the very top through hard ...

How and Why History: America, Japan and the Atomic Bomb

06 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

On 6 August 1945, an American B29 bomber dropped the world's first deployed atomic bomb over Hiroshima. Three days later, Nagasaki was at the receivin...

Rum, Sodomy and the Lash?

05 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The common sailor was a crucial engine of British prosperity and expansion up until the Industrial Revolution. From exploring the South Seas with Cook...

The Road to 1914: Myths of Nationalism

04 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This week in 1914 saw the outbreak of the First World War. In this special episode from the archive, Margaret MacMillan talks to her nephew Dan about ...

Gallipoli: the Endgame

03 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In December 1915, some 135,000 allied troops, nearly 400 guns and 15,000 horses were collectively trapped in the bridgeheads at Anzac, Suvla and Helle...

Conan Doyle, Kipling and Kingsley in the Boer War

02 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In early 1900, Rudyard Kipling, Mary Kingsley and Arthur Conan Doyle crossed paths in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War. Motivated in various way...

Leading Germany's Resistance against The Nazis

01 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Norman Ohler joined me on the pod to discuss two remarkable lovers who led Germany's resistance against the Nazis. Harro Schulze-Boysen and Libertas H...

The Tudors

31 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Jessie Childs is an award-winning author, historian and expert on the Tudors. She joined me on the podcast to discuss this notorious family. What did ...

The Tragedy of USS Indianapolis

30 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Just after midnight on 30th 1945, the USS Indianapolis was sailing alone in the Philippine Sea when she was struck by two Japanese torpedoes, almost t...

Rape as a Weapon of War

29 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Christina Lamb is Chief Foreign Correspondent at The Sunday Times and one of Britain’s leading foreign journalists. As well as working in combat zon...

How and Why History: Charlemagne

28 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Charlemagne was one of history’s most ruthless and ambitious warriors – King of the Franks, then King of the Lombards, conqueror of the Saxons, le...

Churchill's Speeches

27 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

"Their finest hour", "we shall fight on the beaches", "never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few". These words of Win...

Saudi Arabia and Iran

26 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Kim Ghattas joined me on the podcast to explore how Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran - who were once allies and the twin pillars of US strategy in the...

Monarchy

25 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For hundreds of years, monarchy has reigned as the dominant political model in Europe. But how has this system - where political life was shaped by th...

SS Great Britain

24 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

SS Great Britain was the longest passenger ship in the world from 1845 to 1854, and now resides in Bristol as a museum. She was the brainchild of Isam...

How Did Hitler Seize Supreme Power?

23 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was delighted to be joined by Nicholas O'Shaughnessy, who took me through the remarkable rise of Adolf Hitler. Starting with his experience of the F...

Transforming Our Understanding of The Battle of Kursk

22 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Battle of Prokhorovka was one of the largest tank battles in military history. Taking place on the Eastern Front, it was fought on 12 July 1943 as...

How and Why History: The Genius of Shakespeare

21 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Arguably the world’s greatest ever dramatist, after five and a half centuries William Shakespeare remains as popular as ever. But how did he became ...

How Democracy Dies

20 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was thrilled to be joined on the podcast by the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, Anne Applebaum. Anne's written extensively on Marxism–Leninism...

Soldiers and Military History

19 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I am very excited to be joined by Colonel Kevin W. Farrell, who spent over 30 years in uniform and commanded at the platoon, company, and battalion le...

The Road to American Politics

18 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

10 years after the expulsion of the British, leading US figures including Washington, Hamilton and Jefferson came together to draw up plans for govern...

The Apollo Program

17 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Getting to the moon was no easy feat, no matter how confident Kennedy may have sounded in his famous 1961 speech. NASA built a team from the ground up...

The Yalta Conference

16 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the February 1945, the U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin met at an old ...

A History of Assassinations

15 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Kenneth Baker is a British politician and a former Conservative MP who served in the cabinets of Margaret Thatcher and John Major as Environment Secre...

How and Why History: The Spread of Christianity

14 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the first century after his crucifixion, the teachings of Jesus quickly spread throughout the Greco-Roman world and his early followers often faced...

Britain's First All Women Military Hospital

13 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When the First World War broke out, the suffragettes suspended their campaigning and joined the war effort. Flora Murray and Louisa Garrett Anderson h...

Henry III: The Pacific King

12 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

David Carpenter joined me on the podcast to examine one of England's most remarkable monarchs. Just nine years old when he came to the throne in 1216,...

Anne Glenconner: Princess Margaret's Confidante

11 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Anne Glenconner has been at the centre of the royal circle from childhood, when she met and befriended the future Queen Elizabeth II and her sister, t...

A New Discovery at Stonehenge

10 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was delighted to be joined by one of the most important people in the history world at the moment: Professor Vincent Gaffney. He is the leading arch...

The Roman Navy in Britain

09 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was thrilled to be joined on the podcast by the wonderful Simon Elliott. In this episode, Simon and I got to grips with the epic Roman Navy, and wha...

Mata Hari: The Truth Behind The Legend

08 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

More than 70 years after her death, Mata Hari is still a household name throughout the Western world. So who was this daughter of a Dutch hat-maker, w...

How and Why History: The Birth of Scotland

07 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The recorded story of Scotland begins with the arrival of the Romans in the 1st century, when the province of Britannia reached as far north as the An...

Statues, History and How We Use The Past

06 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was joinded by Dr Charlotte Riley, a feminist historian of 20th century Britain. Whilst lecturing on the Labour Party, decolonization, and overseas ...

Assassination, Fascism and The Abdication Crisis

05 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Alex Larman has struck gold. He discovered one of the rarest and most precious things in the history world: an unknown source which shines a bright ne...

Myths of the Titanic

04 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

If you want to know anything about RMS Titanic, Tim Maltin's your man. He is one of the world’s leading experts on the Titanic and has an encyclopae...

Machiavelli

03 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Since the release of Alexander Lee's masterly new work on Niccolò Machiavelli, I just had to get him on the pod to hear about this infamous man direc...

Hitler's Titanic

02 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Roger Moorhouse is an historian of the Third Reich and WW2, author of The Devils' Alliance, Killing Hitler & Berlin at War. He joined me on the podcas...

History's Deadliest Influenza Pandemic

01 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Germans soldiers called it Blitzkatarrh, British soldiers called it Flanders Grippe, but the 1918 pandemic was most commonly known as 'Spanish Flu'. C...

How and Why History: William the Conqueror

30 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

On 14 October 1066, Norman invaders led by Duke William of Normandy won a decisive victory over the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson. But why did Wil...

Disease and the Victorians

29 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Dr Emma Liggins is an expert on Victorian Gothic literature. She joined me on the pod to examine how great female writers of the 19th century - such a...

Western Europe’s Age of Democracy

28 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the second half of the twentieth century, western Europe was shaped by a revolutionary political force: democracy. Or at least that's what Professo...

28 Years on Death Row

27 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Anthony Ray Hinton was held on death row for 28 years. He was incorrectly convicted of the murders of two restaurant managers, John Davidson and Thoma...

Forgotten Women of the Civil Rights Movement

26 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was delighted to be joined by Keisha Blain, an Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh. She took me far into the past - years before Mar...

Veterans of the Korean War

25 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

70 years ago today, on 25th June 1950, North Korean forces invaded South Korea. The three-year conflict which followed took the lives of four million ...

Politics of the Potato

24 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Rebecca Earle joined me on the pod to talk about spuds. She took me through the story of this starchy tuber's dramatic career, which has been at the h...

How and Why History: Operation Barbarossa

23 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In June 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, opening up the Eastern Front in World War II – a campaign to which more forces were committed th...

Family History

22 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Simon Pearce, a genealogist from Ancestry.com, joined me on the podcast to reveal the secrets of uncovering family history. Delving into the records o...

A New History of the Aztecs

21 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In November 1519, Hernando Cortés approached the capital of the Aztec kingdom and came face to face with its ruler, Moctezuma. The story which f...

The Lancaster Bomber

20 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was thrilled to be joined again by one of our most popular guests, John Nichol. John shot to international prominence when he served in the first Gu...

Why is Jerusalem so Important?

19 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Simon Sebag Montefiore joined me on the pod to discuss one of the most important cities in history. For the last 3000 years, its been hitting the head...

Voices of Waterloo

18 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

205 years ago today, 60,000 men were slaughtered in the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon Bonaparte's French army was finally defeated by an almighty coali...

How and Why History: The Battle of Waterloo

18 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Battle of Waterloo brought a generation of terrible warfare to a close, decisively ending the career of Napoleon Bonaparte. How did the Duke of We...

Women of the Trojan War

17 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was thrilled to be joined by Natalie Haynes. Natalie is the is the author of 'A Thousand Ships', a retelling of the Trojan War from an all-female pe...

The Government and the Military in Times of Crisis

15 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Covid crisis has seen a huge deployment of UK armed forces personnel to assist the civilian government. Named Operation RESCRIPT it has seen soldi...

Nazi Generals in Britain

14 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When captured Nazi generals found themselves in Britain in the Second World War, they were probably surprised to be brought to a beautiful country hou...

Putin's Rise to Power

13 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Catherine Belton joined me on the pod to discuss the remarkable story of Vladimir Putin's rise to power. After working from 2007-2013 as the Moscow co...

Sex in Pandemics

12 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I invited Kate Lister to join me after the enormous popularity of her last appearance on the pod. But this time we talked about how our sexual habits ...

Nelson's Statue

11 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Afua Hirsch is a writer, broadcaster, barrister and human rights development worker. She has previously worked as Social Affairs and Education Editor ...

Why Study History?

10 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

My guests this week were Marcus Collins and Peter Stearns. They've just released a wonderful new book, 'Why Study History?' - a guide for prospective ...

How and Why History: Attila the Hun

09 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Known as the Scourge of God, Attila the Hun was one of the greatest Barbarian rulers in history. Renowned for his brutality, sacking and pillaging the...

The Field of the Cloth of Gold

08 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

500 years ago this week marked the start of one of the most extraordinary diplomatic gatherings in history: The Field of the Cloth of Gold. In 1520, E...

Political Thinkers in the Modern World

07 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was thrilled to be joined by David Runciman, Professor of Politics at Cambridge University and host of the widely acclaimed 'Talking Politics' podca...

What Really Happened on D-Day

06 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was joined by Giles Milton to learn about D-Day and find out what his research has uncovered about the untold stories of this landmark event.Subscri...

Untold Stories of War

05 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was delighted to be joined by James Rogers - a war historian, fellow of the London School of Economics, and presenter of History Hit's Untold Histor...

Racial Injustice in America

04 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The protests on the streets of America are a product of 400 years of violence, slavery, coercion and injustice. I took a crash course with Harvard's P...

A Story of Slavery and Restitution

03 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was delighted to be joined by Caleb McDaniel, History professor and author of the Pulitzer prizewinning book, “Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Stor...

Sex and Scandal at the Court of Charles II

01 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

According to John Evelyn, the great diarist, Charles II was ‘addicted to women’. Charles' court is infamous for tales of licentiousness and promis...

Fighting Nazism at the Grand Prix

31 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Neal Bascomb joined me on the podcast to tell a remarkable story of the fight against Hitler - on the Grand Prix racetrack. We delved into the high-sp...

A History of Building Britain

30 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was thrilled to be joined by Andrew Ziminski, a stonemason living and working in Somerset. He's just released his first book documenting the fascina...

Dunkirk Veterans

29 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Dan meets some of the surviving Dunkirk veterans on the famous Little Ships which helped to rescue them from the beaches. The Little Ships of Dunkirk ...

The Fall of France

28 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

80 years ago this week, one of the most extraordinary evacuations in military history was under way: 'The Miracle of Dunkirk'. But how, and why, did t...

Muslim Soldiers of Dunkirk

27 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

May 28, 1940: Major Akbar Khan of the Royal Indian Army Service Corps marches at the head of 299 soldiers along the beach at Dunkirk - the only Indian...

Coronavirus: Intelligence Failure

26 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The greatest threats we face are climate breakdown and pandemic disease. This was the assessment of security advisers before the Covid outbreak and th...

The Miracle of Dunkirk

25 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

80 years ago, ships were gathering in Kent to begin the rescue of the British Expeditionary Force. Britain faced the prospect of the worst defeat in B...

Getting Inside the Mind of Hitler

24 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

No man knew Adolf Hitler as intimately as his trusted physician, Theodoor Morell. As part of Hitler's inner social circle, he assisted the leader in v...

Akbar the Great

23 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

One of the greatest rulers of the 16th century was Akbar the Great, a man whose power and influence extended over much of the Indian subcontinent afte...

The Shadow King: Henry VI

21 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Henry VI came to the throne in exceptionally difficult circumstances. The untimely death of his warlike father, Henry V, placed the crown upon his hea...

Celebrity

20 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Greg Jenner has given my children so many hours of happiness as the historical brains behind the Horrible History tv shows and movie, not to mention t...

History and Human Nature

19 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It's a belief which has dictated the writings of Machiavelli and Hobbes, Freud and Dawkins - that humans are fundamentally selfish and governed by sel...

The Brontës and War

19 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this podcast I was joined by Emma Butcher, a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in English Literature at the University of Leicester. Emma took me on a...

The Habsburgs

17 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It was an honour to be joined by Martyn Rady to discuss one of history's most thrilling families, the Habsburgs. Ruling for almost a millennium, their...

Winston Churchill

14 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

80 years ago this week, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain and his calamit...

Pandemics: Science and History

12 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was thrilled to be joined by the legendary Peter Frankopan, Professor of Global History at Oxford University and bestselling author of 'The Silk Roa...

Migration in Medieval Europe

11 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I was delighted to be joined by Miri Rubin of Queen Mary University, London. In a terrific new book, Miri has scooped up a seemingly modern topic - mi...

Europe's Tragedy: The Thirty Years War

10 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Thirty Years War devastated seventeenth-century Europe. It killed nearly a quarter of all Germans and transformed the map of the modern world. Pro...

Coffee

09 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Coffee. Most of us are addicted. We need it on Monday mornings, post nights out, during nights out, in fact every morning. And afternoons. August...

VE Day: 75 Years

08 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For most of us, VE Day conjures up black and white images of carefree servicemen and women dancing and beaming in Trafalgar Square, of Churchill greet...

How should we remember WW2?

07 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The question of wars and how we remember them has always fascinated me. With WW1 we seem to remember the enormous, tragic loss of life - captured so b...

Pandemics through History

05 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I have hooked up with the Timeline Channel on youtube to do History Hit Live three times a week. Sometimes I'll share the audio as a podcast on this f...