Dan Snow's History Hit

Elizabeth Báthory: The Vampire of Hungary

26 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The inspiration behind countless gothic novels, Countess Elizabeth Báthory is said to be one of the most prolific serial killers of all time, accused...

Rasputin: Myth & Manhood

25 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Was Rasputin really Russia’s greatest love machine? Did he have any healing powers? And why might his penis be pickling in a jar?In this episode, we...

The Extraordinary Life of James Harley

24 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

James Arthur Stanley Harley was a scholar, reverend, politician, and perhaps aristocrat. Born in a poor village in the Caribbean island of Antigua, he...

TUTANKHAMUN: Mini-Series Coming Soon!

24 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On the 1st of November comes an immersive mini-series telling the story of one of the great discoveries of all time: the tomb of Tutankhamun. For more...

Battle of El Alamein Explained

23 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Fought in the second half of 1942, the Battles of El Alamein were a series of climactic confrontations in Egypt between British Imperial and Commonwea...

The Battle of Trafalgar

20 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On 21 October 1805, A British fleet commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson met the combined might of the French and Spanish fleets off the coast of ...

FORENSICS: The Beginning

19 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Death by tiger bites. Death by prodding. Death from sexual excess. Deaths from over-eating and over-drinking. The opening of graves.These are a few of...

Mary Seacole: Doctress of the Crimean War

18 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Born Mary Jane Grant in the colony of Kingston, Jamaica, in November 1805, Mary would later become a businesswoman, traveller and healer. Posthumously...

Britain's Worst Prime Minister

17 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Could Liz Truss be Britain's worst Prime Minister? As the political scene in the UK hurtles into further disarray, Dan gets together historians Tim Ba...

The Cuban Missile Crisis

16 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In October 1962 the world came very close to annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the autumn of 1962, a U2 reconnaissance aircraft pro...

The Long History of African and Caribbean People in Britain

13 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

There remains a tendency to reduce the history of African and Caribbean people in Britain to a simple story: it is one that begins in 1948 with the ar...

Russia Falters in Ukraine: Parallels with WW1

12 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Russia's current conflict in Ukraine was supposed to be a showcase of military prowess, a quick war that solidified her status as a great power. Inste...

The US and The Holocaust

11 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

After Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, thousands of German Jews facing systematic persecution wanted to flee the Third Reich but found few coun...

Karnak: Egypt's Greatest Temple

10 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Located on the banks of the River Nile in Luxor, Egypt, the Karnak Temple complex is one of the largest buildings ever constructed for religious purpo...

The Romanovs

09 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Romanov family were the first imperial dynasty to rule Russia, reigning from the early seventeenth century until the Russian Revolution of 1917. I...

Outlaws, Cattle Rustling and Bootlegging: The Life of Josie Bassett

06 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Josie Bassett Morris' life epitomised the Wild West. She grew up on a homestead in the late 18th century, in Northern Utah, USA. Their home was situat...

Charles Ignatius Sancho: From Slavery to High Society

06 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Please note that this episode contains discussion of racist language.Charles Ignatius Sancho was born on a slave ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean, in ...

The Troubles Begin

04 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This episode will establish the century-long roots of sectarian tensions, paint a picture of the political atmosphere in Northern Ireland as the decad...

Remembering Hilary Mantel

03 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dame Hilary Mantel died on 22 September 2022 at the age of 70. Her acclaimed Wolf Hall trilogy - which brought the life of Thomas Cromwell so viv...

The Energy Crisis: 2022 vs 1973

02 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A long dark, cold winter looms with soaring energy prices. Some of the advice we've heard recently includes buying a new kettle or taking a flannel ba...

The Evolution of Warfare with Sir Lawrence Freedman

29 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From the stone age to current day, from sticks and rocks to drones and artillery - the nature of warfare has changed drastically throughout history. O...

The Atomic Bomb & the Secret City

28 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1939 Franklin D Roosevelt received a letter from Albert Einstein, warning him that the Nazis might be developing nuclear weapons. Am...

What Could Labour Learn From Harold Wilson?

27 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the week of the Labour Party when polls indicate that the party is likely to form the next government, it seems an opportune moment to examine what...

A Short History of the Bank of England

26 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As 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 to D...

Agatha Christie with Lucy Worsley

25 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Agatha Christie is the best-selling fiction writer of all time and her many detective novels, short stories and plays have gripped and entertained mil...

Eleanor of Aquitaine

22 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From an age in which women’s lives were obscured and poorly recorded, one shines brightly from the darkness. Eleanor of Aquitaine - born 900 ye...

Suleyman the Magnificent

21 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Lion House is a riveting new book from journalist and historian Christopher De Bellaigue, written like a novel that tells the dramatic story of Su...

The Man Wrongfully Hanged at Cardiff Prison

20 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 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 70 ye...

Scottish Clans

19 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It is believed clans started to emerge in Scotland around 1100AD and were originally the descendants of kings – if not of demigods from Irish mythol...

The Mayflower Sets Sail

15 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On the 16th of September 1620, The Mayflower set sail from Southampton to the New World. Aboard were 102 passengers determined to reach a new land, es...

Queen Victoria's Funeral

14 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Queen's body has been taken to Westminster Hall in London, where she will lie in state for the public to visit and pay their respects. Over the pa...

9/11: New York City in the Aftermath

13 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ray Victor is a lifelong New Yorker and tour guide from Queens. He remembers 11th of September 2001 vividly, when hijacked planes were flown into the ...

Malta: 'The Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier' of WWII

12 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Malta is located in the Mediterranean sea just beyond Sicily, between Europe and Africa; its warm climate and beautiful islands make it a perfect holi...

Elizabeth II: A Princess At War

11 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As a mark of respect and remembrance to the late Queen Elizabeth II, we've chosen to focus on Her Majesty's personal history as a veteran of the Secon...

Elizabeth II: The Making of the Queen

08 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Queen Elizabeth II has died after 70 years on the British throne. Born in April 1926, Elizabeth Windsor became heir apparent, aged 10, when her uncle ...

Not Just the Tudors Lates: Elizabeth I on Screen - The Historians’ Verdict

07 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What do you get when you bring together five top historians in a room with bottles of Prosecco to debate Elizabeth I on screen? History with the glove...

A Short History of Humans

06 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Why are humans the only species to have escaped – only very recently – the subsistence trap, allowing us to enjoy a standard of living that vastly...

Atoms and X-rays: Experiments That Changed History

05 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

For millennia, people have obsessed over questions about the nature of matter in our universe. Then, by the turn of the twentieth century, we believed...

The Man Who Rebuilt the Faces of WW1

04 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The mechanised warfare of the First World War brought unprecedented new levels of firepower and destruction to the battlefield and with it horrific ne...

Taiwan: China's Ukraine?

31 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Located just 100 miles off the coast of mainland China, the nation of Taiwan sits in the so-called 'first island chain' - a group of US-friendly terri...

Robin Hood

30 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Robin Hood is one of the most famous legends of British history, but did he exist and if so who was he? Gareth Morgan, Learning Development Officer at...

The March on Washington

29 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On August 28, 1963, some 200,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. to protest the continuing inequalities faced by ...

Storytime with the Snows: 1066

28 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

1066 is one of the most critical and dramatic years in British history. In the space of one year, the country had three kings, three major battles and...

Richard III: How to find a Lost King

25 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In August 1485, King Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth. In 2012, having been lost for over 500 years, the remains of King Richard III w...

Witches

24 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What comes to your mind when you think of a witch? Broomsticks? Black cats? Warts?Early modern witchcraft expert, John Callow, is Betwixt the Sheets w...

The Revolution of The Chinese Script

23 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What does it take to reinvent the world's oldest living language? China today is one of the world's most powerful nations, yet just a century ago it w...

The Voyage That Kickstarted Globalisation

22 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In February 1882 the SS Dunedin departed New Zealand on a voyage that would revolutionise the way we eat and kickstart the globalisation of the world'...

100 Years of British Political Nightmares

21 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Over Britain’s first century of mass democracy, from the Great Depression to the pandemic, politics has lurched from crisis to crisis. How does this...

Warships

18 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today we are talking warships: from the revolutionary Tudor ships to modern aircraft carriers, and all the innovations along the way.In this episode o...

What happened to the bones of the Waterloo battlefield?

17 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In June 1815 the French army under the command of Napoleon was decisively beaten by an allied army led by Britain and Prussia at Waterloo in what is n...

Walter Purdy: The Traitor of Colditz

16 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the Second World War, the Germans liked to boast that there was 'no escape' from the infamous fortress and POW camp Colditz. However, the elite Bri...

The Tiananmen Square Massacre

15 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1989, Beijing's Tiananmen Square became the focus of large-scale demonstrations as mostly young students crowded into central Beijing to protest fo...

Mutiny on The Bounty

14 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Numerous novels, TV shows and as many as 5 movies- including the Hollywood classic starring Clarke Gable and Marlon Brando - have immortalised the sto...

300 Years of British Prime Ministers Part 2

12 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

2/2. It's a big summer for British politics with Boris Johnson's resignation and the race between conservative hopefuls Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss to t...

300 Years of British Prime Ministers Part 1

10 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

1/2. It's a big summer for British politics with Boris Johnson's resignation and the race between conservative hopefuls Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss to t...

Unrest in Parliament: The Hot Summer of 1911

09 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The summer of 1911 was a hot one. Massive strikes took place across the country, including seamen, railwaymen, coal miners, women working in food proc...

The Origins of Rome

08 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Known as the Eternal City, ancient Rome was one of the greatest civilisations in human history, but how did it come about?With a turbulent history of ...

The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb

07 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On August 6 and 9, 1945, US B-29 bombers, dropped their nuclear bombs on the two cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands and c...

Anne Frank's Step Sister: 'How I Survived the Holocaust' Part 2

04 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

2/2. Eva Schloss remembers her days as a girl in Amsterdam playing in the street with the other children including Anne Frank who, for a time, took a ...

Anne Frank's Step Sister: 'How I Survived the Holocaust' Part 1

03 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

1/2. On the morning of the 4th of August 1944, exactly 78 years ago today, the Frank family cowered behind a bookshelf in Amsterdam, listening to heav...

Thor: The God behind the Superhero

02 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Few early medieval gods are as well-known and as popular as Thor. He’s currently thrilling moviegoers worldwide with his new outing for the Mar...

When Football Banned Women

01 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

England’s historic Euro 2022 victory on Sunday night was the most watched TV programme of the year. It feels like it's the first time women's footba...

The Defeat of the Spanish Armada

31 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In July 1588 the Spanish Armada sailed from Corunna to conquer England. Three weeks later an English fireship attack in the Channel—and then a fierc...

The Long Death of Slavery

28 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We celebrate abolition - in Haiti after the revolution, in the British Empire in 1833, and in the United States during the Civil War. Yet, over the ap...

Anne of Cleves

27 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Anne 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 she ...

A Short History of the Ottoman Empire

26 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Ottoman Empire was gigantic; at one point it reached the walls of Vienna to the Persian Gulf and beyond. It was established at the end of the 13th...

The Biggest Prison Breakout of WW2

25 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

During World War II, in the town of Cowra in central New South Wales, thousands of Japanese prisoners of war were held in a POW camp. On the icy night...

Putin, Power and Personality

24 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Vladimir Putin has the power to reduce the United States and Europe to ashes in a nuclear firestorm. He invades his neighbours, most recently Ukraine,...

Waterloo Uncovered: Bones from the Battlefield

22 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In a special episode from our sister podcast Warfare, Dan is joined by host James Rogers fresh off the Waterloo battlefield in Belgium where last week...

The Apollo Programme with Kevin Fong

20 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Getting 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 the...

Hatshepsut: The Temple of Egypt's Female Pharaoh

19 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On 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 temp...

Formidable Heroines of History

18 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From the notorious thief Mary Frith in the seventeenth century to industrialist and LGBT trailblazer Anne Lister in the nineteenth, these heroines red...

My Life as a Child Prisoner of War

17 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Imperial Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began on December 25, 1941, after the then Governor, Sir Mark Young, surrendered the British Crown colon...

Beer

14 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Pint, bottle, schooner, tinny … no matter how you drink it, beer is undeniably a part of social life here in Britain and around the world.But how di...

Wars in the Atlantic World

13 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How 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 Revolution d...

The 'Dark Ages' with Michael Wood

12 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Lasting 900 years, the ‘Dark Ages’ were between the 5th and 14th centuries, falling between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance. Toda...

The Black Medal of Honour

11 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1945, when Congress began reviewing the record of the most conspicuous acts of courage by American soldiers during WWII, they recommended awarding ...

The Shortest History of Democracy

10 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In a time of grave uncertainty about the future of our planet, the radical potential of democracy is more important than ever.From its beginnings in S...

Coffee

07 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A cup of coffee was once a luxury. Now it is quick, cheap and widely available — a daily essential for many.How did this happen? Today on Patented, ...

Boris Johnson: Removing a Prime Minister

06 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It's been an extraordinary day in British politics with dozens of Conservative MPs handing in their resignations and expressing a lack of confidence i...

The Forgotten Massacre at Dartmoor Prison

05 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

During the War of 1812, the last time Britain and the United States went to war with each other, more than six thousand American sailors ended up in D...

The Life of Malcolm X

04 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Born Malcolm Little in 1925, Malcolm X would become human rights activist— a prominent African American minister and figure during the civil rights ...

The Real Alexander Hamilton

03 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence impoverished in sq...

Viking Voyages and Legends

30 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the dying days of the eighth century, the Vikings erupted onto the international stage with brutal raids and slaughter. The medieval Norsemen may b...

The Death of Alexander the Great Explained

29 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Alexander the Great’s untimely death at Babylon in 323 BC triggered an unprecedented crisis across his continent-spanning empire.Within a couple of ...

The Man Who Escaped Auschwitz

28 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In April 1944 nineteen-year-old Rudolf Vrba and fellow inmate, Fred Wetzler broke out of Auschwitz. Under electrified fences and past armed watchtower...

The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand

27 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Europe in 1914 was a tinderbox of imperial tensions and the spark that would light the conflagration would be the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferd...

Cleopatra

26 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Cleopatra VII was part of a dynasty of Macedonian rulers founded by Ptolemy, who served as general under Alexander the Great during his conquest of Eg...

A Short History of Nomads

23 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The roots of the word ‘Nomad’ dates back to an extremely early Indo-European word, ‘nomos’. After towns and cities are built and more people s...

Al Capone

22 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Born in Brooklyn, New York in January 1899, Alphonse Gabriel Capone would go on to become perhaps the most infamous gangster in American history. Duri...

Inside the Royal Marines

21 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Royal Marines are the UK's Commando Force and the Royal Navy's own amphibious troops. The Commandos have become a byword for elite raiding skills ...

Nuclear Disasters

20 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2011, a 43-foot-high tsunami crashed into a nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. In the following days, explosions would rip buildings apart, t...

HS2: Digging up the 'Dark Ages'

19 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

An extraordinary discovery has been unearthed by archaeologists working alongside the HS2 rail project. The find, made at an undisclosed location near...

The Sinking of the Lancastria

16 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On June 17, 1940, the British ocean liner, RMS Lancastria, was sunk during Operation Aerial.RMS Lancastria had sailed to the French port of St. Nazair...

The Siege of Loyalty House

15 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Civil War was the most traumatic conflict in British history, pitting friends and family members against each other, tearing down the old order.Aw...

Treasures of The Royal Mint

14 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A history of British monarchs in coins. With a history stretching over 1,100 years, The Royal Mint has forged a fascinating story through the world of...

Falklands40: Identifying the Unmarked Graves

13 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Argentina surrendered to British forces in Port Stanley on the 14th of June 1982. The Falklands conflict was over. In the months after the fighting en...

Falklands40: Return to Mount Tumbledown

12 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Battle of Mount Tumbledown was an attack by the British Army and the Royal Marines on the heights overlooking Stanley, the Falkland Islands' capit...

Discovered! A Royal Navy Shipwreck

09 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The wreck of one of the most famous ships of the 17th century - which sank 340 years ago while carrying the future King of England James Stuart - has ...

Falklands40: Memories of an Argentine Veteran

08 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Please note that this episode contains descriptions of conflict and torture that some may find distressing.When the British arrived on the Falklands I...