Dan Snow's History Hit

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...

The Battle of Midway

07 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On the 4th of June 1942, the US Navy took on the might of Japan's Imperial Navy in the battle of Midway. It was America's Trafalgar! At the end of the...

D-Day Heroes: The Green Howards

06 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

There was only one Victoria Cross awarded on the 6th June 1944, D-Day. It went to Company Sergeant Major Stanley Hollis of the 6th Battalion of the Gr...

The Veteran Searching for his D-Day Shipwreck

05 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On June 6, 1944, D-Day, Patrick Thomas, a young Royal Navy telegraphist, boarded the craft in Portsmouth. The boat was part of the first wave on Sword...

Elvis Presley: A Turbulent Life

02 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A hotly anticipated biopic about the king of Rock'n'Roll will be released in June directed by Baz Luhmann. We've delved back into our archives to brin...

Vasectomy

01 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What do you think of when you think of birth control? Is it condoms, IUDs, the pill? What about vasectomies?From monkey testicles to possible cancer t...

Platinum Jubilee: Britain’s Greatest Queens

31 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Queen Elizabeth II is the longest-reigning monarch in British history and one of the longest-reigning in the world. To mark the Queen's Platinum Jubil...

Tulsa: The Attack on Black Wall Street

30 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From May 31 to June 1, 1921, a white mob attacked residents, homes and businesses in the predominantly Black ‘Greenwood District’ of Tulsa, Oklaho...

Falklands40: Battle of Goose Green

29 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Please note that this episode contains descriptions of combat and some explicit language.At the Battle of Goose Green the Second Battalion the Parachu...

SAS Founder: Warrior or Phoney?

26 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

David Stirling was an aristocrat, innovator and special forces legend that earned him the nickname 'The Phantom Major'. His formation of the Special A...

The Treadmill

25 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Before they found their way into gyms, treadmills had a much darker history. In the 19th Century, they could most commonly be found in prisons.In cont...

Our Obsession with Nostalgia

24 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Longing to go back to the 'good old days' is nothing new. For hundreds of years, the British have mourned the loss of older national identities and ca...

How Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt Divided Berlin

23 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Berlin’s fate was sealed at the 1945 Yalta Conference: the city, along with the rest of Germany, was to be carved up between the victorious powers -...

Putin's Rise to Power

22 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Catherine Belton joins Dan on the podcast to discuss the remarkable story of Vladimir Putin's rise to power. After working from 2007-2013 as the Mosco...

Medieval Myths and Legends

19 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Various legends, characters and myths are associated with the medieval period. The British Isles is filled with prehistoric monuments - from Stoneheng...

Falklands40: The Loss of HMS Ardent

18 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Please note that this episode contains frank discussions of conflict, mental health and suicide.Admiral Lord West is the former First Sea Lord and Chi...

Food in the Ancient World

17 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When we think of the modern Mediterranean, delicious and vibrant food is one of the first things that come to mind. But how much has the regional food...

HMS Black Joke

16 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Please note that this episode contains mentions of racial trauma, slavery and violence.The most feared ship in Britain’s West Africa Squadron, His M...

The Secret Plot to Kill the Government

15 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On the night of February 23 1820, twenty-five impoverished craftsmen assembled in an obscure stable in Cato Street, London, with a plan to massacre th...

How to Survive in Medieval England

12 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

If you travelled back in time to the Medieval period this very second, do you think you would survive? The short answer is probably not. If you weren'...

Codebreaking at Bletchley Park

11 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Bletchley Park, Britain's key decryption centre during WWI, is known for the success of breaking the Nazi Enigma codes - experts have suggested that t...

Mental Health in Victorian Britain

10 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK so we’ve got a special episode exploring the surprising way Victorians approached mental health ...

The 1650s: Britain's Decade Without a Crown

09 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1649 Britain was engulfed by revolution. Charles I was executed for treason and within weeks the English monarchy had been abolished and the House ...

VE Day

08 May 2022

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...

Diving for Lost Slave Shipwrecks

05 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From the 16th to the 19th centuries, European slave traders forcibly uprooted millions of African people and shipped them across the Atlantic in condi...

Agincourt: Myths Explained

04 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Agincourt is a name which conjures an image of plucky English archers taking on and defeating the arrogant and aristocratic knights of the French cour...

Death, Desire, Power & Scandal: The House of Dudley

03 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Dudleys were the most brilliant, bold and manipulative of power-hungry Tudor families. Every Tudor monarch made their name either with a Dudley at...

John Donne: Poet of Love, Sex and Death

02 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

John Donne (1572-1631) lived myriad lives. Sometime religious outsider and social disaster, sometime celebrity preacher and establishment darling, Joh...

Falklands40: The Sinking of the Belgrano

01 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On this day 40 years ago the HMS Conqueror, a British nuclear submarine, propelled silently through the South Atlantic stalking the Argentinian light ...

Falklands40: The Black Buck Raids

30 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Falkland Islands lie 8000 miles from Britain making the Falklands War a particularly tricky one to fight; it required some seriously innovative th...

Theodore Roosevelt

28 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 - January 6, 1919), was an American politician, conservationist and writer. After the assassination of Willia...

War in Space

27 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On November 15 2021 Russia tested an anti-satellite weapon, shattering one of their own satellites into over a thousand pieces. This space debris will...

Gossip, Scandal and High Society

26 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, Henry ‘Chips’ Channon documented British high society in eye-watering detail. His diaries are ...

Great Scientists We've Forgotten to Remember

25 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We are told that modern science was invented in Europe, the product of great minds like Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert E...

The Death of King George V: A Royal Murder Mystery

24 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Just before midnight on January 20, 1936, King George V died at Sandringham, in Norfolk, England. The scandal of King George V’s reign would not be ...

Victoria: A Greedy Queen

21 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Warning: There are adult themes, explicit language and references of disordered eating and diets in this episode.Did you know that before Queen Victor...

The History of the RNLI

20 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Since its foundation in 1824, the volunteers of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution have been braving the most savage of elements at sea to rescue...

Operation Mincemeat: The Deception that Changed WWII

19 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It’s 1943. The Allies are determined to break Hitler’s grip on occupied Europe and plan an all-out assault on Sicily, but they face an impossible ...

Josephine Baker: Entertainer and Spy

18 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On November 30th, 2021, Josephine Baker, the French-American performer, second world war resistance hero, and activist became the first Black woman to...

A Short History of Pirates

17 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Swashbuckling, murder and robbery on the high seas! We're bringing back the fan favourite episode on Dr Rebecca Simon's 'Pirate Queens: The Lives of A...

TITANIC: Survivors and Lost Souls

14 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Part 3/3. News of Titanic's fate sent shockwaves around the world; stories and illustrations of that fateful night splashed across newspaper stands on...

TITANIC: A Night to Remember

13 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Depicted countless times in art, television and film, the night of the 14th of April 1912 has haunted and fascinated us for over a century. This is a ...

TITANIC: The Unsinkable Ship

12 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On April 10th, 1912, RMS Titanic cast off from Southampton, England, on her maiden voyage. The largest of its kind, full of grandeur and the most soph...

How to Party like an Ancient Greek

11 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Ancient Greece, the symposium was no ordinary after-dinner drinking party, but one in which the Hellenic men of society got together to wine, recli...

The Objects That Made Britain

10 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What can art tell us about a country's history? Well, a lot! In today's episode, Dan is joined by Art Historian Temi Odumosu and popular historian Jam...

Resisting the Third Reich

07 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Across the whole of Nazi-ruled Europe, the experience of occupation was sharply varied. As a result, resistance movements during World War II occurred...

Recreating the Viking World in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla

06 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla has brought the Viking Age to life in stunning detail, and now the game is even being used as an educational tool!Maxime Du...

Cold War Submarine Warrior

05 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Eric Thompson has had his finger literally on the nuclear button. He joined the Royal Navy submarine service in the early days of the Cold War. He ser...

The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures

04 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1888 Louis Le Prince shot the world’s first motion picture in Leeds, England. In 1890, weeks before the public unveiling of his camera and projec...

The Foundations of Modern India

03 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The greatest anti-imperial rebellion of the nineteenth century, The Indian Rebellion of 1857, witnessed mass violence against the British. Ninety year...

Falklands40: What Started the Falklands War?

02 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On April 2nd 1982 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declared war against Argentina over the Falkland Islands in the Southern Atlantic. To make ...

The Enclosures

31 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The enclosure of the commons was a centuries-long process. Gradually, through a combination of legal degrees and private acts, the land across Britain...

The Real Cyrano de Bergerac

30 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

One of the world's much loved stage and screen characters has just returned to the cinema in a new film version starring Peter Dinklage. But what...

Benjamin Franklin with Ken Burns

29 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was a scientist, inventor, writer and diplomat. As one of the leading figures of early American history, Franklin helped...