HistoryExtra podcast

Adventure, betrayal & beetles: the quest for the source of the Nile

03 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the mid 19th century, a team of explorers set off in search of an elusive goal – the source of the River Nile. Set against a backdrop of imperial...

The Tudor who hiked North America

02 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The name David Ingram isn’t well known, but his story is extraordinary. This Tudor explorer embarked on a remarkable 3,600-mile trek across North Am...

Dick Whittington: from medieval merchant to panto hero

01 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

If you grew up watching pantomimes, then you’ll likely be familiar with the story of Richard “Dick” Whittington – the poor country boy who end...

Pirate flags & wedding gowns: a patchwork of a Victorian life

28 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 2016, fashion historian Kate Strasdin was given an extraordinary object – an album of richly coloured and brightly patterned fabric scraps, all c...

Oscar Wilde on trial

27 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

At a time when male homosexuality was illegal in Britain, celebrated playwright Oscar Wilde became embroiled in a scandal that ultimately saw him put ...

Medieval peasants: everything you wanted to know

26 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What was it like to be a peasant in the Middle Ages? Did they live well, with access to sufficient food, water and shelter, or were their lives charac...

History's greatest cities | Berlin

25 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week we are featuring episode one from our brand new series, History's greatest cities. If you enjoy this episode and want to listen to the rest ...

The book that transformed medieval England

24 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It was an enterprise that helped transform a marginalised language into a global powerhouse. Lydia Zeldenrust tells Spencer Mizen how, some 550 years ...

Why the Middle Ages matter

23 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Middle Ages have often been shrouded in myth and mystery, but was it actually as unchanging, uncivilised and muddy as we might think? Historian an...

The cult of Freud: science, sex & psychoanalysis

22 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From the Oedipus complex to the Freudian slip, the theories of Sigmund Freud are still familiar to us today. But how much do we know about his life? S...

Breastfeeding: a cultural history

21 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Breastfeeding may seem like an innate human experience that transcends history. But, according to art and cultural historian Joanna Wolfarth, experien...

Heliogabalus: Rome’s scandalous emperor

20 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The story of the Roman emperor Heliogabalus is filled with sex, death, decadence and religious extremism, but it also touches on some key questions ab...

Interwar Britain: everything you wanted to know

19 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How ‘roaring’ were the roaring twenties for ordinary britons? Did views of the British empire change after the first world war?And what caused the...

Which LGBTQ+ histories get told – and which get overlooked?

17 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Uncovering and telling the stories of LGBTQ+ people in history can be rewarding, important work, but it’s also often challenging and complex. How fa...

From the Middle Ages to #MeToo: Chaucer’s Wife of Bath

16 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Wife of Bath is a stand-out figure in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The only ordinary woman in the procession of pilgrims heading to Thom...

Astonishing Æthelstan: Michael Wood on the 10th-century king

15 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Anglo-Saxon king Æthelstan was the first West Saxon leader to effectively rule over all of England. And with Alfred the Great as a grandfather, he ha...

Cleopatra’s triumphant daughter

14 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When Cleopatra took her own life in 30 BC it marked the conclusion of Egypt’s ruling dynasty, but not the end of her family line. Classicist Jane Dr...

Marie Antoinette in her own words

13 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Marie Antoinette is a historical figure who has been much mythologised – as callous, superficial, extravagant and out of touch with reality. But if...

The Romantics: everything you wanted to know

12 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Who were the Romantics? And how did they shake up society and culture at the turn of the 19th century? Speaking to Ellie Cawthorne, Daisy Hay answers ...

Fearless female voices of the Spanish Civil War

10 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the summer of 1936, Spain descended into a brutal civil war between its democratically elected government and a nationalist insurgency led by Gener...

Why did the Ottoman empire implode?

09 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Defeat in the First World War dealt the Ottoman empire a terrible blow, but it wasn’t terminal. Ryan Gingeras tells Spencer Mizen that it was what h...

Was Shakespeare a snob?

08 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Shakespeare’s plays are peppered with characters from across the social spectrum, from kings and nobility down to servants, soldiers and shepherds. ...

Tudors in revolt: the Western Rising of 1549

07 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Western Rising of 1549 was the most catastrophic event to occur in Devon and Cornwall between the Black Death and the Civil War. What started as a...

Female spies who forged the CIA

06 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Many of the agents who played a crucial role in establishing the organisation now known as the Central Intelligence Agency – or CIA – were women. ...

Prehistoric cave art: everything you want to know

05 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The palaeolithic period stretches across a vast period of space and time, but if there’s one thing that really brings the prehistoric era to life fo...

A secret Nazi plot to kill the ‘Big Three’

03 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What would have happened if Josef Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt had all been assassinated at the height of World War Two? Speakin...

Wild places & wild people: a short history of common land

02 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Common land – land which wasn’t settled or farmed – used to exist right across Britain, and provided a vital shared resource for local communiti...

The forgotten years that forged Wales

01 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Welsh history, the period that lies between the medieval era of resistance to English occupation, and the rapid industrialisation of the 18th and 1...

How six women programmed the world’s first modern computer

31 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

During the Second World War, six talented mathematicians were brought together to make history. These women had one mission: to program the world’s ...

Tattoos: a 5,000 year history

30 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Throughout history, people have got tattooed for a huge range of reasons, whether religious devotion, artistic expression, or to demonstrate cultural ...

Railway history: everything you wanted to know

29 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What was it like to travel on the earliest trains, before open carriages, and even toilets? When was the first rail accident? And how did railways tra...

Forgotten histories of the Holocaust

27 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

According to historian Dan Stone, popular understanding of the Holocaust, in all of its horror and complexity, is often incomplete or fractured. Speak...

An audacious kidnapping in 1970s Paris

26 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 23 January 1978, Baron Édouard-Jean Empain was snatched from the streets of Paris, in an audacious kidnapping attempt. Before long, a ransom of 80...

Blood, sweat & marble: examining ancient bodies

25 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine an ancient Greek or Roman body, and the first picture that pops into your head is probably made of marble or stone – perhaps an austere bust...

A journey along the Iron Curtain

24 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1946, Churchill declared that “from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the Continent”. But ...

Fleeing revolution: Russians exiles in Paris

23 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1917, the Russian Revolution saw scores of Russian aristocrats and artists flee to Paris to escape Bolshevik brutality. Speaking to Matt Elton, Hel...

The history of atheism: everything you wanted to know

22 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When was the word “atheist” first used? How dangerous was it to question the existence of God in the Middle Ages? And how successful were communis...

How FDR transformed the US presidency

20 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt assumed the presidency of the United States in 1933, he became the head of a nation facing immense hardship and disench...

Indigenous American travellers in Europe

19 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When we think about the first encounters between Europe and the Americas, we’ve traditionally imagined a one-sided story of “Old world” European...

The PoWs who survived Nagasaki

18 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Japanese city of Nagasaki is probably best known for being the target of the world’s second-ever nuclear attack in August 1945. Yet the city was...

Parachuting monkeys & volcanic eruptions: an extraordinary Victorian zoo

17 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

With parachuting monkeys, volcanic eruptions and performances of Beethoven’s symphonies, Surrey Zoo was no ordinary Victorian attraction. Dr Joanne ...

Curious cures for medieval maladies

16 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

If you feel unwell today you can pick up a prescription or head to a medical centre, but how did ill people treat their ailments in the Middle Ages? A...

Jane Austen’s England: everything you wanted to know

15 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What was society’s attitude towards female writers in Regency England? How far did class affect the hopes of young couples looking to be wed? And di...

Veggie Victorians

13 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the 19th century, Britain imagined itself as a bastion of beef-eating carnivores. But at a time when meat consumption was taken as a signifier of p...

An environmental history of big business

12 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As part of our series of conversations with winners of the 2022 Dan David Prize, Dr Bart Elmore discusses his research into the environmental impacts ...

Tools, temples & tower blocks: how wood has shaped human history

11 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For millennia, humans have cut down trees to create buildings, ships, tools, weapons and everyday objects we still use around the home. Author and arc...

Weaponising food in the Third Reich

10 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Hitler’s Germany, what you ate was not a personal matter – sacrificing luxury was a way for German citizens to demonstrate their patriotism, wh...

“A serial killer of civilisations”: a history of climate change

09 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From the Justinian plague to the fall of the Maya, climate change has been connected to many of history’s great catastrophes. Environmental journali...

Life under Cromwell: everything you wanted to know

08 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The 11 years between the execution of King Charles I in 1649 and the restoration of his son, Charles II, in 1660 are among the most turbulent in all o...

Oddball art: cannibals, hellscapes & flying monks

06 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From kaleidoscopic hellscapes to portraits of cannibals and flying monks, Edward Brooke-Hitching introduces some of the strangest creations in art his...

The floating hell of prison hulks

05 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Decried by reformers as “wicked Noah’s arks” and “rotten leaky tubs”, prison hulks were a looming presence off the shores of 18th- and 19th-...

Refusing to fight in WW2

04 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

During the Second World War, around 60,000 people in Britain registered as conscientious objectors, seeking an exemption from military service on the ...

Power dressing: the hidden value of clothes in 19th-century America

03 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Legal historian Laura F Edwards discusses her new book on clothing and textiles in 19th-century America, Only the Clothes on Her Back. Speaking to Eli...

Sabotage, cyberwar & assassination: a history of covert action

02 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ever since the Greeks supposedly hid inside a wooden horse to sneak into Troy, states have meddled in other nations’ affairs, turning to the dark ar...

Conspiracy: the lost civilisation of Atlantis

01 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the final episode of our series on history’s most well-known conspiracy theories, we investigate the idea that a highly advanced civilisation exi...

Conspiracy: was the moon landing faked?

30 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the fifth episode of our new series on history’s most well-known conspiracy theories, we revisit a defining moment of the 20th century that many ...

Conspiracy: Who wrote Shakespeare?

29 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In episode four of our new series on history’s most well-known conspiracy theories, we ask why many people don’t believe that William Shakespeare ...

Conspiracy: did Anastasia escape her family’s murder?

28 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the third episode of our new series on some of history’s most well-known conspiracy theories, we examine the suggestion that one of Tsar Nicholas...

Conspiracy: did aliens build the pyramids?

27 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Continuing our series on some of history’s most well-known conspiracy theories, we delve into the idea that Ancient Egypt’s iconic monuments were ...

Conspiracy: Hitler’s escape to South America

26 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Did Adolf Hitler really make it out of the bunker alive at the end of the Second World War? In the first episode of our new series on some of history’...

Alexander the Great’s extraordinary childhood

23 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Alexander the Great didn’t become a brilliant warrior and empire-builder overnight. His talents were the product of an upbringing that encompassed p...

The Cuban Missile Crisis: the road to resolution

22 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the concluding episode of our series on the Cuban Missile Crisis, we trace how a tentative compromise coincided with the most dangerous moments of ...

Dandies, fops & macaronis: fashionable men through history

21 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dominic Janes discusses his new history of British dandies, which explores how such ‘dressy men’ – from fops and macaronis, to aesthetes – pro...

Brits abroad: a history

20 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Lucy Lethbridge discusses her new book on the emergence and boom of mass British tourism. Speaking to Ellie Cawthorne, she touches on early package ho...

Mongols vs Mamluks

19 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Mongols were an unstoppable force through the 12th and 13th centuries, with an empire that stretched across huge swathes of land, from China to Eu...

The history of alcohol: everything you wanted to know

18 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What’s the world’s oldest alcoholic beverage? Why was wine believed to be medicinal? And did medieval people actually get drunk from sipping beer ...

How ballroom dancing gripped Britain

16 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From the Turkey trot to the scandalously intimate moves of the Parisian tango, the 20th century saw Britain gripped by dance craze after dance craze. ...

The Cuban Missile Crisis: Dangerous days

15 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the third episode of our series on the Cuban Missile Crisis, we chart the first phase of the Cold War standoff. Elinor Evans speaks to expert histo...

The hell of the Pacific War

14 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Pacific campaign featured some of the most brutal battles of the Second World War – Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and Okinawa among them. Here, in conve...

Inside Germany’s postwar prisons

13 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the wake of the Second World War, Germany was a country on the brink of collapse. Despite the war’s end, the years to follow were turbulent, as G...

Pilgrimage, past and present

12 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Peter Stanford reflects on the meaning of pilgrimage across world history, considering whether we share anything in common with pilgrims of the past. ...

British spies in WW2: everything you wanted to know

11 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From ingenious gadgets to audacious plots, historian Helen Fry answers listener questions on British espionage in the Second World War. Speaking to El...

Black Victorians: radicals, muses, inmates & aristocrats

09 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From political agitators and artist’s muses to composers, sailors, asylum inmates and the goddaughter of the queen herself, black people led a varie...

The Cuban Missile Crisis: broken ties & a secret pact

08 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The 1961 Bay of Pigs operation was a debacle for the United States that inflamed Cold War tensions to a new height. In the second episode of our serie...

Football in the First World War

07 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Why wasn’t football banned on the home front when men were fighting and dying in France and Belgium? Did war halt the march of commercialisation in ...

The Irish across the globe

06 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From the 19th century onwards, waves of Irish emigrants left their home nation to begin new lives across the globe. Sean Connolly, author of On Every ...

Warrior queens & quiet revolutionaries: forgotten women from history

05 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Author Kate Mosse shares inspirational stories of women from across global history – including the forgotten life of her great grandmother Lily Wats...

Sixties counterculture: everything you wanted to know

04 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Where did the term “hippie” originate? What music best reflected a generation’s disaffection with the establishment, and opposition to the Vietn...

Conspiracy Trailer

03 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Did Adolf Hitler really die in 1945? Did Ancient Egyptians really build the pyramids? And did Shakespeare really write the plays that bear his n...

Books of the year 2022

02 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From books delving into hidden histories to eye-opening global stories and epic World War Two blockbusters, 2022 has been an excellent year for histor...

The Cuban Missile Crisis: tensions mount

01 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How did the world end up on the brink of nuclear disaster? In the first episode of our series on the Cuban Missile Crisis, Elinor Evans speaks to expe...

Debtors’ prisons: Dickensian horrors or economic successes?

30 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Debtors’ prisons were a major feature of Georgian society in England and Wales. But how did the idea of locking up debtors to make them pay their cr...

Dark Age bullies & forgotten kingdoms: busting early medieval myths

29 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The traditional story that’s told about Britain from the end of the Roman period through to the arrival of the Vikings is one of coalescing kingdoms...

Enslavement, separation & survival: the story of "Ashley's sack"

28 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose packed a sack containing a few precious items for her nine-year-old daughter Ashley. Ashley §wa...

Surgical history: everything you wanted to know

27 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Why was a transfusion of lamb’s blood believed to cure epilepsy? What surgical procedures could you get in ancient Egypt? And were medieval surgical...

Cuban Missile Crisis TRAILER

26 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On 16 October 1962, US President John F Kennedy was made aware of the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles away from the shores ...

American psychiatry: a tortured history

25 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From the earliest asylums that sold themselves as restorative “retreats”, to the damaging vogue for lobotomies and electric shock therapy, psychia...

The Mary Rose | 6. protecting the wreck

24 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When the Mary Rose was first pulled from the Solent, you could be forgiven for thinking that what had been salvaged was just a “pile of old wood”....

Spiritualism, fairies, and Arthur Conan-Doyle

23 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Historians Fiona Snailham and Anna Maria Barry reveal why the creator of Sherlock Holmes was so obsessed with contacting the dead. Speaking to Ellie C...

Desk killers: the psychology of committing crimes against humanity

22 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Author Dan Gretton discusses his book I You We Them, which examines the psychology of individuals who organised and implemented some of the worst crim...

Mary, Queen of Scots: The Scottish years

21 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Mary, Queen of Scots became queen when she was only six days old, but her reign had collapsed by the time she was 24. Speaking to Rhiannon Davies, Ros...

World Cup history: everything you wanted to know

20 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Throughout its 92-year existence, the FIFA Men’s World Cup has delivered its fair share of iconic moments – and controversies. But how did the com...

Crassus: Rome’s richest man

18 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Author Peter Stothard explores the eventful life of Marcus Licinius Crassus, an enormously wealthy politician and general, who rivalled Julius Caesar ...

The Mary Rose | 5. the mysterious men on-board

17 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine yourself standing on-board the Mary Rose, surrounded by the crew – how do you picture the men around you? If you look at their faces, what d...

Global stories of museum artefacts

16 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As part of our series of conversations with winners of the 2022 Dan David Prize, Dr Mirjam Brusius speaks with Helen Carr about her research into the ...

Victorian visions of the future

15 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When the Victorians imagined the 21st century, they pictured a world powered by the wonders of electricity, with smartly dressed men in impeccable sui...

Queens in the Age of Chivalry

14 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The 14th century was an era of high drama in England – from the toppling of two kings and the Hundred Years’ War to the Black Death and Peasants’...

The Crimean War: everything you wanted to know

13 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Crimean War of 1853-6 saw Russia clash with an alliance of forces including Britain, France and the Ottoman empire. But what were the causes of th...

Writing the history of the modern monarchy

12 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Recent years have seen a flurry of historical dramas and documentaries surrounding the modern monarchy, with historians and commentators debating whet...

The Mary Rose | 4. inside the Tudor treasure trove

11 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When the Mary Rose was rescued from the seafloor, it wasn’t just a large timber hull that was salvaged – more than 19,000 historical objects were ...