HistoryExtra podcast

The Great Depression: everything you wanted to know

05 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

c Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Searching for WW1’s fallen soldiers

04 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Robert Sackville-West describes attempts to identify the bodies of the dead after the devastating battles of the First World War  Historian Robert Sa...

Christmas feasts: Medieval & Tudor revelry

03 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

From brawn to plum pottage, Annie Gray takes us back to the raucous world of festive feasting in the medieval and Tudor eras. Speaking to Ellie Caw...

Pearl Harbor episode 1: A gathering storm in Japan

01 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the first episode in our new series on the raid on Pearl Harbor, Chris Harding speaks to Ellie Cawthorne about Japan in the years running up to Dec...

Colour: a human history

30 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Colour has been hugely important to humans through history, with different cultures attaching their own meanings to all the hues of the rainbow. From ...

Stranger danger? Xenophobia’s unexpected history

29 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Psychiatrist and historian George Makari speaks to Jon Bauckham about the origins of the term “xenophobia”, and the ways in which western thinkers...

The Irish famine: everything you wanted to know

28 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Christine Kinealy answers listener questions on the devastating famine that struck Ireland in the mid-19th century Christine Kinealy answers listener ...

How Shakespeare inspired terrorists

27 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Shakespeare has been an obsession of extremist groups across the globe over the centuries. The Nazi Party held him up as a hero, while Osama Bin Laden...

How the Greeks changed the world

26 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Historian Roderick Beaton ranges over 4,000 years of Greek history, from the glories of Mycenae to the life of a modern European nation. In discussion...

What can churches tell us?

24 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Peter Stanford speaks to Emily Briffett about his new book, If These Stones Could Talk, which chronicles his journeys around Britain and Ireland’s ...

Sex work: a brief history

23 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

From the courtesans of Edo Japan and ancient Greece to the mollyhouses of Regency London, Kate Lister speaks to Ellie Cawthorne about her new book Ha...

The Ottoman “Age of Discovery”

22 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The “Age of Discovery” is traditionally known as a period between the 15th and 16th centuries, when European Christian powers sailed west and enco...

Anglo-Scottish border wars: everything you wanted to know

21 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How much blood was spilled in the border regions of England and Scotland from the 14th to the 16th centuries? Who were the Reivers? And why did the Fr...

A secret trial that transformed transgender rights

20 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 1965, Scottish aristocrat Ewan Forbes stood to inherit his family’s baronetcy but, as a transgender man, he soon became embroiled in a top-secret...

How to tell the story of WW2 in museums

19 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What makes a good Second World War exhibit? How can we best share the story of the Holocaust? Two new galleries dedicated to these seismic events at L...

How slavery & empire shaped epidemiology

17 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Jim Downs speaks to Ellie Cawthorne about his book Maladies of Empire, which reveals how the conditions created by colonialism, war and slavery affec...

George V: not so dull after all

16 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Jane Ridley speaks to Ellie Cawthorne about the life and reign of George V. She reveals how the king, often unfairly dismissed as something of a dulla...

The man who made King Alfred great

15 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

As the author of the Life of King Alfred, the Welsh churchman Asser is in large part responsible for how the early medieval king was viewed, and the...

Espionage history: everything you wanted to know

14 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When did espionage become professionalised? What ingenious gadgets did intelligence agents use in the past? And how have animals been used for spying?...

The St Brice’s Day Massacre of 1002

13 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On 13 November 1002, the St Brice’s Day Massacre took place, when Danes living in England were killed, apparently on the orders of King Aethelred. B...

Medieval manuscript makers

12 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Medieval manuscripts tell a story far greater than just what’s written inside them. In conversation with Emily Briffett, Mary Wellesley shares the h...

Surviving hell on earth: Polar explorer Ranulph Fiennes on Shackleton

10 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Ernest Shackleton looms large in the heroic age of exploration, making two bids to reach the South Pole and famously attempting to traverse the Antarc...

The CIA’s secret African missions

09 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Historian Susan Williams discusses the United States’ covert programme to undermine the leaders of newly independent African nations in the 1950s an...

The rebel who defied William the Conqueror

08 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Matt Lewis tells Spencer Mizen about the extraordinary escapades of Hereward the Wake, who led a rebellion in the 1070s that drove William the Conquer...

SALEM EPISODE 9: Conclusion

07 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

After the witch trials were over, Salemites had to resume life as normal and come to terms with what had happened. Suspected witches had to go back to...

SALEM EPISODE 8: Willful, weak-minded women?

07 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Fourteen of the 19 people hanged for witchcraft at Salem were women. So could their gender – or perhaps their transgression of gender norms – be p...

SALEM EPISODE 7: Quarrelsome neighbours & family tensions

07 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Salem was made up of a dense web of social connections – not all of which were harmonious. In fact, it was a community riven with fault lines that t...

SALEM EPISODE 6: Chaos in the courtroom

07 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The list of failings that could be levelled against the Salem justice system is substantial – from the acceptance of so-called ‘spectral evidence’...

SALEM EPISODE 5: Satanic sabbaths and supernatural sins

07 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

From flying witches to demonic familiars and translucent cats, the Salem villagers believed themselves plagued by a spectrum of supernatural terrors. ...

From chariots to e-scooters: transformations in transport

06 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tom Standage traces technological advances in transport, from the invention of the wheel to the rise of the car Tom Standage, author of A Brief Histor...

Giving birth in the 17th century

05 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Dr Sara Read explores women’s experience of pregnancy and childbirth in early modern England. Speaking to Emma Slattery Williams, she discusses the ...

Cricket as a colonial weapon

03 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Dr Souvik Naha reveals how the Victorians used cricket to export “British virtues” across the empire For 19th-century imperialists, cricket wasn’...

Living through the fall of communism

02 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Professor Lea Ypi reflects on her childhood years, which witnessed the final years of communism in Albania and the fraught transition to capitalist de...

Black cowboys on screen

01 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Historian Tony Warner talks to Elinor Evans about some of the real historical figures depicted in the new Netflix western The Harder They Fall, starr...

SALEM EPISODE 4: The pervasive power of Puritanism

31 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Religion was a powerful force at play in the Salem settlement. It not only determined the villagers’ daily routine but their whole outlook on life, ...

SALEM EPISODE 3: A ‘new Jerusalem’ on the edge of a wilderness

31 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 1692, Salem was a colonial outpost teetering on the edge of a precipice. In this episode we’ll explore what life was like in the New England sett...

SALEM EPISODE 2: How events spiralled out of control

31 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In order to understand why the Salem witch trials happened, we need to get to grips with how exactly things unfolded over the course of 1692. In this ...

SALEM EPISODE 1: Introduction

31 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 1692, 19 members of a small New England community were hanged for witchcraft. Over the course of the year, young girls convulsed and barked like do...

Ghosts, necromancy & the underworld in ancient Mesopotamia

30 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Irving Finkel speaks to Ellie Cawthorne about his book The First Ghosts, which looks at what we can learn from the first written evidence of ghost bel...

What would you ask a historian?

29 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Greg Jenner talks about his latest book, Ask A Historian, which tackles 50 burning questions that people have about the past   Public historian Greg ...

COMING SOON Salem: investigating the witch trials

28 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Listen to our new podcast series delving into one of the most fascinating and mysterious events in American history. Find the first four episodes in y...

Windows: an illuminating history

27 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We often focus on the views we can see through windows, but what about the windows themselves? Matt Elton speaks to cultural sociologist Rachel Hurdle...

How a ballerina survived the Gulag

26 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Christina Ezrahi speaks to Elinor Evans about the story of Nina Anisimova, one of the most famous ballerinas in Stalin’s Soviet Union. After being a...

Afghanistan: a history of instability

25 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A panel of expert historians discuss how history can help make sense of current events in Afghanistan   The Taliban recently regained control of Afgh...

Egyptian pharaohs: everything you wanted to know

24 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What did the word ‘pharaoh’ mean? How did you become an ancient Egyptian king? And what was that beard all about? Speaking with Emily Briffett, Jo...

Medieval ghost stories

23 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Historian Dan Jones’s new book, The Tale of the Tailor and the Three Dead Kings, reimagines a medieval ghost story for modern audiences. He explai...

How dogs shaped city life

22 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Chris Pearson talks to Elinor Evans about his latest book, Dogopolis, which explores how human-canine relationships shaped urban living in three citi...

African-American women’s battle for the vote

20 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Martha S Jones discusses her Cundill History Prize-shortlisted book Vanguard, which charts African-American women’s long and determined fight for t...

Asia’s anti-imperial revolutionaries

19 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tim Harper speaks to Ellie Cawthorne about his Cundill History Prize-shortlisted book Underground Asia, which reveals how clandestine networks of ant...

A family history of France

18 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Following the fortunes of one extended family in a south-western French town in the 18th and 19th centuries, Emma Rothschild’s Cundill Prize-shortli...

Apartheid: everything you wanted to know

17 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Wayne Dooling answers listener questions on South Africa’s Apartheid regime. Speaking to Ellie Cawthorne, he covers subjects including the policy’...

Berbice: a slave rebellion that nearly succeeded

16 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Historian Marjoleine Kars tells Elinor Evans about a little-known 1763 rebellion by enslaved people in Berbice, in present-day Guyana. Chronicled in h...

Trial by combat: the real history behind The Last Duel

15 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Hannah Skoda delves into the bloody and brutal spectacle of trial by combat in the Middle Ages  To coincide with the release of new film The Last Du...

Liberty and racism: an interconnected history

13 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tyler Stovall speaks to Ellie Cawthorne about his Cundill prize-shortlisted book White Freedom, which explores how European and American ideas about ...

George III: the tyrant who lost America?

12 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Andrew Roberts discusses his landmark new biography of King George III and takes on some of the myths that have surrounded the monarch Historian Andre...

At home with the Mongols

11 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

“The Horde” was an empire like no other, ruled by Nomadic Mongol Khans for three centuries. But how was the Mongol empire governed, and what was e...

Pompeii: everything you wanted to know

09 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Archaeologist Sophie Hay responds to listener questions and popular search queries about the city that was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in AD 79 a...

Unexpected Edwardians

09 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Nick Baker and John Woolf, writers of Stephen Fry’s Edwardian Secrets, discuss some lesser-known aspects of the Edwardian age The Edwardians were no...

Plagues of our past

08 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

From when our ancestors first mastered fire to the rise of modern cities, humanity’s progress has been accompanied by a revolving door of parasites,...

Courage under fire: the story of a WW2 tank regiment

06 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Military historian, author and broadcaster James Holland tells the story of the Sherwood Rangers, a British tank regiment which was in the thick of th...

How Hindustan became India

05 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Manan Ahmed Asif discusses his book The Loss of Hindustan, the Invention of India, which has just been shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize Hist...

The turbulent Stuart century

04 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Dr Clare Jackson discusses her new book Devil-Land, which examines the insecurities and anxieties that plagued England between 1588 and 1688, from fe...

The Boer War: everything you wanted to know

03 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Saul Dubow responds to listener questions on Victorian Britain’s bitter conflict with two southern African republics    What triggered the Boer Wa...

My father the Nazi

02 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

As governor-general of Nazi-occupied Poland, Hans Frank bore heavy responsibility for the abuse and murder of hundreds of thousands of Poles and milli...

Adventures of a Victorian actor

01 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Helen Batten shares stories from her new biography of Victorian singer, stage performer and entrepreneur Emily Soldene, from a career in London’s ro...

John of Gaunt: prince without a throne

29 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John of Gaunt rose to become one of the most powerful figures of his age, yet was ultimately unable to secure a crown for himself. Historian, author a...

Inside the prehistoric mind

28 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How did prehistoric people in Britain view and understand the world around them? What did they smell, hear and see? Francis Pryor, one of Britain’s ...

How did the British royals survive WW1?

27 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

While many European royals faced abdications and revolutions during the First World War, the British monarchy not only survived the conflict, but was ...

Medieval Wales: everything you wanted to know

26 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew Stevens tackles listener questions on the history of the Welsh regions during the Middle Ages   Matthew Stevens tackles listener questions an...

A surprising history of the index

25 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The index, the bit at the back of a book you mostly only turn to for reference, has a bit of a dowdy reputation – and it’s an unfair one. Dennis D...

Why did medieval monks write histories?

24 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Why did medieval monks and abbots write histories, and what does it tell us about the role of monasticism in the Middle Ages? Medievalist Dr Benjamin ...

India’s Suffragettes

22 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Between 1917 and 1947, a group of Indian women fought for their right to vote. Sumita Mukherjee discusses their campaign, and reveals how Suffragettes...

Jihad and the British empire

21 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Neil Faulkner reveals how the Anglo-Arab Wars of 1870-1920 helped give rise to the first modern jihad   Neil Faulkner, author of Empire and Jihad, d...

Transplant surgery: an eye-opening history

20 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

From transfusions of lambs’ blood to tooth replacements, Paul Craddock chronicles the strange history of transplant surgery   From lambs’ blood t...

The Paris Peace Conference: everything you wanted to know

19 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Professor David Stevenson answers listener questions on the 1919-20 conference that sought to resolve the aftermath of the First World War   In the l...

World history in 100 moments

18 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Archaeologist and television presenter Neil Oliver discusses his new book, The Story of the World in 100 Moments, which explores the whole of human ...

Extraordinary hoaxes of the 18th century

17 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Ian Keable describes some of the most audacious, bizarre and inventive pranks that fooled Georgian Britain    From a woman who seemingly gave birth ...

Maria Theresa: empress, warrior, matriarch

15 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Nancy Goldstone discusses the 18th-century family saga of Habsburg empress Maria Theresa, and her equally formidable daughters    Nancy Goldstone di...

From Roman villas to Downton Abbey: Britain’s country houses

14 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Clive Aslet, author of The Story of the Country House: A History of Places and People, reveals how Britain’s attitude to its stately piles has ref...

Hitler’s war on “degenerate art”

13 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Journalist and author Charlie English shares the story of a remarkable collection of artworks by psychiatric patients in Weimar Germany and also explo...

The Borgias: everything you wanted to know

12 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the latest episode in our series on history’s biggest topics, Professor Jill Burke tackles listener questions and internet search queries on the ...

Why the Tudors fell for courtly love

11 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Sarah Gristwood considers how the Tudor monarchs used medieval ideas about courtly love for their own ends    In medieval Europe, the nobility were ...

Wedgwood: the radical potter

10 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tristram Hunt, author of The Radical Potter, discusses the life and work of Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795), from his groundbreaking ceramic creations an...

Aboriginal Australians: a modern history

08 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Historian Richard Broome, author of Aboriginal Australians, discusses the experiences of Australia’s indigenous peoples after the arrival of white ...

Decolonisation to Covid-19: history education today

07 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How does a history degree help you suss out fake news? How have history students been affected by covid-19? And are history degrees still valued as mu...

Seances, skis and secrets: an extraordinary WWI escape

06 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Interned in a remote, forbidding prisoner of war camp at the height of the First World War, two British officers turned to an unlikely tool in their b...

The Spanish Armada: everything you wanted to know

05 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Why did the Spanish Armada set sail? What ships were used by the fleets? And did Queen Elizabeth I really give a famous speech at Tilbury? In our late...

The Special Boat Service: WW2’s silent heroes

04 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Historian Saul David discusses SBS – Silent Warriors, his new authorised history of the Special Boat Service in the Second World War. He explains ...

The surprisingly modern Middle Ages

03 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Dan Jones explores the similarities and differences between the medieval experience and our lives today   In what ways was the medieval era surprisin...

Why do things change?

01 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

David Potter, author of Disruption: Why Things Change, analyses the causes of huge events that altered human history and guides us on a tour of radic...

History in 2021, with Helen Carr and Suzannah Lipscomb

31 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Sixty years ago EH Carr’s groundbreaking book, What is History?, explored how we should study the past. Now his great-granddaughter, Helen Carr, h...

How Walter Scott’s stories shaped Scotland

30 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

An outpouring of bestselling novels and poems flowed from Walter Scott’s pen – from Waverley to Rob Roy. In fact, his writing was so influentia...

Food history: everything you wanted to know

29 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the latest episode in our series on history’s biggest topics, Annie Gray tackles listener questions on culinary history, from Tudor breakfast and...

The rise of the Paralympics

28 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

From the Stoke Mandeville Games, which took place just after the Second World War, to this summer’s Paralympics, Ian Brittain describes how sport fo...

Behind the scenes of The Boleyns: A Scandalous Family

27 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Through canny political manoeuvrings and passionate affairs, the Boleyns catapulted themselves from the sidelines of the Tudor court to the very apex ...

What’s next for period drama?

25 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Which stories and historical periods should we be seeing dramatised on screen? What influence can historians have on how these stories are told? And h...

Vikings and Franks

23 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Vikings famously raided Britain and Ireland, but they also turned their attentions to Francia and Europe’s western seaboard. Christian Cooijmans...

The forgotten matriarch of the Wars of the Roses

23 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Cecily Neville, mother of Richard III, is typically glossed over in the story of the Wars of Roses. But behind the scenes, she fought her own war, usi...

British police history: everything you wanted to know

22 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When did the first professional police force come into being? Why do the British police largely not carry guns? And what was the point of police boxes...

The Windsors in exile

21 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Andrew Lownie discusses his new book Traitor King, which delves into the lives of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson after the abdication crisis of 1936. ...