HistoryExtra podcast
Episodes
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: life of the week
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mozart is celebrated for his musical genius – but how did he rise to such enduring fame? What inspired him, and who was the man beyond the concert h...
A short history of ghost hunting
15 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A spooky story during the Christmas season has become traditional – and the modern ghost story was invented by the Victorians, who embraced the supe...
Becoming Jane Austen
14 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What inspired the daughter of a rural reverend to write about eligible bachelors and drunken misadventure? In this first episode of our four-part seri...
Ghosts, gods & sea monsters: a supernatural history of the Atlantic
12 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For centuries, sailors crossing the Atlantic believed they were not alone – haunted by ghost ships, watched by mermaids, and stalked by sea monsters...
The summer that changed everything for the Kennedys
10 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Historian Leigh Straw describes one pivotal summer in the life of the Kennedy family. With most of the family in their Cape Cod summer home, the summe...
Margaret Beaufort: life of the week
09 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Born in the tumultuous 15th century, Margaret Beaufort – mother of Henry VII – endured personal tragedy, dynastic danger, and the ever-shifting fo...
Idi Amin's willing helpers
08 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Idi Amin is 20th-century Africa’s most notorious ruler – a cartoonish tyrant who has been bracketed with the likes of Hitler and Stalin. And it’...
“You can’t kill and maim with impunity”: the powerful legacy of Nuremberg
07 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the 80 years since Nazi leaders stood in the dock, how has the international community sought to deal with war criminals around the globe? For this...
Assassins vs Templars
05 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Assassins and the Knights Templar are two of history’s most intriguing, enigmatic and legendary groups. While they may seem vastly different on ...
WW2's Tunisian campaign: the Stalingrad of Africa
03 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For the Allies it was an enormous triumph and for Nazi Germany it was another Stalingrad. But 80 years on, the battle for Tunisia is barely mentioned ...
Empress Matilda: life of the week
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the tumultuous aftermath of Henry I’s death, England was thrown into one of the most chaotic civil wars in its history – the Anarchy. At the he...
How warhorses transformed medieval England
01 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
William the Conqueror used them to devastating effect in 1066. Robert the Bruce worked out how to neutralise them. And when Richard III was knocked fr...
Did the Nazis get a fair trial?
30 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In October 1946, after a trial lasting almost a year, the Nazi leaders on the dock in Nuremberg received their verdicts. But what did the judges decid...
Forgotten female secret agents of WW2
28 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From sabotage operations to devastating betrayals, stories of the women of Special Operations Executive are some of the most incredible stories of the...
What causes cultures to decline and fall?
26 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The new BBC TV series Civilisations: Rise and Fall charts the decline of some of history's most famous cultures, from the Aztecs to the ancient Egypti...
Christopher Marlowe: life of the week
25 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From his possible espionage work for the Elizabethan state to his open flirtations with atheism and subversive sexual themes, the brief life of playwr...
Uprising: the Civil Wars untangled
24 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On 30 January 1649, Charles I was led on to a freshly erected scaffold outside Whitehall’s Banqueting House in London. Thousands of spectators watch...
The Nazis’ crimes laid bare
23 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When the Nazi leaders went on trial in Nuremberg from November 1945, the true horrors of their regime were exposed to the world. In the second episode...
What does Hitler’s DNA really tell us?
22 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A recent documentary drawing conclusions from new analysis of Adolf Hitler’s DNA has sparked headlines around the world. But how did the programme’...
Mutilated corpses and undead mothers-in-law: vampire epidemics through history
21 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Fears of the undead rising from their graves to cause trouble have recurred in societies around the globe throughout the centuries. But why was your m...
The problem with poo: a millennium of manure
19 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When did poo become a problem? Why was manure so important in the medieval economy? And why don't we have vacuum-powered sewers? All these questions –...
James Garfield: life of the week
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
US president James Garfield's life is often overshadowed by his untimely death in 1881, as the second president to be assassinated in office. However,...
A new history of multicultural Britain
17 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As Britain's influence on the world around it grew throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, so too did the world influence Britain – and a key part o...
What should we do with the Nazis? The road to the Nuremberg Trials
16 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At the end of the Second World War, the victorious Allies had to decide the fates of the surviving leaders of a regime that had initiated the bloodies...
Who stole the Tudor crown?
14 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On her deathbed Elizabeth I named the Scottish James VI as her successor, ensuring a smooth transition from the Tudor to Stuart monarchies. That, at l...
The librarian who stole KGB secrets
12 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When an elderly man with a battered suitcase walked into the British embassy in Vilnius in 1992, few could have guessed what he was about to hand over...
Nellie Bly: life of the week
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the late 19th century, when female reporters were largely confined to newspapers' society pages, Nellie Bly's daring investigations and headline-gr...
The improbable alliance that defeated Hitler
10 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
To what extent does the course of history turn on the force of individual personalities? It’s a question that looms large when examining the unlike...
Remember, remember: The legacy of the Gunpowder Plot
09 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
'Remember, remember the fifth of November…'. For more than 400 years, the Gunpowder Plot has been etched into Britain’s memory. In the final episo...
Five partitions that shaped South Asia
07 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you were to look down at South Asia from space at night, you would see a bright scar stretching more than 2,000 miles. This is the border between I...
Crystal balls & contacting angels: predicting the future in early modern England
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Eating the palpitating heart of a mole. Sleeping with a wolf's tooth under your pillow. Communicating with angels through a crystal ball. In the 16th ...
Giuseppe Garibaldi: life of the week
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
He led one of history's most celebrated guerrilla campaigns, showed remarkable political acumen, and drove aristocratic English women wild. Is it any ...
A day in the life of a gladiator
03 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If we were to step back in time on to the blood-soaked sand of the Roman gladiatorial arena, what would we uncover about society, power and entertainm...
What if the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded?
02 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We know the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 failed – but what if it hadn’t? What if Guy Fawkes had ignited the gunpowder under parliament, killing the king...
Bodies, bones & overflowing churchyards: a history of graveyards
31 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Burying the dead has never been a simple matter. Whether due to elaborate grave goods, unique burial rituals, or public health concerns, burial places...
Myspace and MTV: how will future historians study the 21st century?
29 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From social-media accounts to TV shows and video games, recent decades offer an enormous wealth of material for future historians to explore. But what...
Malcolm X: life of the week
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Malcolm X was one of the most influential – and, sometimes, divisive – figures of the civil rights movement in the United States, a political acti...
Ghosts, grief and the paranormal
27 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why are we so spooked – and yet so fascinated – by things that go bump in the night? And can science really prove that ghouls exist? Alice Vernon ...
How the Gunpowder Plot unravelled
25 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the autumn of 1605, Catholic conspirators believed they were about to strike a blow to the heart of the English state – but then a mysterious let...
Sex and sensationalism: a history of the tabloids
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tabloid journalists often get a bad press. From publishing libellous headlines to hacking celebrities’ phones, recent years have not exactly done mu...
11th-century Europe: not just the Norman Conquest
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When we think of Europe in the 11th century, one date stands out: 1066. However, as Professor Charles West explains, this was a century of great chang...
William Shakespeare: life of the week
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
William Shakespeare is one of history’s most famous names – but how much do we really know about the man himself? And how did his family, educatio...
Tudor life with Ruth Goodman
19 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What did ordinary Tudors eat and drink on a daily basis? How did they keep themselves clean without baths and showers? And what surprising beliefs did...
Who laid the fuse for the Gunpowder Plot?
18 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the autumn of 1605, Robert Catesby and Guy Fawkes led a desperate band of Catholic gentlemen in one of history's most daring conspiracies. Having s...
Reagan's plan to 'make America great again'
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The phrase 'Make America Great Again' is indelibly associated with President Trump – yet a very similar version of the slogan – 'Let's Make Americ...
How enslaved people fought for freedom across the Atlantic
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From armed uprisings in the Caribbean to the hidden power of ritual, song and solidarity, the story of enslaved people’s resistance is far richer an...
Aneurin Bevan: life of the week
13 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Aneurin Bevan's commitment to social justice led to the creation of the National Health Service in 1948 – one of the most ambitious social reforms i...
Bandits & blasphemers: crime in 17th century Scotland
12 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Which crimes were most common in Scotland in the 17th century – and what can those crimes reveal about society at the time? In today's episode, we'r...
The Normans: everything you wanted to know
11 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After five years we come to our final 'everything you wanted to know about' episodes. We revisit our first episode where Marc Morris, author of an acc...
How Julius Caesar's funeral drama fuelled the mob
09 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The assassination of Julius Caesar is one of the most infamous plots of the ancient world, but the dictator's death wasn't the only moment in his life...
The dark side of Samuel Pepys
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Samuel Pepys is well-known for his brilliantly evocative diary, which gives an unsurpassed insight into daily life in Restoration London. However, it ...
Margaret Tudor: life of the week
06 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Margaret Tudor was the daughter of a king, the sister of a king, and the wife of a king. But she was a political power player in her own right, carefu...
Britain's female slaveowners: the heiresses who made fortunes from enslavement
05 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Women's role as slaveowners is often overlooked – but, just like men, they both profited from and maintained the institution of slavery. Speaking to...
Roman homes: everything you wanted to know
04 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you could sneak a peek past the front door of a Roman home, what could you expect to find? Why was having a hole in your ceiling a clever feat of e...
Preview: Should historians be celebrities?
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Historian, author and broadcaster David Olusoga is among the famous faces to feature on new TV series The Celebrity Traitors, which launches in the UK...
Queer life in Georgian Britain
02 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There were many ways queer people in the Georgian era fought against social and legal restrictions to express their desire and convey their love for o...
Breaking news! How stories spread in early modern Europe
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you lived in 16th-century London, would you have any idea what was happening in Paris, Venice or Frankfurt? Well, yes, according to Joad Raymond Wr...
Robert Peel: life of the week
29 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
He established the Metropolitan police, became embroiled in years of bitter disputes over the Corn Laws, and was vilified for his political U-turns. D...
The German Peasants' War: a summer of fire and blood
28 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The German Peasants' War of 1524-5 was the largest popular uprising in western Europe before the French Revolution. Thousands flocked to its cause as ...
Art Deco: everything you wanted to know
27 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the interwar period, a movement emerged that brought together architecture, fashion, and even typography that echoed the hopes, anxieties and ambit...
America in Korea: a failed occupation?
25 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For three quarters of a century, the Korean peninsula has been divided between two very different regimes that are bitterly opposed to each other. But...
The real Miss Moneypennys: the secret history of Britain's female spies
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From cleaners to codebreakers, women’s contributions to the history of British intelligence have often gone unrecognised and forgotten. But in actua...
Andrew Carnegie: life of the week
22 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How did a man who crushed unions in Gilded Age America come to see himself as humanity’s benefactor? Speaking to Elinor Evans, historian and biograp...
Wages for housework: the daring 1970s campaign that challenged women's roles
21 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1970s, a global group of feminist activists banded together with one demand: 'wages for housework'. Emily Callaci explores this campaign in her...
Ancient Roman theatre: everything you wanted to know
20 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Who went to the theatre in ancient Rome – and what kind of spectacle would they have expected to see? And did the drama performed on stage reflect t...
Haiti's first and only king
18 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Born to an enslaved mother in the British Caribbean in the tumultuous, brutal world of the late 18th century, Henry Christoph's role in the Haitian Re...
How the Cold War made the modern world
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For most of the latter half of the 20th century, the world was frozen in a standoff. The Cold War era was defined by the ideological fissure between c...
Alva Vanderbilt: life of the week
15 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Climbing to the top of Gilded Age society in 19th-century America, socialite Alva Vanderbilt made headlines for being one of the first elite women to ...
How women were erased from economic history
14 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Across 12,000 years of history, prosperity has flourished in societies where women could fully participate – and faltered when they were pushed to t...
The Phoenicians: everything you wanted to know
13 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
They gave us the alphabet, charted the seas by the Pole Star, and built Carthage – once Rome’s greatest rival. So why have the Phoenicians been fo...
Black women and the fight for human rights
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Despite facing significant obstacles in their own lives, black women in the United States were at the forefront of campaigns for human rights at home ...
Soviet dissidents who challenged the Kremlin
09 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the years following Stalin’s death in 1953, a new phenomenon emerged within the Soviet Union: so-called 'dissidents'. Preferring to think of them...
El Cid: life of the week
08 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The life of El Cid, the famed 11th-century Castilian warrior otherwise known as Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, is steeped in legend. Historian Nora Berend jo...
Burying the enemy: commemorating the world wars' fallen foes
07 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For Britain and Germany, both world wars saw hundreds of thousands of casualties – but what happened to the bodies of those who died on enemy territ...
The Mughal empire: everything you wanted to know
06 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Mughal empire was one of the most powerful and influential dynasties in South Asian history, blending together a mix of cultural traditions to cre...
The Amazons: wonder-women of the ancient world
04 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you know anything about the Amazons of ancient legend, it's probably that they were fearsome female fighters, who bravely battled against male hero...
How did the Vikings shape Russia and Ukraine?
02 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The story of the Vikings who travelled to eastern Europe is just as thrilling as the story of those who headed west. It's also just as important – s...
William the Conqueror: life of the week
01 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, crossed the Channel and changed English history forever. Known to some as a ruthless and ambitious conqueror and t...
Why the Maginot Line couldn't save France in WW2
31 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As the threat of war began to loom in the 1930s, an elaborate system of fortifications sprung up in northeastern France. Known as the Maginot line, th...
Crime fiction history: everything you wanted to know
30 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From Hercule Poirot to Sherlock Holmes, crime fiction has long been a popular genre. But what was the first crime novel? How has crime writing affecte...
How Christianity came to dominate the Roman world
28 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What if the 'fall' of Rome wasn’t a collapse, but a rebrand? In this episode, Alice Roberts delves into the dramatic transformation of the Roman wor...
The spy next door: Moscow's century-long plot to infiltrate the west
26 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2010, the world was stunned when the United States exposed a covert Russian spy network operating on its soil. Seemingly all-American families livi...
Edward the Confessor: life of the week
25 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Edward the Confessor, England’s penultimate Anglo-Saxon king, has long been remembered as a saintly, pious monarch – but was he really the weak ru...
Britain and the Caribbean: from slavery to Black Lives Matter
24 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Histories of British involvement in the Caribbean tend to focus mainly on the period of plantation slavery but, in her new book Empire Without End, Im...
Nationalism: everything you wanted to know
23 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Human beings tend to identify with being in a group, and, historically, few groupings have been more potent than the idea of the nation. But when did ...
Preview: The forgers who faked a fortune
22 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1775, a respectable lady, a mild-mannered apothecary and his fast-living identical twin stood accused of pulling off a scam that had earnt them a f...
From dodos to 'lost' tribes: a history of extinction
21 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After causing the extinction of the dodo, humans soon realised that we had the power to destroy entire species – and we continue to reckon with that...
Europe's last pagans
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Christianity came to dominate Europe in the Middle Ages. However, some parts of Europe remained pagan until very recently. So how did non-Christian p...
VJ Day and the story of women's football: history behind the headlines
18 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the latest episode of our monthly series charting the historical background of current news events, historians Hannah Skoda and Rana Mitter discuss...
The tangled legacies of two Americas
17 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For centuries, North and Latin America have been locked in a relationship of rivalry and reciprocity. From revolutionary dreams to imperial ambitions,...
The Paris Commune: everything you wanted to know
16 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the spring of 1871, the citizens of Europe’s second largest city rose up and proclaimed the Paris Commune. For eight extraordinary weeks, the Fre...
VJ Day: why don't we talk about WW2 in Asia?
14 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On the 80th anniversary of VJ Day, broadcaster Kavita Puri – presenter of a new BBC Radio 4 series on the Second World War in Asia – tells Matt El...
Zoot suits, mashers & New Romantics: the evolution of the dandy
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From zoot suiters and mods, to mashers and Congolese sapeurs, since the early 19th century, fashionable male subcultures have popped up across the glo...
Mary of Modena: life of the week
11 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cultural historian and author Breeze Barrington brings to life the fascinating – and often misunderstood – story of Maria, or Mary, of Modena. Bor...
Arson, murder and goddesses: secrets of a Seventh Wonder of the Ancient World
10 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What would it have been like to have witness one of the most spectacular sights of the ancient world first-hand? Speaking to Rachel Dinning, Bettany H...
Frontier life: everything you wanted to know
09 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What was life like on the frontier in 19th-century America? Forget Hollywood’s high-noon shootouts and lawless swaggering cowboys – historian Kare...
Forgotten stories from South Asian history
07 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
South Asian history is currently in the spotlight, with 2025's South Asian Heritage Month focusing particularly on themes of movement and migration. B...
Was the atomic bomb necessary to end war with Japan?
05 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The decision by the United States to drop atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 remains one of the most controversial mo...
JMW Turner: life of the week
04 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2015, the Bank of England asked the British public to nominate a deceased cultural figure they felt deserved the honour of appearing on a banknote....
Hiroshima: in the shadow of the bomb
03 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At 8.15am on 6 August 1945, an atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima. It was an event that changed the course of history, but it was also one driven by ...