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Dan Snow's History Hit

History Podcasts

History! The most exciting and important things that have ever happened on the planet! Featuring reports from the weird and wonderful places around the world where history has been made and interviews with some of the best historians writing today. Dan also covers some of the major anniversaries as they pass by and explores the deep history behind today's headlines - giving you the context to understand what is going on today. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

History! The most exciting and important things that have ever happened on the planet! Featuring reports from the weird and wonderful places around the world where history has been made and interviews with some of the best historians writing today. Dan also covers some of the major anniversaries as they pass by and explores the deep history behind today's headlines - giving you the context to understand what is going on today. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Location:

London, United Kingdom

Description:

History! The most exciting and important things that have ever happened on the planet! Featuring reports from the weird and wonderful places around the world where history has been made and interviews with some of the best historians writing today. Dan also covers some of the major anniversaries as they pass by and explores the deep history behind today's headlines - giving you the context to understand what is going on today. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Language:

English

Episodes

SAS Founder: Warrior or Phoney?

5/27/2022
David Stirling was an aristocrat, innovator and special forces legend that earned him the nickname 'The Phantom Major'. His formation of the Special Air Service in the summer of 1941 led to a new form of warfare and Stirling is remembered as the father of special forces soldiering. But was he really a military genius or in fact a shameless self-publicist who manipulated people, and the truth? For his new book 'David Stirling: The Phoney Major' military historian Gavin Mortimer extensively...

Duration:00:31:44

The Treadmill

5/26/2022
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 contrast to their modern track record of improving health, the Victorians saw treadmills as a way to explicitly inflict pain and punishment. A tool for ‘grinding men good’ through gruelling hours of physical activity. What were the moral rationalisations of this corporal punishment? Who was the inventor responsible for these machines? And what...

Duration:00:25:38

Our Obsession with Nostalgia

5/25/2022
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 called for a revival 'simple', 'better' ways of life - from Margaret Thatcher's call for a return to 'Victorian values' in the 1980s to William Blake's protest against the 'dark satanic mills' of the Industrial Revolution that were fast transforming England's green and pleasant land. But were the 'good old days' ever quite how we remember...

Duration:00:32:22

How Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt Divided Berlin

5/24/2022
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 - American, British, French and Soviet. On paper, it seemed a pragmatic solution. In reality, once the four powers were no longer united by their common purpose of defeating Germany they wasted little time reverting to their pre-war hostility toward each other. Writer and historian Giles Milton joins Dan on the podcast to share the story of the...

Duration:00:26:03

Putin's Rise to Power

5/23/2022
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 Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times, Catherine's career has offered an exclusive insight into the workings of Putin's Kremlin. Her book 'Putin's People' is packed with interviews with the key inside players, uncovering fascinating details about how Putin subverted Russia’s economy and legal system and extended the Kremlin's reach into the...

Duration:00:33:48

Medieval Myths and Legends

5/20/2022
Various legends, characters and myths are associated with the medieval period. The British Isles is filled with prehistoric monuments - from Stonehenge and Wayland's Smithy, the archipelago of Orkney to as far south as Cornwall, Snowdon and Loch Etive, and rivers including the Ness, the Soar and the story-silted Thames - Britain is a land steeped in myth. Dr Amy Jeffs is a historian specialising in the Middle Ages. Here to offer her retellings of medieval tales of legend, Amy joins Dan on...

Duration:00:21:57

Falklands40: The Loss of HMS Ardent

5/19/2022
Please note that this episode contains frank discussions of conflict, mental health and suicide. Admiral Lord West is the former First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff. In 1982, West commanded the frigate HMS Ardent which was deployed to the South Atlantic for the Falklands War. During the successful retaking of the islands, HMS Ardent was sunk in the Falkland Sound on May 21. West was the last to leave the sinking ship and was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for...

Duration:00:25:48

Food in the Ancient World

5/18/2022
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 changed over the last two millennia? In this episode, Tristan is joined by the host of 'The Delicious Legacy' Thomas Ntinas to discuss just how much the food has changed and helps by providing Tristan with some mouth-watering homemade recreations of just what they would have eaten. With the importance of fresh produce, who would've eaten an...

Duration:00:37:56

HMS Black Joke

5/17/2022
Please note that this episode contains mentions of racial trauma, slavery and violence. The most feared ship in Britain’s West Africa Squadron, His Majesty’s Black Joke was one of a handful of ships tasked with patrolling the western coast of Africa in an effort to end hundreds of years of global slave trading. Once a slaving vessel itself, only a lucky capture in 1827 allowed it to be repurposed by the Royal Navy to catch its former compatriots. A.E. Rooks is an expert in this...

Duration:00:25:03

The Secret Plot to Kill the Government

5/16/2022
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 the whole British cabinet at its monthly dinner. The Cato Street Conspiracy was the most sensational of all plots aimed at the British state since Guy Fawkes' Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Historian Vic Gatrell joins Dan to explore this dramatic event. They discuss how one of the most compelling episodes in British history ended in betrayal, arrest,...

Duration:00:39:37

How to Survive in Medieval England

5/13/2022
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't wearing a hat, wore glasses on the street, or even laced your corset in the wrong way, things would go south for you very quickly. Luckily, in this episode Matt is joined by Toni Mount, author of the book 'How to Survive in Medieval England' who provides an insight on what it would take to avoid beatings, homelessness, and hunger in Medieval...

Duration:00:38:01

Codebreaking at Bletchley Park

5/12/2022
Bletchley Park, Britain's key decryption centre during WWI, is known for the success of breaking the Nazi Enigma codes - experts have suggested that the Bletchley Park codebreakers may have shortened the war by as much as two years. David Kenyon is the research historian at Bletchley Park. Recorded at the grounds, David and Dan walk through Bletchley’s latest exhibition, The Intelligence Factory. They uncover hidden stories from the height of Bletchley’s wartime operations and discuss the...

Duration:00:35:05

Mental Health in Victorian Britain

5/11/2022
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 treatment in the 19th century. Oral historian Stella Man from the Glenside Hospital Museum in Bristol tells Dan how the Victorians get a bad rap but in truth, they took a very forward thinking occupational approach. With no real medicines to prescribe at that time, psychiatric institutions like Glenside turned to exercise, nature, rest and...

Duration:00:31:16

The 1650s: Britain's Decade Without a Crown

5/10/2022
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 of Lords discarded. The people, it was announced, were now the sovereign force in the land. What did this mean for the decade that would follow? Anna Keay is a historian, broadcaster and Director of the Landmark Trust. Anna joins Dan on the podcast to discuss the extraordinary and experimental decade of the 1650s - how these tempestuous years...

Duration:00:32:14

VE Day

5/9/2022
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 greeted by jubilant crowds in Whitehall, and of course, lots and lots of bunting. But was it really like this? In this podcast, you'll hear the speech given by Churchill from the Ministry of Health, cheered on by the boisterous crowd, an account by veteran Edward Toms about the drinking habits of the Soviets, and thoughts from two brilliant...

Duration:00:25:47

Diving for Lost Slave Shipwrecks

5/6/2022
From the 16th to the 19th centuries, European slave traders forcibly uprooted millions of African people and shipped them across the Atlantic in conditions of great cruelty. Today, on the bottom of the world’s oceans lies the lost wrecks of ships that carried enslaved people from Africa to the Americas. Justin Dunnavant is an Assistant Professor, archaeologist and National Geographic Explorer. Justin shares with Dan the incredible project that he is a part of - a group of specialist black...

Duration:00:40:05

Agincourt: Myths Explained

5/5/2022
Agincourt is a name which conjures an image of plucky English archers taking on and defeating the arrogant and aristocratic knights of the French court. But was it really the David and Goliath struggle often depicted on stage and screen? In this episode of the podcast, Dan is joined by Mike Loades to challenge some of the popular myths that surround the battle. Just how outnumbered were the English really? Could the French Knights really not get up if knocked over? And, was Henry V's...

Duration:00:26:50

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

5/4/2022
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 their side - or by crushing one beneath their feet. With three generations of felled family members, what was it that caused the Dudleys to keep rising so high and falling so low? In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Dr. Joanne Paul, author of The House of Dudley: A New History of Tudor England, the...

Duration:00:43:50

John Donne: Poet of Love, Sex and Death

5/3/2022
John Donne (1572-1631) lived myriad lives. Sometime religious outsider and social disaster, sometime celebrity preacher and establishment darling, John Donne was incapable of being just one thing. He was a scholar of law, a sea adventurer, an MP, a priest, the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral – and perhaps the greatest love poet in the history of the English language. Katherine Rundell, author and academic, joins Dan on the podcast. They discuss Donne’s conversion from Catholicism to...

Duration:00:35:02

Falklands40: The Sinking of the Belgrano

5/2/2022
On this day 40 years ago the HMS Conqueror, a British nuclear submarine, propelled silently through the South Atlantic stalking the Argentinian light cruiser the ARA General Belgrano in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands. At 2.57 pm Conqueror was given the order to torpedo the enemy warship. With two direct hits to the ship, more than 300 Argentine sailors were killed in what remains one of the most controversial actions of the Falklands War. To mark the 40th anniversary Dan speaks to...

Duration:00:45:59

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