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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

The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb

8/8/2022
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 consigning millions to disease and genetic defects. The accepted wisdom in the U.S. since has been that dropping the bombs on these Japanese cities was the only way to end World War II without an invasion of Japan that would have cost hundreds of thousands of American and perhaps millions of Japanese lives. Gar Alperovitz is a historian,...

Duration:00:28:51

Anne Frank's Step Sister: 'How I Survived the Holocaust' Part 2

8/5/2022
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 particular interest in her older brother Heinz. Eva also remembers the day the Dutch resistance worker exposed her family to the Nazis and they were carted off to Auschwitz. She remembers the train pulling up to the platform in Poland and the promise she made her brother to go back to find the paintings he'd done in hiding, if he didn't make it...

Duration:00:44:15

Anne Frank's Step Sister: 'How I Survived the Holocaust' Part 1

8/4/2022
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 heavy boots and German voices on the other side. Anne Frank and her family were discovered and taken to the Nazi concentration camps where they all perished, apart from Otto. Anne's diary stops in the summer of 1944 so it's difficult for us to truly know exactly what her experience was after her arrest, as a teenage girl enduring the horrors of the...

Duration:00:38:50

Thor: The God behind the Superhero

8/3/2022
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 Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor: Love and Thunder. But behind the countless films and works of fiction, what’s the real origin story for Thor? How was he worshipped? And how has he secured such an enduring place in popular culture? In this episode of Gone Medieval, Dr Cat Jarman speaks to Professor Carolyne Larrington, an expert in Norse literature and...

Duration:00:42:11

When Football Banned Women

8/2/2022
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 football is getting the attention it deserves. Well, a century ago, it was women who dominated the pitch, commanding crowds bigger than the men's games. But that changed on the 5th of December 1921 when the FA placed a complete ban on women playing professional football. That ban lasted 50 years. In this episode from our archive, celebrated...

Duration:00:19:40

The Defeat of the Spanish Armada

8/1/2022
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 fierce naval battle—foiled the planned invasion. Many myths still surround these events. The genius of Sir Francis Drake is exalted, while Spain’s efforts are belittled. But what really happened during that fateful encounter? For this episode of the podcast, Dan welcomes back distinguished professor and historian, Geoffrey Parker. They deconstruct...

Duration:00:51:01

The Long Death of Slavery

7/29/2022
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 approximately 100 years in which there were various moments of emancipation, these processes often provided failed pathways to justice for people who had been enslaved. Kris Manjapra is a professor, author and historian. Kris joins Dan on the podcast to unearth disturbing truths about the Age of Emancipations, 1780-1880. They discuss examples of...

Duration:00:23:52

Anne of Cleves

7/28/2022
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 in fact a political refugee, supported by the King? Was she a role model for her step-daughters Mary and Elizabeth? Why was her marriage to Henry doomed from the start? In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by author Heather R. Darsie - editor of maidensandmanuscripts.com - whose research into Anne of Cleves...

Duration:00:41:01

A Short History of the Ottoman Empire

7/27/2022
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 century with its centre in what is now modern Turkey. It held swathes of Europe for centuries right up to the First World War. In this episode, Professor of International History, Marc Baer and Dan rampage through that history and discover how the Ottomans weren't simply the Islamic-Asian antithesis of the Christian-European West, but in...

Duration:00:23:47

The Biggest Prison Breakout of WW2

7/26/2022
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 of August 5th they staged one of the largest prison breakouts in history, launching the only land battle of World War II to be fought on Australian soil. Five Australian soldiers and more than 230 Japanese POWs would die during what became known as The Cowra Breakout. In this episode historian and podcaster Mat McLachlan joins Dan to tell him...

Duration:00:23:50

Putin, Power and Personality

7/25/2022
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, meddles in western elections and orders assassinations inside and outside Russia. But who is the man behind the headlines? For years, Philip Short was a foreign correspondent for the BBC. He is now the author of many acclaimed biographies. Having spent eight years interviewing those who dealt with Putin as part of their official duties,...

Duration:00:31:20

Waterloo Uncovered: Bones from the Battlefield

7/22/2022
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 an astonishing discovery was made. The project Waterloo Uncovered unearthed bones that could hold extraordinary insights into the experiences of Waterloo soldiers, their diets, health, life and death. This episode was edited and sound designed by Aidan Lonergan. For more Warfare content, subscribe to our Warfare Wednesday newsletter here. If...

Duration:00:44:51

The Apollo Programme with Kevin Fong

7/21/2022
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 ground up, and there were plenty of moments where it seemed as if they weren't going to make it. Kevin Fong tells stories of just how close they came, and how risky it was. After all, it was hard to feel safe when a pen could go straight through the module. Professor Kevin Fong is a consultant anaesthetist at UCLH and professor of public...

Duration:00:28:36

Hatshepsut: The Temple of Egypt's Female Pharaoh

7/20/2022
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 temple of Hatshepsut, the great female pharaoh who came to the throne of Egypt in 1478 BC sits nestled beneath a dramatic amphitheatre of limestone cliffs on the edge of the Valley of the Kings. Hatshepsut lived as long before Jesus was born as Henry the 8th lived after and presided over rich and powerful Egypt. She established trade routes and her...

Duration:00:15:11

Formidable Heroines of History

7/19/2022
From the notorious thief Mary Frith in the seventeenth century to industrialist and LGBT trailblazer Anne Lister in the nineteenth, these heroines redefined what a woman could be and what she could do in pre-twentieth-century Britain. Holly Kyte, author and literary critic, joins Dan to shine a light on some of the unsung heroines of British history who refused to play by the rules. They detail the histories of the formidable women whose grit, determination and radical unconventionality saw...

Duration:00:28:05

My Life as a Child Prisoner of War

7/18/2022
The Imperial Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began on December 25, 1941, after the then Governor, Sir Mark Young, surrendered the British Crown colony to the Empire of Japan. The occupation lasted until Japan surrendered at the end of World War Two. Joining Dan on the podcast today is Barbara Sowerby, who was born in Hong Kong in 1936 to an English father and Portuguese mother. Aged just five years old, Barbara’s happy childhood would change when her family were amongst the fleeing...

Duration:00:17:40

Beer

7/15/2022
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 did it come to hold this position? Why has this been more true for British men than for British women? And what did beer taste like before mass production and microbiology? Kate Lister has a pint with author, broadcaster and beer lover Pete Brown to find out. WARNING this episode includes some fruity language Produced by Charlotte Long and...

Duration:00:46:44

Wars in the Atlantic World

7/14/2022
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 drove the development of technologies like ships, port facilities, fortresses, and roads. Crossing the ocean was made possible, connecting previously separate lands, nations and empires from Europe to West Africa and North and South America. In this episode, Professor of Early Modern History Geoffrey Plank joins Dan to discuss how connecting...

Duration:00:28:21

The 'Dark Ages' with Michael Wood

7/13/2022
Lasting 900 years, the ‘Dark Ages’ were between the 5th and 14th centuries, falling between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance. Today’s guest overturns preconceptions of the ‘Dark Ages’ as a shadowy and brutal era, showing them to be a richly exciting and formative period in the history of Britain. For more than 40 years, historian and broadcaster Michael Wood has made compelling journeys into the past, which have brought history alive for a generation. Michael joins Dan on...

Duration:00:27:11

The Black Medal of Honour

7/12/2022
In 1945, when Congress began reviewing the record of the most conspicuous acts of courage by American soldiers during WWII, they recommended awarding the Medal of Honour to 432 recipients. Despite the fact that more than one million African-Americans served, not a single black soldier received the Medal of Honour. Rob Child is an Emmy-nominated screenwriter, director and published author. Allene Carter is the daughter-in-law of Edward Allen Carter Jr., an Army sergeant who exhibited heroism...

Duration:00:30:26

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