History Extra podcast
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History Extra podcast
The HistoryExtra podcast brings you gripping stories from the past and fascinating historical conversations with the world's leading historical experts. HistoryExtra is a free history podcast, with episodes released six times a week. Subscribe now for the real stories behind your favourite films,...
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Better than Bridgerton: the real Georgian masquerade
Is there a real historical phenomenon behind Bridgerton’s masked ball? And what would it really have been like? In this episode, Meghan Kobza takes us...
Weimar's descent from democracy to barbarism
Weimar is a small German city. Yet it looms large in European history. In the 1920s, it was synonymous with liberalism, internationalism and the fine...
Alan Turing: life of the week
Alan Turing is one of the most celebrated of all British scientists. His work in cracking Nazi codes at Bletchley Park, and his role in the evolution...
The self-made Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe is synonymous with glamour, beauty and stardom – but scratching the surface of her public image reveals another story. Author and profe...
Cleopatra’s bloody rise to power
From formidable overseas leaders to vicious internecine conflict, Cleopatra’s rise to the top was bloody and brutal. So what personal qualities did sh...
Gullible Georgians: hoaxes in the Enlightenment period
The 18th century was an age of industrialisation, scientific exploration and ‘progress’, but what happened when those rational foundations were shaken...
Spies, radicals and deportees: one hotel in wartime Paris
The Hotel Lutetia in central Paris lived several lives in the tortured times of the 1930s and 1940s. Before the war, it was the hub of dissenting acti...
Timur: life of the week
Timur – sometimes known as Tamerlane – carved out one of history’s largest empires through sweeping military campaigns and ruthless violence. Emily Br...
How Orkney became the centre of Viking Age violence
For much of the Viking Age, the Orkney archipelago served as a vibrant hub of Norse activity. But these islands were also plagued by violence, not lea...
Young Cleopatra: the making of a queen
Thousands of years ago, a woman emerged on to the world stage whose name would echo down through the centuries: Cleopatra. But what we do we know abou...
A history of Christian sacrifice
What's the role that sacrifice has played in the history of Christianity? It's a history that might be more complex, and more surprising, than we thin...
Redefining historical mothers
Motherhood has long been considered as something expected, rather than extraordinary. Yet from midwives questioning the status quo to pregnant women p...
Lady Jane Grey: life of the week
Think of Lady Jane Grey, and your mind probably goes straight to her legacy as the Nine Days’ Queen. But what do we really know about her life? She mi...
The peacemakers of WW2
Politicians and generals today talk a lot about the need for exit plans to be established if conflict erupts between nations. In the middle of the hor...
The long shadow of the Black Death
When the first wave of the Black Death finally subsided, what sort of world did it leave behind? How did societies adapt in the decades that followed?...
The secret plot to end Scottish independence
How did the union of England and Scotland come to fruition? From failed Scottish colonies to anti-independence espionage, Marc Mierowsky's book A Spy...
How did communism conquer China?
How did a tiny band of guerrillas come to rule a quarter of humanity? And was the outcome of the Chinese Civil War really the ‘heroic’ popular uprisin...
Olaf Tryggvason: life of the week
From thrall to king; from pagan to Christian: Olaf Tryggvason was one of the titanic figures of the Viking Age, whose story straddles the line between...
The death of Adolf Hitler
What do we really know about Adolf Hitler’s death? In this episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, historian and author Caroline Sharples tells Charlotte...
Fear and faith: coping with the Black Death
For those who lived through it, the Black Death left a legacy of fear, loss and uncertainty. But how did people cope with such overwhelming catastroph...
Attenborough: a life on screen
This May marks the 100th birthday of leading British documentary-maker and natural historian David Attenborough. But what's the longer history of wild...
A worker's eye-view of ancient Rome
We know plenty about the lives of rich and powerful Romans – men such as Julius Caesar and Augustus. But Kim Bowes is more interested in those who wor...
Niccolò Machiavelli: life of the week
From obscure beginnings to torture, exile, and desperate reinvention, the biography of Renaissance diplomat and author Niccolò Machiavelli reads like...
How to pull off a Georgian dinner party
A dinner party in a beautifully decorated Georgian dining room might sound sophisticated, even romantic – but planning such events was not for the fai...
The Black Death: a global contagion
The Black Death is remembered as one of the most devastating catastrophes in human history – a pandemic that swept across continents and killed millio...
George Orwell's final chapter
Did you know that George Orwell only found national acclaim as an author in the final years of his life, as his health was worsening? Or that, with th...
Was Elizabeth II's reign a golden age?
When the late Queen acceded to the throne in 1952, Britain, though left bankrupt and reeling from the Second World War, was still a major global power...
Johannes Vermeer: life of the week
Johannes Vermeer is now regarded as one of the leading lights of the Dutch Golden Age, and indeed one of the greatest artists of all time. But in his...
When did Roman Britain really end?
How did England – and Englishness – emerge from the final days of Roman Britain? And what separated Englishness from Britishness? Emeritus professor N...
How the Vikings reshaped Anglo-Saxon England
Alfred the Great’s victory over the Vikings at the battle of Edington brought the campaign of the Great Heathen Army to an end – but it didn't conclud...
Preview: The surprising history of pizza
It's now among the world's most popular foods – but what do we know about the origins of pizza? Today on the HistoryExtra podcast, we're bringing you...
A short history of running
Why do people run marathons in their thousands these days? Carl Morris, in conversation with Dave Musgrove, traces the origins of running as a sport b...
Mary Beard on why the classics still matter
What's the role of the classical past in the modern day? In this episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, internationally renowned classicist Mary Beard r...
Elizabeth II: life of the week
This April marks the centenary of the birth of Elizabeth II. In this special episode of our Life of the Week series, historian Kate Williams guides Ch...
Retracing Eleanor of Castile's final journey
At the end of the 13th century, England was gripped by grief as news of the queen's death shook the nation. Eleanor of Castile's funeral procession fr...
How Alfred the Great saved the Anglo-Saxons from the Vikings
As the Viking Great Heathen Army advanced to the borders of Wessex, the conquest of Anglo-Saxon England appeared all but complete. In the third episod...
How to find a billion-dollar shipwreck
In 1708, the Spanish galleon San José was sunk by a British warship off the coast of Colombia, vanishing beneath the waves with a treasure trove of un...
A fantastical history of fairies
When picturing a fairy, you might imagine a childlike creature with wings. But this is a far more modern image than we might think. In this episode, M...
Aud the Deep-Minded: life of the week
It was the Vikings of northern Europe who first settled the harsh landscapes of Iceland in the ninth century. Most of the figures leading this movemen...
How Tudor London inspired literary genius
In the bustling streets of Elizabethan London, a vibrant community of writers helped shape the future of the English language and literature. From poe...