Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchThe 'Iron Curtain' speech: why Churchill poked the Russian bear
Episode 144
It’s 80 years since the war victor and ex-prime minister Winston Churchill delivered his ‘Iron Curtain’ speech, sounding the alarm for a perilous new…
4 months, 2 weeks ago
Anne Boleyn’s image problem
Episode 143
Dark or brunette? Fair or swarthy? A paragon of beauty or a refined charmer? Our picture of Henry VIII’s ill-fated second queen has become distorted …
4 months, 4 weeks ago
Mob rule: the rise of the mafia
The 20th century was a golden age for organised crime groups. This Long Read written by Ryan Gingeras reveals how gangs from the Sicilian Mafia to Me…
5 months ago
What Shakespearean food reveals about early modern England
Episode 141
Shakespeare and his peers served up hearty helpings of diverse dishes and ingredients – many of them spiced with forgotten meanings. This Long Read w…
5 months, 1 week ago
A Victorian murder mystery
Episode 140
By 1889, Jack the Ripper's grisly murders had sparked terror throughout London. So when the mutilated body of a woman was found beneath railway arche…
5 months, 2 weeks ago
How empires end
Episode 139
How do civilisations collapse? That was the question at the heart of Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Two hun…
5 months, 3 weeks ago
Why Britain turned its back on the goose step
Episode 138
Extremism was on the march across continental Europe in the 1920s and 1930s – yet Britons chose a different, more moderate path. This Long Read, writ…
6 months ago
1066: not just the Norman Conquest
Episode 137
1066 is synonymous with the battle of Hastings. Yet while Duke William of Normandy was launching his conquest of England, the rest of Europe had its …
6 months, 1 week ago
Medieval England’s terror of the living dead
Episode 136
At the turn of the 12th century, two men from a Staffordshire village died suddenly. Their lifeless bodies were taken to the local graveyard and sole…
6 months, 2 weeks ago
How the SAS reinvented itself after WW2
Episode 135
Britain’s War Office thanked the SAS for its remarkable efforts in WW2 by abolishing it – yet soon realised the error of its ways. This Long Read wri…
6 months, 3 weeks ago