Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchInside the Viking battle of the genders
Episode 2442
What do we know for certain about Old Norse ideas about masculinity and femininity, and can Viking Age mythology provide any answers? In conversation with James Osborne, Dr Jackson Crawford discusses…
Published on 11 hours ago
A house of one’s own: Jane Austen’s ‘golden years’
Episode 2441
It was at Chawton House, a cottage in rural Hampshire, that Jane Austen experienced one of the most fruitful episodes of her writing career. In this third instalment of our four-part series charting …
Published on 1 day, 11 hours ago
Æthelstan: the king who made England
Episode 2440
Æthelstan was crowned in Kingston upon Thames 1100 years ago, in AD 925. He went on to extend his authority far beyond his initial powerbase of Wessex and Mercia to become the first king of England. …
Published on 3 days, 11 hours ago
Did the WW1 Christmas truce really happen?
Episode 2439
It’s one of the most romantic images of the First World War: British and German soldiers meeting in No Man’s Land on Christmas Day, 1914, for a spontaneous truce and a game of football. But did it ac…
Published on 5 days, 11 hours ago
Father Christmas: life of the week
Episode 2438
Father Christmas – or Santa Claus – is one of western culture’s most recognisable figures. But from his mysterious origins to quite how he ended up as owner of a North Pole workshop staffed by elves,…
Published on 6 days, 11 hours ago
When was the best time in English history to be alive?
Episode 2437
Did you know that Elizabethan Londoners were good kissers? That medieval drinkers used beer to fight off the flames of a raging inferno? And that Jane Austen doesn't paint an entirely accurate pictur…
Published on 1 week ago
“I am to flirt my last”: Jane Austen’s twenties
Episode 2436
We might assume that Jane Austen led a quiet existence, writing dramatic plots instead of experiencing them herself – but that presumption is far from the truth. In this second episode of our four-pa…
Published on 1 week, 1 day ago
The secret propaganda war against the Nazis
Episode 2435
In September 1939, an unlikely assortment of journalists, politicians, novelists and spies assembled in a Bedfordshire village and set about waging a covert propaganda war on Hitler's Germany. Here, …
Published on 1 week, 3 days ago
The many faces of James VI & I
Episode 2434
Historian Clare Jackson delves into the life and reputation of James VI & I – a king who, says Jackson, has a legacy that has been much refracted and maligned in the 400 years since his death. In her…
Published on 1 week, 5 days ago
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: life of the week
Episode 2433
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 halls and compositions? Ahead of new TV drama Amadeu…
Published on 1 week, 6 days ago