Podcast Episodes

How Christianity came to dominate the Roman world

Episode 2355

What if the 'fall' of Rome wasn’t a collapse, but a rebrand? In this episode, Alice Roberts delves into the dramatic transformation of the Roman world and the rise of Christianity, from cliffside bur…

Published on 4 months ago

The spy next door: Moscow's century-long plot to infiltrate the west

Episode 2354

In 2010, the world was stunned when the United States exposed a covert Russian spy network operating on its soil. Seemingly all-American families living in white-picket-fenced suburbia were in fact d…

Published on 4 months ago

Edward the Confessor: life of the week

Episode 2353

Edward the Confessor, England’s penultimate Anglo-Saxon king, has long been remembered as a saintly, pious monarch – but was he really the weak ruler whose indecision paved the way for the Norman Con…

Published on 4 months ago

Britain and the Caribbean: from slavery to Black Lives Matter

Episode 2352

Histories of British involvement in the Caribbean tend to focus mainly on the period of plantation slavery but, in her new book Empire Without End, Imaobong Umoren argues that we need to take a broad…

Published on 4 months ago

Nationalism: everything you wanted to know

Episode 2351

Human beings tend to identify with being in a group, and, historically, few groupings have been more potent than the idea of the nation. But when did people first embrace the idea of the nation state…

Published on 4 months ago

Preview: The forgers who faked a fortune

In 1775, a respectable lady, a mild-mannered apothecary and his fast-living identical twin stood accused of pulling off a scam that had earnt them a fortune. But as their trial unfolded, the defendan…

Published on 4 months, 1 week ago

From dodos to 'lost' tribes: a history of extinction

Episode 2350

After causing the extinction of the dodo, humans soon realised that we had the power to destroy entire species – and we continue to reckon with that power. Speaking to James Osborne, Sadiah Qureshi d…

Published on 4 months, 1 week ago

Europe's last pagans

Episode 2349

Christianity came to dominate Europe in the Middle Ages. However, some parts of Europe remained pagan until very recently. So how did non-Christian peoples survive, and prosper, in parts of Europe fo…

Published on 4 months, 1 week ago

VJ Day and the story of women's football: history behind the headlines

Episode 2348

In the latest episode of our monthly series charting the historical background of current news events, historians Hannah Skoda and Rana Mitter discuss how VJ Day is remembered 80 years on – and explo…

Published on 4 months, 1 week ago

The tangled legacies of two Americas

Episode 2347

For centuries, North and Latin America have been locked in a relationship of rivalry and reciprocity. From revolutionary dreams to imperial ambitions, their fates have never been separate. Speaking t…

Published on 4 months, 1 week ago