Podcast Episodes

William the Conqueror: life of the week

Episode 2358

In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, crossed the Channel and changed English history forever. Known to some as a ruthless and ambitious conqueror and to others as a astute and innovative state-builder…

Published on 2 weeks ago

Why the Maginot Line couldn't save France in WW2

Episode 2357

As the threat of war began to loom in the 1930s, an elaborate system of fortifications sprung up in northeastern France. Known as the Maginot line, this string of defences was designed to protect the…

Published on 2 weeks, 1 day ago

Crime fiction history: everything you wanted to know

Episode 2356

From Hercule Poirot to Sherlock Holmes, crime fiction has long been a popular genre. But what was the first crime novel? How has crime writing affected real-life cases? And what was the 'Detection Cl…

Published on 2 weeks, 2 days ago

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 2 weeks, 4 days 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 2 weeks, 6 days 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 3 weeks 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 3 weeks, 1 day 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 3 weeks, 2 days 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 3 weeks, 3 days 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 3 weeks, 4 days ago