Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchThe hidden history of female sexual pleasure
Episode 2557
How did women in the past experience sex and pleasure? Kate Lister reveals that this is a rather complicated question. Instead of simply lying back a…
1 month, 1 week ago
Why Cleopatra was more than a bewitching beauty
Episode 2556
We often think of Cleopatra as using her feminine wiles to secure, and maintain, power. But was that really the case? And what other skills and quali…
1 month, 2 weeks ago
Better than Bridgerton: the real Georgian masquerade
Episode 2555
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 u…
1 month, 2 weeks ago
Weimar's descent from democracy to barbarism
Episode 2554
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…
1 month, 2 weeks ago
Alan Turing: life of the week
Episode 2553
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…
1 month, 2 weeks ago
The self-made Marilyn Monroe
Episode 2552
Marilyn Monroe is synonymous with glamour, beauty and stardom – but scratching the surface of her public image reveals another story. Author and prof…
1 month, 2 weeks ago
Cleopatra’s bloody rise to power
Episode 2551
From formidable overseas leaders to vicious internecine conflict, Cleopatra’s rise to the top was bloody and brutal. So what personal qualities did s…
1 month, 2 weeks ago
Gullible Georgians: hoaxes in the Enlightenment period
Episode 2550
The 18th century was an age of industrialisation, scientific exploration and ‘progress’, but what happened when those rational foundations were shake…
1 month, 3 weeks ago
Spies, radicals and deportees: one hotel in wartime Paris
Episode 2549
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 act…
1 month, 3 weeks ago
Timur: life of the week
Episode 2548
Timur – sometimes known as Tamerlane – carved out one of history’s largest empires through sweeping military campaigns and ruthless violence. Emily B…
1 month, 3 weeks ago