Podcasts · Dan Snow's History Hit

Disasters in the Age of Discovery

· 46 min · Episode 1642

Episode Disasters in the Age of Discovery

0:00 46:25

The dawn of the age of European exploration in the 16th century was absurdly dangerous. Crews on the ships of Christopher Columbus, Vasco De Gama and Ferdinand Magellan often sailed blind into uncharted waters, battling hurricanes and deadly reefs. With crude navigation tools, rotting food, and disease-ridden ships, survival was never guaranteed. Crews were pushed to their limits—physically, mentally, and morally. Some were deceived into the journey, and others driven by blind hope.

In this episode, Dan is joined by Simon Parker, an associate professor in Medieval and Renaissance Portuguese at the University of Oxford, to tell some of the stories of extraordinary failure and disaster in the age of discovery.

His new book is called Wreckers: Disaster in the Age of Discovery

Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.

We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.

You can also email the podcast directly at ds.hh@historyhit.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The episode on the publisher’s site (opens in a new tab)

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them. Explicit shows are for adult profiles only, and children’s profiles hear only children’s shows. More about this list.