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HistoryExtra podcast

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300 episodes

The HistoryExtra podcast brings you gripping stories from the past and fascinating historical conversations with the world's leading historical experts.

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Episodes page 5 of 6

  1. The road to the Holocaust

    · 32 min · Episode 2457

    In his latest book, The Hitler Years: Holocaust 1933–1945, Frank McDonough offers a heart-rending year-by-year narrative of the Nazis' escalating persecution of the Jews – from Hitler's rise to power to the death…

  2. The final days of Pompeii

    · 46 min · Episode 2456

    The Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum were wiped off the map within 24 hours of Vesuvius erupting, buried under volcanic debris that would entomb them for centuries. In this second episode of our four-part series,…

  3. Life in the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain

    · 50 min · Episode 2455

    In the eyes of a German fighter pilot in the skies over English Channel in 1940, the Battle of Britain was as much a struggle of human endurance as it was of strategy and skill. Speaking to Emily Briffett, aviation…

  4. The hidden history of US immigration detention

    · 48 min · Episode 2454

    The roots of immigration detention in the US stretch back over a century. Speaking to Elinor Evans, historian Brianna Nofil explores how the US built a vast migrant detention regime. From jailing Chinese migrants in…

  5. Emperor Hirohito: life of the week

    · 42 min · Episode 2453

    While most of the other surviving Axis leaders were put on trial following the end of the Second World War, Japan's Emperor Hirohito never faced justice and, instead, continued to reign until his death in 1989. Debate…

  6. Secrets of the Romans' spectacular success

    · 39 min · Episode 2452

    How did a muddy settlement on the banks of the river Tiber grow into the greatest empire the world had ever seen? Who was the more diabolical: Caligula or Nero? And was there really such a thing as Pax Romana? Speaking…

  7. Before the volcano: life in ancient Pompeii

    · 41 min · Episode 2451

    In AD 79, Pompeii and Herculaneum were subsumed by the eruption of Vesuvius, buried and preserved under metres of volcanic ash. Today, they are among the most famous ruins of the ancient world – and in this four-part…

  8. How do you solve a problem like Napoleon?

    · 44 min · Episode 2450

    In the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, it fell to Britain to maintain the balance of power in continental Europe – but how could a small island manage such a task? How could it prevent the rise of another tricorned…

  9. What does history teach us about protest?

    · 39 min · Episode 2449

    The past 12 months have seen protests around the world make headlines and dominate social media feeds. But how have such popular demonstrations changed the course of history? In this episode, historians Katrina…

  10. Hatshepsut: life of the week

    · 42 min · Episode 2448

    Hatshepsut is one of ancient Egypt’s most extraordinary figures: a pharaoh who deftly asserted her right to the throne, reigned over an era of prosperity, and commissioned some of the most iconic monuments of the era.…

  11. Tragedy and triumph: a 500-year history of Mexico

    · 35 min · Episode 2447

    The chaos of the Spanish conquest, the humiliation of military defeat to the United States, the disruption of the revolution… Mexican history is often viewed through the lens of trauma and violence. Yet, as Paul…

  12. Jane Austen’s final chapter – and lasting legacy

    · 33 min · Episode 2446

    What does Austen’s later writing tell us about her changing ideas? And what factors contributed to her death? In this fourth and final episode of our series chronicling the novelist’s life and work, Dr Lizzie Rogers…

  13. Prophetesses & she-preachers of the 17th century

    · 34 min · Episode 2445

    A prophetess who warned Oliver Cromwell against killing the king. A Yorkshire maidservant who gained an audience with the Ottoman Sultan. The religious tumult of the 17th century gave ordinary women opportunities to…

  14. New Year's Eve, newts and Nessie: a history of British folklore

    · 41 min · Episode 2444

    Why should you be careful about who's first through your door on New Year's Day? What led people to believe that newts and earwigs were responsible for their ailments? And why do sticks play such a key part in…

  15. Augustus: life of the week

    · 45 min · Episode 2443

    ‘Evil genius’ is a phrase that could have been invented to describe Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. Augustus butchered his way to power in the chaos that followed Julius Caesar's assassination, and then showed the…

  16. Inside the Viking battle of the genders

    · 39 min · 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 the second edition…

  17. A house of one’s own: Jane Austen’s ‘golden years’

    · 33 min · 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 the novelist's life…

  18. Æthelstan: the king who made England

    · 33 min · 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. David Musgrove…

  19. Did the WW1 Christmas truce really happen?

    · 35 min · 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 actually happen?…

  20. Father Christmas: life of the week

    · 42 min · 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, much about the…

  21. When was the best time in English history to be alive?

    · 29 min · 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 picture of the early 19th…

  22. “I am to flirt my last”: Jane Austen’s twenties

    · 34 min · 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-part series on…

  23. The secret propaganda war against the Nazis

    · 32 min · 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, in conversation…

  24. The many faces of James VI & I

    · 41 min · 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 reappraisal of the…

  25. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: life of the week

    · 39 min · 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 Amadeus launching on Sky…

  26. A short history of ghost hunting

    · 41 min · Episode 2432

    A spooky story during the Christmas season has become traditional – and the modern ghost story was invented by the Victorians, who embraced the supernatural and tried to understand it. Ben Machell has investigated the…

  27. Becoming Jane Austen

    · 29 min · Episode 2431

    What inspired the daughter of a rural reverend to write about eligible bachelors and drunken misadventure? In this first episode of our four-part series on Jane Austen's life and work, Dr Lizzie Rogers and Lauren Good…

  28. Ghosts, gods & sea monsters: a supernatural history of the Atlantic

    · 34 min · Episode 2430

    For centuries, sailors crossing the Atlantic believed they were not alone – haunted by ghost ships, watched by mermaids, and stalked by sea monsters. Historian Karl Bell talks to Jon Bauckham about the stories that…

  29. The summer that changed everything for the Kennedys

    · 39 min · Episode 2429

    Historian Leigh Straw describes one pivotal summer in the life of the Kennedy family. With most of the family in their Cape Cod summer home, the summer of 1944 was marked by personal grief and political legacy. As…

  30. Margaret Beaufort: life of the week

    · 48 min · Episode 2428

    Born in the tumultuous 15th century, Margaret Beaufort – mother of Henry VII – endured personal tragedy, dynastic danger, and the ever-shifting fortunes of power. Yet she emerged as one of the most influential figures…

  31. Idi Amin's willing helpers

    · 41 min · Episode 2427

    Idi Amin is 20th-century Africa’s most notorious ruler – a cartoonish tyrant who has been bracketed with the likes of Hitler and Stalin. And it’s true that, as Uganda’s dictator for most of the 1970s, he oversaw…

  32. “You can’t kill and maim with impunity”: the powerful legacy of Nuremberg

    · 37 min · Episode 2426

    In the 80 years since Nazi leaders stood in the dock, how has the international community sought to deal with war criminals around the globe? For this concluding episode of our four-part series on the Nuremberg Trials,…

  33. Assassins vs Templars

    · 50 min · Episode 2425

    The Assassins and the Knights Templar are two of history’s most intriguing, enigmatic and legendary groups. While they may seem vastly different on the surface, their intertwined stories reveal a surprising number of…

  34. WW2's Tunisian campaign: the Stalingrad of Africa

    · 47 min · Episode 2424

    For the Allies it was an enormous triumph and for Nazi Germany it was another Stalingrad. But 80 years on, the battle for Tunisia is barely mentioned in popular accounts of the Second World War, having been totally…

  35. Empress Matilda: life of the week

    · 43 min · Episode 2423

    In the tumultuous aftermath of Henry I’s death, England was thrown into one of the most chaotic civil wars in its history – the Anarchy. At the heart of the struggle stood Empress Matilda: daughter of a king, widow of…

  36. How warhorses transformed medieval England

    · 36 min · Episode 2422

    William the Conqueror used them to devastating effect in 1066. Robert the Bruce worked out how to neutralise them. And when Richard III was knocked from his, England would never be the same again. Here, in conversation…

  37. Did the Nazis get a fair trial?

    · 38 min · Episode 2421

    In October 1946, after a trial lasting almost a year, the Nazi leaders on the dock in Nuremberg received their verdicts. But what did the judges decide? And how did the defendants, and the world outside, respond to the…

  38. Forgotten female secret agents of WW2

    · 35 min · Episode 2420

    From sabotage operations to devastating betrayals, stories of the women of Special Operations Executive are some of the most incredible stories of the Second World War – but, says Kate Vigurs, many remain little known.…

  39. What causes cultures to decline and fall?

    · 44 min · Episode 2419

    The new BBC TV series Civilisations: Rise and Fall charts the decline of some of history's most famous cultures, from the Aztecs to the ancient Egyptians. Three of its experts – Islam Issa, Caroline Dodds Pennock and…

  40. Christopher Marlowe: life of the week

    · 43 min · Episode 2418

    From his possible espionage work for the Elizabethan state to his open flirtations with atheism and subversive sexual themes, the brief life of playwright Christopher Marlowe tells us much about the shadowy edges of…

  41. Uprising: the Civil Wars untangled

    · 37 min · Episode 2417

    On 30 January 1649, Charles I was led on to a freshly erected scaffold outside Whitehall’s Banqueting House in London. Thousands of spectators watched in shock and awe as the king of England, Scotland and Ireland was…

  42. The Nazis’ crimes laid bare

    · 47 min · Episode 2416

    When the Nazi leaders went on trial in Nuremberg from November 1945, the true horrors of their regime were exposed to the world. In the second episode of our four-part series on the trials, the lawyer and author…

  43. What does Hitler’s DNA really tell us?

    · 48 min · Bonus

    A recent documentary drawing conclusions from new analysis of Adolf Hitler’s DNA has sparked headlines around the world. But how did the programme’s researchers get hold of the key evidence? And what issues – and…

  44. Mutilated corpses and undead mothers-in-law: vampire epidemics through history

    · 39 min · Episode 2415

    Fears of the undead rising from their graves to cause trouble have recurred in societies around the globe throughout the centuries. But why was your mother-in-law especially likely to become a vampire? What makes Count…

  45. The problem with poo: a millennium of manure

    · 35 min · Episode 2414

    When did poo become a problem? Why was manure so important in the medieval economy? And why don't we have vacuum-powered sewers? All these questions – and more – are answered in this brief history of both animal and…

  46. James Garfield: life of the week

    · 56 min · Episode 2413

    US president James Garfield's life is often overshadowed by his untimely death in 1881, as the second president to be assassinated in office. However, his story is now once again in the limelight, thanks to the new…

  47. A new history of multicultural Britain

    · 43 min · Episode 2412

    As Britain's influence on the world around it grew throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, so too did the world influence Britain – and a key part of that influence was the arrival of people from other places and…

  48. What should we do with the Nazis? The road to the Nuremberg Trials

    · 42 min · Episode 2411

    At the end of the Second World War, the victorious Allies had to decide the fates of the surviving leaders of a regime that had initiated the bloodiest conflict in history, and perpetuated the Holocaust. The answer,…

  49. Who stole the Tudor crown?

    · 34 min · Episode 2410

    On her deathbed Elizabeth I named the Scottish James VI as her successor, ensuring a smooth transition from the Tudor to Stuart monarchies. That, at least, is what we've long believed. But an explosive new discovery…

  50. The librarian who stole KGB secrets

    · 32 min · Episode 2409

    When an elderly man with a battered suitcase walked into the British embassy in Vilnius in 1992, few could have guessed what he was about to hand over. Gordon Corera tells the story of Vasili Mitrokhin, an…

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