Wars That Shaped The World

By Goalhanger Podcasts

What's Wars That Shaped The World about?

Wars That Shaped The World, the stories of conflicts that defined history.

From the air and amphibious assaults of the D-Day landings, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait bringing about the first Gulf War, to the split of Korea… these stories of war are brought to life via epic storytelling based on real life accounts.

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Wars That Shaped The World episodes:

04.10.2024
4 - The hard yards
‘What is it that makes people go forward when every instinct is to go back? I think it’s to do with the people you’re with, not letting them down…’ The tumble of rugged hills that shelter Port Stanley, the capital of...
04.03.2024
3 - The battle for Goose Green
‘He was a real leader - he had grown up with the philosophy of soldiering.’ As dawn broke on 22 May, 1982 daylight revealed the British were back - troops poured ashore in San Carlos Bay. But it was all taking...
03.27.2024
2 - Sink the Belgrano
‘I wanted to get out alive - I didn’t want to die.’ The taskforce hurriedly assembled to retake the Falkland Islands departed in a blaze of red-white-and-blue and sailed south - how would Argentina and her navy respond? As the...
03.20.2024
1 - The Malvinas are Argentine
It was early in the morning of 2 April, 1982, that the first British shots of the Falklands War were fired when a handful of outnumbered Royal Marines opened up on the invading Argentines. Hours later the Marines were lying...
03.13.2024
4 - The bloody finale
The Crimean War had become a conflict of cruel attrition. Who was prepared to sacrifice the most men? The British and French attacked, the Russians resisted. Thousands were killed, many thousands more maimed and scarred for life. The Russians broke...
03.06.2024
3 - The fight for survival
As winter swept over the Russians in Sevastopol and their French and British besiegers huddled on the surrounding heights, the Crimean War settled into a deadly pattern – this was modern warfare, trenches, artillery and death rates as high as...
02.28.2024
2 - Into the Valley of Death
’Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do or die…’ Few moments in Britain’s long history have been celebrated and mythologised like the Charge of the Light Brigade, six hundred and sixty one men riding gloriously into the pages...
02.21.2024
1 - The rise of the Russian bear
The Crimean War began in 1854 and changed the course of European history. This gruelling conflict, with the British and French alarmed by the rising threat of Russia, marked the changing face of war – the beginning of the end...
02.14.2024
4 - The Boers... decisions must be made
The war is at a tipping point. Retreats, secret meetings, religious reasoning… conventional warfare develops into vicious guerilla warfare tactics and struggle. British reprisals will utterly change the face of South Africa in the twentieth century. Narrated by Paul Waggott Written...
02.07.2024
3 - The inglorious siege of Kimberley
Kimberley, the diamond mining capital of South Africa and the heart of the De Beers diamond empire is surrounded by the Boers. Cecil John Rhodes - politician, businessman, imperialist and believer implicitly in white domination, lobbies Britain help to free...
01.31.2024
2 - The Empire is brought to its knees
The conflict had now begun and was expected to result in a swift decisive victory for the British, the world’s most powerful Empire. The butchery of Spion Kop to the resistance of Mafeking however were stops on a journey to...
01.24.2024
1 - A single spark starts the fire
A death at police hands is the final ingredient added to a toxic brew of British grievances against their Afrikaner rulers. For the Boers the British are little more than foreigners, and both see the tens of thousands of black...
01.17.2024
4 - The nuclear option
After being stunned by China’s Red Army, Douglas MacArthur wanted payback – MacArthur demanded President Truman allow him to use the US military’s deadliest weapon, the nuclear bomb. MacArthur wanted to drop 50. The president thought it over; and decided...
01.10.2024
3 - They came from the north
They came out of the gloom of the Manchurian winter, bugles blowing, and swept all before them – the Chinese had arrived and once again the Korean War took a dramatic turn. The threat of China’s Red Army had been...
01.03.2024
2 - The Old Master’s last hurrah
Douglas MacArthur had no military equal, at least in his own mind. The veteran and hero of the victory over Japan believed he could do the same in Korea and with an audacious amphibious landing at Inchon turned the war...
12.27.2023
1 - Red alert: the Communists are coming
At 4am on June 25th, 1950, the Land of the Morning Calm was shattered by the sound of artillery firing across the 38th parallel dividing Korea into north and south. Soon the growl of tank engines, Soviet-made T-34s, confirmed what...
12.20.2023
4 - The Aftermath
‘It looked like what you’d always imagine hell would.’ General Norman Schwarzkopf masterminded the US-led coalition’s crushing victory. Afterwards Stormin Norman flew along the Highway of Death, the road out of Kuwait, looking down on what his troops had done....
12.13.2023
3 - The Attack
In the early hours of Sunday, 24 February, 1991, the still of the desert night was disturbed by the sound of helicopters, packed with paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division, rising into the dark. The land war to free Kuwait...
12.06.2023
2 - The Air War
Welcome to the first 24-hour news war. Saddam called it the ‘mother of all battles’. American jets, he proclaimed, would be blasted from Iraqi skies. The world was glued to rolling news channels as a very different conflict unfolded. Missiles...
11.29.2023
1 - The Invasion
August 2, 1990. They came out of the darkness… tanks, column after column of the Republican Guard, Iraq’s feared and battle-hardened elite. Kuwait’s small and under-prepared army had no answer - within hours their country was under the brutal control...
11.22.2023
4 - Back with a vengeance
“I know the longest day and all that stuff, but this really was a hell of a long day.” The first 24 hours of D-Day were make or break – on Gold, Juno and Sword beaches the British and Canadian...
11.15.2023
3 - Bloody Omaha
“As our boat touched sand and the ramp went down, I became a visitor to hell.” Death was coming to Omaha beach, only few on the Allied side expected it to be directed their way with such devastating consequences. The...
11.08.2023
2 - The first landings and the Airborne hang on
”I was sitting in on the greatest show ever staged!” As the brave men and women of the Resistance hurried through the pre-dawn darkness, risking lives to sabotage the Germans, off the Normandy coast the first landing craft were ferrying...
11.08.2023
1 - Eisenhower’s masterplan and the Airborne assault
Tuesday, 6 June 1944 was barely an hour old when Major John Howard and the men of D Company, Ox and Bucks Light Infantry, hurtled out of the night sky above Normandy. Behind them the largest invasion force ever to...
11.02.2023
Wars That Shaped The World - Coming Wednesday 8th November
Wars That Shaped The World, the stories of conflicts that defined history. From the air and amphibious assaults of the D-Day landings, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait bringing about the first Gulf War, to the split of Korea… these stories of...

What's Wars That Shaped The World about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Wars That Shaped The World episodes:

4 - The hard yards

3 - The battle for Goose Green

2 - Sink the Belgrano

1 - The Malvinas are Argentine

4 - The bloody finale

3 - The fight for survival

2 - Into the Valley of Death

1 - The rise of the Russian bear

4 - The Boers... decisions must be made

3 - The inglorious siege of Kimberley

2 - The Empire is brought to its knees

1 - A single spark starts the fire

4 - The nuclear option

3 - They came from the north

2 - The Old Master’s last hurrah

1 - Red alert: the Communists are coming

4 - The Aftermath

3 - The Attack

2 - The Air War

1 - The Invasion

4 - Back with a vengeance

3 - Bloody Omaha

2 - The first landings and the Airborne hang on

1 - Eisenhower’s masterplan and the Airborne assault

Wars That Shaped The World - Coming Wednesday 8th November

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