Channel History Hit

The role of the royal mistress may, on the face of it, seem a simple position but in reality, there was a lot more to being a royal mistress than it might seem. Throughout the courts of Europe, the role of the royal mistress was often a semi formalised one and gave these women extraordinary influence and power. Joining Dan to discuss the importance of the mistress is Dr Linda Kiernan Knowles Adjunct Assistant Professor in History at Trinity College Dublin. They look particularly at the courts of Charles II and Louis XIV and how their respective mistresses controlled access to power, took part in political intrigue and caused great controversy both inside and outside of court.

 

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The second atomic strike on the city of Nagasaki is less well known than the one a few days earlier on Hiroshima, but was it more influential in forcing the Japanese to surrender? To find out who exactly ordered it and why Dan talked to Harvard's Frederik Logevall. He discusses the debates that rage between historians as to whether Nagasaki was necessary and how much pressure there was for a third bomb. On the anniversary of the strike, it is a conversation with powerful contemporary echoes.

 

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A Soviet double agent at the top of his game, a deadly game of cat and mouse with the KGB and one of the most daring escapes of the Cold War from the very heart of Moscow. In this archive episode, Dan talks to author Ben Macintyre about the life of Oleg Gordievsky and what might be the ultimate Cold War Spy story. Appalled by the brutality of the Soviet regime Gordievsky was recruited by MI6 whilst stationed in Copenhagen during the 1970s. For more than ten years he fed precious secrets to western intelligence agencies whilst rising up the ranks of the KGB eventually become the London station chief. Having been suddenly recalled to Moscow and following his drugging and interrogation it was time for Gordievsky to escape and so operation Operation Pimlico was launched.

 

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Approximately 1.35 billion people use it, either as a first or second language, so English and the way that we speak it has a daily impact on huge numbers of people. But how did the English language develop? In this episode from our sibling podcast Gone Medieval, Cat Jarman spoke to Eleanor Rye, an Associate Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at the University of York. Using the present-day language, place names and dialects as evidence, Ellie shows us how English was impacted by a series of migrations.  

 

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In the last 30 years, the internet has utterly changed the world in which we live and is now as vital as electricity in our daily lives. August 6, 1991, is the date given when the first website went live. Published by Tim Berners Lee at CERN it was a moment that would change the world but, as you'll hear in this podcast, that date is in fact not true. To explain what really happened and explore the history of the world wide web, how it works and the vitally important geopolitical issues that surround it Dan is joined by Dame Wendy Hall. Wendy is Regius Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton and has recently published Four Internets: Data, Geopolitics, and the Governance of Cyberspace. Wendy was very much involved in the 1990s as the web was being created and knows the pioneers who launched this groundbreaking technology so is the perfect guest to help remember the birth of the internet.

 

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The discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at former Canadian residential schools have has led to a crisis of identity for the country as it comes to terms with the trauma of the past. For many, these discoveries fit into a pattern of discrimination and demographic replacement with the arrival of European settlers which could be described as genocide. In this episode, Dan speaks to Tracey Bear and Jim Miller about what happened to the indigenous people of Canada at the schools and what this means for modern Canadians if their country is, in fact, the product of Genocide?

Tracy Bear Nehiyaw iskwêw is a Cree woman from Montreal Lake First Nation in northern Saskatchewan and the Director of the Indigenous Women’s Resilience Project. She is one of the key authors of Indigenous Canada is a 12-lesson Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) from the Faculty of Native Studies that explores Indigenous histories and contemporary issues in Canada. You can learn more about the course here.

Jim Miller is a historian at the University of Saskatchewan. Dr. Miller is a nationally recognized historian who has studied the relationship between Canada's indigenous population and colonial settlers for decades including on the subjects of residential schools, so-called Indian treaties and law as it pertains to the indigenous people of Canada.

 

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On August 4, 1914, Britain declared war on Germany and entered the First World War. This was a conflict of unparalleled savagery with industrialized slaughter on a scale that the world had never seen before. To commemorate this important anniversary Dan guides us through what led Europe and the world to choose war in 1914. He explores some of the many different reasons for war from the miscalculations and misguided beliefs of European leaders to the structural causes such as the role of capitalism and imperialism that helped bring about the conflict. As well as unpacking the causes of the war he also looks at its consequences which we are still living with today.  

 

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The Olympics are a sporting event like no other and in this episode, we celebrate two great British Olympians of the past Anita Neil and Hugh 'Jumbo' Edwards. These are two very different athletes from completely different backgrounds, but each highlights the Olympic spirit at its finest. 

Firstly, Dan speaks to a British Olympic pioneer Anita Neil who was the first black woman to represent Great Britain at the games. Anita was an extraordinary sprinter who represented Great Britain at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico and the 1972 games in Munich. Anita and Dan discuss he journey to the Olympics, her experiences there and the struggles she faced trying to compete at the highest level.

Then Dan speaks to Gavin Jamieson about the extraordinary life of Hugh 'Jumbo' Edwards. A legend in the sport of rowing he competed in the Oxford Cambridge boat race, won three races at the Henley Regatta and then went on to the Los Angeles Olympics in 1932 where he won two Olympic gold medals in the space of an hour; a record that stills stands today. During the Second World War, he joined the RAF and was a decorated pilot in Bomber Command and later in life became an innovative rowing coach.

Listen to our recent episode examing the history of the Olympics with Professor Martin Polley here. 

 

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One aspect of India's independence that is often overlooked is the role of India's princely states; the Maharajas. During the Raj, these states had been semi-autonomous and not actually part of the British Empire. They did however rule with the permission of the British Government and were really puppet sovereign figures. However, when India got its independence after the Second World War these state's became a problem that had to be resolved for the new Indian state. 

John Zubrzycki, author of The House of Jaipur: The Inside Story of India's Most Glamorous Royal Family, is an expert on what happened to these royal families. He joins the podcast today to explain the structure of these royal states, their relationships with each other and how they were brought into the republic of India sometimes using force. In particular, he tells the story of the Royal House of Jaipur and Maharaja Man Singh II and his wife Maharani Gayatri Devi who was India’s mid-century golden couple rubbing shoulders with the Windsor's and the Kennedy's. This is a story of the end of empire, political fights, wealth, fashion and celebrity. 

 

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In 1588 the English Navy defeated one of the greatest fleets ever assembled; the Spanish Armada. A week of running battles in the English Channel culminated in a major clash off the coast of the town of Gravelines (now in France) where the English used fire ships to score a crushing naval victory against the Spanish fleet. This is one of the most famous naval clashes in history but how was the Armada beaten? 

Dan tells the story of this titanic naval clash where superior English seamanship, new ship designs and new ideas about fighting at sea paved the way for victory. He also explores the misconceptions about the role the weather played in the fighting; and whether in fact, it benefitted the Spanish possibly preventing an even greater disaster for them. Victory over the Armada became a founding myth of the Royal Navy and would inspire seafarers, naval commanders and political leaders for generations to come.

Earlier this week Alexander Samson joined the podcast for the first of two podcasts about the armada and the relationship between England and Spain. You can listen to that episode here.

 

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