Dan Snow's History Hit

From Boudicca to Ukrainian snipers, battlefields have always contained a surprising number of women.

Today Kate is joined Betwixt the Sheets by Sarah Percy to get to the bottom of why women were allowed to be astronauts a full thirty years before they were allowed to fight in combat.

From women who disguised themselves as men in order to be allowed to fight, to the Soviet all-female regiments who Nazi Germany learnt to fear, they'll be discussing fearless women warriors on the frontline.

You can find out more about Sarah's book here: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/sarah-percy/forgotten-warriors/9781529344318/

Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.

Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world-renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.

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Known among the Nazis as "the girl with the red hair," Hannie Schaft was a resistance fighter so deadly that Adolf Hitler personally ordered her capture. She was a 24-year-old Dutch student when the Nazi forces occupied the Netherlands in 1940. Fuelled by a desire to protect her country, Hannie became an integral part of the Dutch Resistance, at a time when speaking out was dangerous and resistance could cost lives, Hannie displayed unyielding courage and determination. She and other women fighters were able to transport weapons in bicycle baskets, plant bombs and eventually lure Nazi officials and conspirators into honeytraps before assassinating them, as most didn't believe women were capable of committing such acts. She was eventually caught, tortured and executed.

Her life and bravery were extraordinary and historian and historical novelist Buzzy Jackson joins Dan to tell Hannie's incredible story. Her life is the subject of Buzzy's new novel 'The Girl with the Red Hair.'

Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore

Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more.

Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.

If you want to get in touch with the podcast, you can email us at [email protected], we'd love to hear from you!

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On a summer morning in 1945, a device known simply as 'Gadget' was detonated. An enormous explosion tore a crater into the New Mexico desert, melting sand into radioactive green glass and sending a mushroom cloud 7.5 miles into the sky. This was the first controlled detonation of a nuclear weapon, and its mastermind was the American theoretical physicist, J Robert Oppenheimer.

In this episode, Dan is joined by writer and artist Ben Platts-Mills to hear about the man who orchestrated one of the most extraordinary scientific developments in human history. What kind of person was he? How did he go from a shy, studious child to a charismatic celebrity scientist? And what did he think about the perils of the weapons he worked so hard to create?

Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.

Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world-renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.

We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at [email protected].

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

They can survive in lava for half an hour and accelerations of 3,400 Gs. Their beacons can be detected 20,000 feet beneath the waves. Most shocking of all - they aren't actually black! (They're bright orange = the least common colour in nature.)

Today it's the invention of the iconic Black Box (or Flight Recorder). We'll meet David Warren, the Australian who invented them. We'll learn how they work and try to fathom the strange fascination they hold.

Edited by Tom Delargy, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long

Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world-renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more.

Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.

If you want to get in touch with the podcast, you can email us at [email protected], we'd love to hear from you!

You can take part in our listener survey here.

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Russian history is defined by the rise and fall of favourites. Peter the Great had Menshikov, and Nicholas II had Rasputin. It's part of the architecture of Russian regimes that those close to the ruler enjoy immense power and influence. But sometimes, they overstep the mark.

For this episode, Dan is joined by the renowned historian of Russia, Simon Sebag Montefiore. To help us better understand the relationship between Putin and Prigozhin, Simon sheds some light on the way Russian power works at its centre.

Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.

Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world-renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.

We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at [email protected].

You can take part in our listener survey here.

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

Did Napoleon really come from nothing and conquer everything? The release of the trailer for Ridley Scott's new epic biopic film has created hot debate among fans of the famous Frenchman everywhere. In this episode from the archive Dan talks to Adam Zamoyski, a biographer of Napoleon about his rise to become one of the most famous and fascinating figures in history.

Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world-renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.

We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at [email protected].

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Emerging around the 3rd century CE and later designated official adversaries of the Roman Empire, the Picts wreaked havoc across the northern fringes of Roman Britain. But due to their limited presence in the archaeological record and the complexities of multiple kings, kingdoms, and languages involved, unravelling the true identity of the Picts and understanding why Rome harboured such animosity towards them can be challenging. So what sources can archaeologists turn to, and what does it show us about ancient Scotland?

In this episode, Tristan welcomes Professor Gordon Noble from the University of Aberdeen to shed light on the enigmatic culture of the Picts. By examining Imperial sources, ancient artwork, and even the earliest known form of daily 'tweets', what insights can we gather about the Picts? And why have they been obscured by the passage of time?

Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world-renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.

We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at [email protected].

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The Cold War was defined by the antagonism between two world superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. They relied on proxy wars, espionage, disinformation, assassinations and sabotage to undermine one another as part of a greater ideological battle between Western democracy and Communism.

We typically think that the Cold War ran from the end of the Second World War until the collapse of the Soviet Union. But our guest today sees it quite differently. Calder Walton, author of Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West, argues that the Cold War is not a vestige of the past but part of an ongoing, 100-year struggle between East and West. How has this war changed over the years? And what does it mean for the future of Russian-Western relations? Listen to this episode to find out.

Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.

Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world-renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.

We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at [email protected].

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In the autumn of 1909, the American explorer Frederick Cook arrived in Copenhagen, claiming to have become the first person to reach the North Pole. His dramatic return had been eagerly anticipated, but one young journalist was skeptical. Philip Gibbs contested Cook's version of events, calling him a fraud and starting a public relations war that captured the attention of the Western world.

So was Cook a charlatan, bent on fame and fortune? Or was Gibbs merely trying to stir up scandal and intrigue? Dan is joined by Richard Evans, author of The Explorer and the Journalist, to find out which of the two emerged from this scandal with their reputation intact.

Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.

Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world-renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.

We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at [email protected].

You can take part in our listener survey here.

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

The most audacious deception operation of WWII. On the 30th of April, 1943, the corpse of a 'Major Martin' washed up near the Spanish city of Huelva. On his body, Spanish officials found secret documents detailing an upcoming Allied invasion of Greece. This was the moment that the Axis powers had been waiting for, and the Germans began redirecting much-needed divisions to Greece and the Balkans. They would discover only too late that this was all an elaborate feint, conceived by British Intelligence to obscure the Allies' real target - Sicily. By mid-July, the Allies had landed in southern Italy and the liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe was well underway.

So how exactly did its architects create this complex web of misdirection and misinformation? And can it really be true that the success of the Sicily invasion came down to this one act of deception? In this Explainer episode, Dan takes us through the twists and turns of this audacious and unorthodox act of subterfuge.

Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore.

Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world-renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.

We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at [email protected].

You can take part in our listener survey here.

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