The inspiration behind countless gothic novels, Countess Elizabeth Báthory is said to be one of the most prolific serial killers of all time, accused of the murder of 600 girls during the late 16th century. Dan talks to Professor Kimberly Craft, a legal historian who has spent over a decade researching the life and trial of Countess Báthory and over a year translating original source material into English. Where does the truth lie, a conspiracy started by her enemies or a psychopathic vampire?

Produced by Beth Donaldson and edited by Dougal Patmore.

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Was Rasputin really Russia’s greatest love machine? Did he have any healing powers? And why might his penis be pickling in a jar?

In this episode, we are drawing this mystical man out of his cloud of green smoke to find out which of the things we know about him might actually be true.

Kate Lister from Betwixt The Sheets is joined by Douglas Smith, historian, translator and expert in Russian history, who has emerged from the archives with a new interpretation of this cartoon baddy.

*WARNING there are naughty words and discussions of sexual coercion in this episode*

Produced by Charlotte Long and Sophie Gee.

Betwixt the Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society. A podcast by History Hit.

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James Arthur Stanley Harley was a scholar, reverend, politician, and perhaps aristocrat. Born in a poor village in the Caribbean island of Antigua, he went on to attend Howard, Harvard, Yale and Oxford universities, was ordained a priest in Canterbury Cathedral and was elected to Leicestershire County Council. This remarkable career was all the more extraordinary because he was black in an age - the early twentieth century - that was institutionally racist.

Pamela Roberts is an award-winning creative producer and historian. Her work as Founder and Director of Black Oxford Untold Stories has raised the profile of many black scholars from the turn of the twentieth century. Pamela joins Dan to offer insight into the Antiguan scholar, his entry by marriage to the Washington elite, and his clerical and political careers.

Produced by Hannah Ward and edited by Joseph Knight.

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On the 1st of November comes an immersive mini-series telling the story of one of the great discoveries of all time: the tomb of Tutankhamun. For more than 3000 years, the boy pharaoh lay undisturbed and almost forgotten in the Valley of the Kings; when in 1922 British archaeologist Howard Carter noticed a set of steps leading down into the earth, they would reveal the most extraordinary gateway to the afterlife the world had ever seen

Marking the 100th anniversary of Howard Carter’s discovery, Dan Snow’s History Hit is bringing you a dramatic retelling, recorded from within the tombs of Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. With celebrated Egyptologists, Dan unravels the story of one of the world’s greatest ancient dynasties and the discovery that gripped the globe and still does to this day.

Get lost in the Valley of the Kings with Dan, coming to the podcast soon…

Fought in the second half of 1942, the Battles of El Alamein were a series of climactic confrontations in Egypt between British Imperial and Commonwealth forces, and a combined German and Italian army. Intended as a last-ditch attempts by the British to halt German gains in North Africa, they resulted in a clear victory for the British and represented a key turning point in the Second World War. Winston Churchill famously remarked that it was ‘not the end, not even the beginning of the end but, possibly, the end of the beginning’.

In this episode, Dan explores the circumstances that provoked this historic confrontation, and takes us through the twists and turns of the battle itself, from the perspective of those who fought it.

Produced by Dan Snow, James Hickmann and edited by Joseph Knight.

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On 21 October 1805, A British fleet commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson met the combined might of the French and Spanish fleets off the coast of Spain. Outnumbered, Nelson used innovative tactics to break up the allied fleet and ensure success but at great cost to his men and of course himself. It was a truly crushing defeat for the Franco-Spanish forces though. With the majority of their ships destroyed or captured it confirmed Britain's naval supremacy for decades to come. In this dramatic telling of one of the most famous battles in naval history, Dan brings to life the men, the commanders, the ships, and the tactics that enabled the British fleet to emerge as victors.

This episode was edited by Dougal Patmore.

This episode was first broadcast on 21st October 2021.

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Death by tiger bites. Death by prodding. Death from sexual excess. Deaths from over-eating and over-drinking. The opening of graves.

These are a few of the chapter headings in a 13th-century Chinese book called ‘The Washing Away of Wrongs’. It is a compendium of grizzly, gory, bizarre murders and deaths.

Its author was Song Ci, a Confucian trained bureaucrat who, like his fellow officials all over China, was responsible for investigating murders in his jurisdiction. According to the Wikipedia page for ‘forensic science’ this book is the earliest written evidence of forensic thinking. Is that correct?

Our guest today is Daniel Asen, a historian of China at Rutgers University.

This is the first episode in a mini-series from Patented: History of Inventions we’re bringing you all about the invention of Forensics.

Produced by Freddy Chick

Edited by Pete Dennis and Anisha Deva

The actors were Lucy Davidson and Tristan Hughes

The Executive Producer is Charlotte Long

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Born Mary Jane Grant in the colony of Kingston, Jamaica, in November 1805, Mary would later become a businesswoman, traveller and healer. Posthumously, Mary is best known as a Black British nurse.

Gretchen Gerzina is an author and academic who has written mostly historically-grounded biographical studies. Grethen joins Dan to share the story of Mary Seacole— how the traditional Afro-Caribbean medicine she learned from her mother would inform much of her life, her experiences as a Jamaican woman of mixed race and how she nursed the wounded of the Crimean War.

This episode was produced by Hannah Ward and edited by Dougal Patmore.

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Could Liz Truss be Britain's worst Prime Minister? As the political scene in the UK hurtles into further disarray, Dan gets together historians Tim Bale, Catherine Haddon and Robin Eagles to put forward who they think has been Britain's worst Prime Minister over the centuries. Anthony Eden, Edward Heath and the 3rd Earl of Bute contend for first place.

This episode was produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.

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In October 1962 the world came very close to annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the autumn of 1962, a U2 reconnaissance aircraft produced clear evidence that the Soviet Union and the Cuban authorities were building medium-range ballistic missile facilities on the island of Cuba and only around 100 miles from the coast of Florida. The resulting confrontation between the USA under JFK and the Soviet Union led by Nikita Khrushchev lasted just over a month and it's often considered to be the closest that the Cold War came to escalating to full-scale nuclear war. Serhii Plokhy, author of Nuclear Folly: A New History of the Cuban Missile Crisis, is Dan's guest on the podcast.

This episode was first released on 16 April 2021.

The audio editor for this episode was Dougal Patmore.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!

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