Dan Snow's History Hit

The KGB was the main security agency for the Soviet Union. Tasked with surveillance and rooting out dissidents, religious practitioners and anti-government organisations, the KGB were feared for their intimidation tactics and brutality. They operated across the soviet countries with a particularly sinister presence in Ukraine.

In his desperate attempt to restore the Soviet Union, Putin has silenced critics, historians and organisations that reveal the atrocities committed under the Soviet regime. While the Russian KGB files are completely classified once again, the Ukrainian archives are open for all. Dr Tatiana Vagramenko is currently shedding light on the contents of those archives. She tells Dan that 'what we are witnessing in this current war is the forceful drive to control the pen of Soviet history. This history preserved in Soviet-era archives, is one of the underlying causes of the current war in Europe and peace cannot be achieved without understanding and coming to terms with this past.'

She has spent hours pouring over confiscated letters, diaries, interrogation notes and photos to reveal the lives of ordinary Ukrainians suffering under the persecution of the KGB. She tells Dan about their stories, their suffering and their defiance. Her project is called History Declassified: The KGB and the religious underground in Soviet Ukraine.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

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In this special episode Dan Snow teams up with Alice Levine, Jamie Morton and James Cooper from My Dad Wrote A Porno to chat about all things sex and history. Expect slow thrusting, Henry The Eighth sexual slander and more filth than you can shake a bread dildo at.

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If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

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24th of February 2022 marked the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This episode of Gone Medieval looks at the origins of its capital city, Kyiv, and how today it has become central to this ongoing conflict. Host Matt Lewis is joined by Dr. Olenka Pevny from the University of Cambridge. Together, they discuss the emergence of the Rus people, the consequences of the Mongols' arrival into the region - and ultimately how this period of medieval history has influenced eastern European relationships and the modern-day geopolitical stability of eastern Europe.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

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While Ukraine fights to defend itself from Russian forces, Putin makes a nuclear threat to the west and the rest of the world. Dr Jeremy Garlick, Associate Professor of International Relations and China Studies at the University of Economics, Prague, explains the strategies currently being used by Russia and the West, ‘game theory’ and nuclear deterrence between these two opposing forces through recent history.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

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After World War One women outnumbered men by the highest margin in recorded history, even compared to after World War Two. This had wide-reaching implications for the social, demographic and economic fabric of post-war society.

Today Dan is joined by Mary McKee and Paul Nixon from Findmypast to explore: What does the 1921 Census reveal about the impact of the First World War for Britain?

Are you interested in exploring your own family history? After years spent digitising and transcribing this unique record of your recent history, the 1921 Census is now available exclusively online with Findmypast. Start exploring now at findmypast.co.uk.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

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In April 1945, weeks before the Nazi defeat, nine women made a last-ditch escape from the concentration camp at Ravensbruck. The group, who had all been imprisoned for resistance activity, then undertook a perilously 10-day journey across Nazi frontlines. 

In today's episode, Dan speaks to Gwen Strauss, whose great-aunt was among the nine, about how she uncovered the details of this incredible escape whilst researching her book. 

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

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This year is the 150th anniversary of the world's first national park of its kind, Yellowstone. Each year nearly four million people visit the park but many are unaware of how it was founded.

Its founding act as a snapshot of key forces in post Civil War America; reconstruction and the Republican parties national project; industrialisation and the coming of the railways, and; and the resistance of Native Americans at risk of losing their homelands to white settlers moving westward.

In this episode, we are joined by Megan Kate Nelson, author of Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America, who will unpick the complicated legacy of this iconic landmark.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

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Edward VI, son of Henry VIII, became king at the age of nine. All around him loomed powerful men who hoped to use him to further their own ends. Edward was the only Tudor monarch who was groomed to reign, and it was assumed he would become as commanding a figure as his father had been. In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Professor Stephen Alford, to discover the story of a boy learning to rule and emerge from the shadows of the great aristocrats around him - only to die unexpectedly at the age of 15.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

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On today's episode, Dan takes the podcast out onto the Antarctic ice to find penguins, seals and the expedition scientists conducting experiments. He joins Dr Stefanie Arndt of the Alfred Wegener Institute as she researches climate change in the Weddell Sea's ice. Dan catches her just as she discovers some tiny and very rare snow crystals and her enthusiasm is infectious.

He also takes a trip back up to the ship's bridge to speak with Captain Knowledge Bengu, South Africa's first black ice pilot about his trailblazing career and the sheer might of the SA Agulhas II as he navigates through the heavy ice.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

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Who were the real Peaky Blinders? Did they really exist? Carl Chinn reveals the true story of the notorious gangs that roamed Birmingham's streets during the city's industrial heyday.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

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