Dan Snow's History Hit

2019 marks 100 years since Nancy Astor, the first female MP in Britain, took her seat in the House of Commons. Rachel Reeves, long-serving Labour politician and author, speaks to Dan about the remarkable achievements of pioneering women of Westminster and how the challenges faced by today's cohort of female MPs differ from those faced by their predecessors.

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Ben Monro-Davies is a journalist who has interviewed all the surviving participants of the cabinet meeting in which Margaret Thatcher announced her decision to resign. He and Dan listen to the recordings, and chat about their significance, and the way Mrs Thatcher and others responded to her fall from power.

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Professor Mary Fulbrook's book Reckonings won the 2019 Wolfson History Prize for its unique approach to the Holocaust, and in particular, those who perpetrated the atrocities. Fulbrook claims that the West German justice process was far too lenient on many ex-Nazis, who had condemned thousands or even hundreds of thousands to their death. She talks to Dan about the justice process, and what drove people to commit war crimes, and what stopped people from resisting them.

For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, signup to History Hit TV. Use code 'pod3' at checkout.

Producer: Peter Curry

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The Allies seized the German fleet at the end of WW1 and it was held at Scapa Flow, in Orkney, until the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were announced. At least, that was the plan.

The German navy covertly scuttled their own boats under the noses of their captors, rendering the fleet useless, until one firm set out on a massive salvage operation to recover usable material from the boats. Ian Murray Taylor's grandfather was at the top of the operation, and he talks to Dan about the story of Scapa Flow.

For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, signup to History Hit TV. Use code 'pod3' at checkout.

Producer: Kathrin Benöhr

Assistant Producer & Audio: Peter Curry

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Dan talks to Richard van Emden about his new book - Missing: The Need for Closure After the Great War.

The backbone of the book is based on the best single story of WW1 that he has found in 35 years. It is the story of one woman’s relentless search for her missing son’s body. A story with incredible twists and turns.

Against the odds she finds him in 1923. Richard also looks at the bigger picture, ie how long should the nation search for its dead and the mistakes made identifying the dead when exhumation parties were under such intolerable pressure.

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The 9th November 1989 was one of the most significant dates in 20th century history. The Berlin Wall fell, changing the entire geopolitical situation and marking the start of the decline of Russia's world standing. Author Rory MacLean was present when the Wall fell, and he talks about the jubilation of the East Berliners, as well as what the fall of the Wall meant for Russians like Vladimir Putin.

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Dan chats to Tim Mohr, a Club DJ turned writer, who has a very different story of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Tim talks about East German punks, who opposed the oppressive DDR government with their music and their actions, and describes how many of them were arrested because what they stood for was totally antithetical to the government regime.

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Producer: Peter Curry

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David Andress delves into the French Revolution, explaining its causes, its outcomes, and how we should look at its historical legacy.

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The cleverest man in Britain weighs in on the state of our politics and the state of the British electoral system. Lord Sumption was a Justice of the Supreme Court, exceptionally sworn in straight from the bar, and he is also a historian of the Hundred Years War, having written a multi-volume history of the period.

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Adam Frankel worked in the Obama white house as a speech writer. His grandparents were holocaust survivors from eastern Europe.

His mother had profound mental health problems and he discovered that his father was not his father. in an effort to understand the roots of this he learned about what his grandparents had suffered and met with the world's leading experts on inherited trauma, how their experiences are continuing to impact their descendants today.

We also talked what it was like working for Obama

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