Dan Snow's History Hit

Dan is joined by Professor Kate Williams to discuss the rise and fall of Mary Queen of Scots, one of the most dramatic and tragic figures of the Sixteenth Century - https://pod.fo/e/1148a4

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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The Confederacy was more than an army. It was a national project. A whole state, albeit an internationally unrecognised one, formed between 1861-1865 complete with its own capital city, constitution and even a postmaster general.

In this episode, Dan is joined by Stephanie McCurry to dig into what was happening behind the front line. They get into how the secession crisis, the national building project, and its key weakness and oversights.

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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From the summer of 1940, approximately 30,000 so-called ‘enemy aliens’ were indefinitely sent to internment camps across Britain.

Gripped by spy fever and the panic over the fall of France, the British government adopted an aggressive internment policy targeting a broad cross-section of Austrian and German passport holders who were then living in the UK. Many of these people were refugees who had fled the Nazi regime, only to find themselves once again a target of persecution.

In this episode, we speak to Simon Parkin, author of Island of Extraordinary Captives, about the experience of the prisoners, the remarkable cultural and educational exchange within the camps as well as the campaign efforts that eventually led to their release.

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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To mark the end of a truly epic journey, Dan wanted to hear from you -the listeners- those that have dedicatedly followed the story of Endurance22. Find out the answers to your questions as Dan responds candidly to the things that you all wanted to know.

In the concluding episode of the Endurance22 series, we also share Dan’s conversation with John and Viv James, the sons of Endurance veteran Reginald James. Although Dan spoke with John and Viv before the shipwreck was discovered, the meaning of the search for Endurance was evident even then.

Finally, Dan reflects on the experience of Endurance22 and the incredible people that he has met along the way.

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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The use of the word ‘Oligarch’ has been increasingly rampant across international news outlets since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine just weeks ago. But what does it actually mean?

Jeffrey A. Winters, an American political scientist at Northwestern University who specialises in the study of oligarchy, notes that the common thread for oligarchs across history is that wealth defines them, empowers them and inherently exposes them to threats.

While Dan makes his voyage home, Matt Lewis, from the ‘Gone Medieval’ podcast, steps in for this timely episode. To try and make sense of this ancient, yet contemporary phenomenon, Jeffrey joins Matt for a discussion of what oligarchy is, historic and contemporary cases and the relationship between oligarchy and democracy.

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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The revolution in speed ground to a halt in the 1960s. The previous half-century saw great leaps in how quickly people could get from place to place: high-speed railways, cars, intercontinental flight. In our lifetime transport may have become safer and comfier — but we aren't getting anywhere any faster.

How did these great leaps happen? What grove this focus on transport innovation and where does collaboration come into play? And why has the focus shifted? In this episode, we talk to Matt Ridley, author of How Innovation Works, about the acceleration of transport innovation from the steam engine to space travel.

If you want to hear more from History Hit's newest podcast Patented: History of Inventions presented by Dallas Campbell then click here. Expect new episodes every Wednesday and Sunday.

There are also 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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March 15th 44BC is perhaps the most notorious date in all of ancient history. On that fateful day, the Ides of March, 55-year-old Roman dictator Gaius Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of disaffected senators.

In this episode – the first of our special Ides of March miniseries this month – Tristan from The Ancients (with a little help from Dr Emma Southon and Dr Steele Brand) untangles fact from fiction, truth from myth, to take you back to that very afternoon in the heart of Rome's doomed republic.

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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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.

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