Explaining History

By Nick Shepley

The Explaining History Podcast, created and hosted by Nick Shepley, offers a comprehensive exploration of 20th-century history through weekly episodes. For over a decade, this podcast has been prov

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FAQs about Explaining History:

How many episodes does Explaining History have?

The podcast currently has 792 episodes available.

Explaining History episodes:

August 22, 2020 Guadancanal and Ironbottom Sound
Following the victory over Japan at Midway, the US Navy was unprepared for a devastating defeat inflicted on its landing force at Guadalcanal. The Japanese sought to control islands close to the sea lanes vital to Australia's survival; shutting them off would bring the country to its knees and prevent it becoming a staging post for the liberation of Asia and the Pacific. The commitment of America to Guadalcanal would lead to one of the bloodiest campaigns of the Pacific war.

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26min
August 15, 2020 Collaboration and Vengeance in Europe 1945
In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, civilian governments struggled to establish law and order and in many cars failed to prevent a wave of vigilante violence against those suspected of collaboration. The complicity in Nazi crimes and the everyday experience of occupation created huge divisions in societies of western and eastern Europe and a deep suspicion on the police, who had often been used by the Nazis and collaborationist governments

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26min
August 05, 2020 The Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway was the first major victory of the US Navy in the Second World War, resulting in the loss of four out of Japan's six carriers. This devastating defeat was not the end of Japan's war in the Pacific, but it signalled the start of a downward trajectory from which Japan would not deviate, despite the ability to inflict losses on America until the end of the war.

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26min
July 20, 2020 Britain and the Central African Federation 1951-59
During the 1950s, as Britain attempted to hold on to its African colonies, it had to deal with the ambitions of white colonial settlers for domination of the black population on a more explicitly racist model of government, exemplified by apartheid South Africa and the growing force of black nationalism. The British attempted to foster 'moderate' African leaders who might be compliant in a new state, the Central African Federation, which incorporated North and South Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Outmanoeuvred at every turn by the white settlers, the British were forced to accept defeat and see the break up of their federation.

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27min
July 06, 2020 Abandoned children in Stalin's Russia 1928-39
The rapid industrialisation of the USSR, poor housing, poverty and family breakdown led to countless children being abandoned to fend for themselves by uncaring and cruel parents and step parents. The Soviet state often intervened and prosecuted fathers who refused to pay for the upkeep of their families.

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26min
June 24, 2020 France's road to Dien Bien Phu 1954
As French power and influence declined in Vietnam from 1953 onwards, the conflict started to become a proxy for the wider cold war and not simply an anti colonial struggle. The enormous French miscalculation at Dien Bien Phu, where the garrison was surrounded in a north Vietnamese valley by DRV armies came just as France prepared peace talks at Geneva with the government of Ho Chi Minh.

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26min
June 12, 2020 French political crisis and the First Indochinese War 1951-54
Despair and defeatism defined the French political class's response to the worsening situation in Vietnam following the French defeat at Cao Bang in 1950. This lack of hope led to a gradual decline in the necessary resources to defeat the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. At the same time the DRV was becoming an increasingly professional and organised fighting force.

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28min
May 22, 2020 Hunting Evil: Nazi War Criminals in South America. Explaining History in conversation with historian Guy Walters
In the half decade after the Second World War, a stream of wanted Nazi war criminals, including Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele fled from Germany and escaped via Italy to Argentina and Brazil. They lived relatively openly in the established German communities in both countries and only a handful were ever brought to justice. In this special edition of the Explaining History podcast, we hear from Guy Walters, whose book, Hunting Evil examines the hidden history of this often mythologised chapter of post war history.

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40min
May 18, 2020 German terror bombing and Warsaw 1939
The German airforce was designed to support its army on the battlefield and act as a tool for rapid military operations or 'blitzkrieg'. Unlike British and American air fleets that pursued a policy of strategic bombing away from the battlefield, lighter German aircraft were focused on ground support. Their role in the terror bombing of the defended city of Warsaw was to force capitulation of the army and other defenders, but this came at a deliberate massive civilian cost.

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27min
May 08, 2020 Britain's Europe Referendum 1975
In 1973 the Conservative Party and the right of the Labour Party voted to join the European Economic Community or 'Common Market' as it was known. Despite opposition on the right and left, the decision to join was ratified by a referendum in 1975, but the political divisions foreshadowed endless political conflict over the issue of European integration in later decades.

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27min

FAQs about Explaining History:

How many episodes does Explaining History have?

The podcast currently has 792 episodes available.

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