History Now

It was one of the most daring escapes of World War II: when Airey Neave walked out through the gates of Colditz, the ultra-secure camp used to house the most notorious escapers among the Allied forces. His grandson, Sebastian Neave, tells author and historian Guy Walters about his grandfather’s epic journey to freedom - and how he went on to play a key role in the trial of Nazi war criminals at Nuremeberg.

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In the first of a brilliant new podcast series, author and historian Guy Walters asks whether there could be other hoards of buried treasure out there waiting to be found - like the Sutton Hoo treasure in hit Netflix film ‘The Dig’.  Guy talks to Professor Mark Horton about the telltale signs on earth mounds which hint at riches within, and about the undiscovered hoards buried across England - including the lost treasure of English ruler King Penda, a brutal warlord from the 7th Century.  

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Long before the word ‘vaccine’ existed, campaigners battled against the life-saving new technology, spewing lies which sound eerily familiar from today’s online anti-vaxxers. Historian Nigel Jones talks to presenter Jenny Longden about how the anti-vaccine movement began at almost the very moment a country doctor, Edward Jenner, noticed that milkmaids were immune to smallpox and tested a truly revolutionary idea - and how this offers lessons for us today.

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Historian Nigel Jones talks to presenter Jenny Longden in the first of an enthralling new series of history podcasts from Mail Plus. It's a situation with fascinating parallels to today: a Prime Minister hanging on the words of a widely loathed intellectual. Winston Churchill’s friendship with his controversial chief scientist, Frederick Lindemann - a statistical genius known as ‘The Prof’ - led to daily meetings, deadly gadgets such as ‘sticky bombs’, and, eventually, to a tragedy which cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

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