Sure, It’s Only History

Discover how a newspaper challenge launched a desperate race to cross the Atlantic, driving aviation forward through wartime innovation and sheer audacity. The episode follows the underdog Vickers team as they cram a bomber with fuel, fight brutal takeoff conditions, and vanish into the dark with no radio contact.

This episode explores how the 1916 Easter Rising shifted from a damaged rebellion into a national cause after the executions at Kilmainham Gaol. It also follows the survivors to Frongoch and reflects on how Dublin’s landscape still carries the memory of those events.

We trace the chaotic first moments of the Easter Rising as rebels storm the GPO, Patrick Pearse reads the Proclamation, and baffled Dubliners react with laughter, suspicion, and plenty of confusion. The episode explores how a bank-holiday uprising turned into a mix of farce, looting, and the spark of a national revolution.

This episode follows the escalation of the Easter Rising in Dublin, from the HMS Helga shelling Liberty Hall to the firestorm on O’Connell Street and the civilian toll of urban warfare. It also covers the desperate stand at Mount Street Bridge, the surrender at Moore Street, and how public anger later transformed the rebels into martyrs.

Tom Clarke and Seán MacDiarmada rebuild the Irish Republican Brotherhood in the shadows, then race toward rebellion as World War I creates a brief opening for action. When the Aud’s rifles are lost and Eoin MacNeill cancels the Volunteers, Pearse and Connolly still choose to march into a doomed but world-changing uprising.