A grubby, secretive cabal of devil worshippers that run the world, or a fraternity of like-minded individuals who enjoy eccentric rituals? Freemasonry, originating in the Middle Ages, played a significant role in the formation of the new American nation under George Washington, held the British empire together, and later served as a tool for authoritarianism and revolutionary conspiracy. 
Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook are joined by historian John Dickie on a journey to uncover the true history of the Freemasons, a society which has counted among its ranks Mozart, Benjamin Franklin, the Duke of Wellington, Shaquille O'Neale, and many more…

*The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*:

Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia!

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Producer: Theo Young-Smith

Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor
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335: The Freemasons: History's Greatest Conspiracy Theory

The world’s most popular history podcast, with Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook.

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History

Society & Culture

By 1809, Lord Byron found himself untethered and debt-ridden. Disenchanted with politics, frustrated by his literary career and haunted by his illicit homosexuality, he abandoned an oppressive England and set out upon his legendary Eastern adventure. First plunging into a Europe torn asunder by the exploits of his hero, Napoleon Bonaparte, Byron decried the imperialist militarism of the raging Napoleonic Wars. Nevertheless, he delighted in the danger and excitement of his travels, absorbing and subsuming the cultures he encountered, and exploring a predilection for transvestism. From Portugal and the Peninsula War, Byron travelled to Albania where he fascinated the infamous Ali Pasha, and then later charmed the Sultan of Constantinople. In Greece, he found a land of exotic romanticism where his growing sense of destiny took root in the Greek’s fight for liberty. At last, in 1811 Byron returned to England and published his poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Almost overnight he became the most famous man in London. Byromania had engulfed the nation…

Join Tom and Dominic as they discuss Lord Byron’s remarkable travels abroad - his encounters with some of the most famous men of the age, his confrontations with danger and destiny, and his untethered eroticism…



*The Rest Is History LIVE in 2024*
Tom and Dominic are back onstage this summer, at Hampton Court Palace in London!

Buy your tickets here: therestishistory.com

Twitter:
@TheRestHistory
@holland_tom
@dcsandbrook

Producer: Theo Young-Smith
Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett
Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor
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441. Lord Byron: Scandal, Sex and Celebrity (Part 2)

Few lives from history can have contained as many strange and exciting strands as that of Lord Byron's, whose story reflects the great dramas of the Napoleonic era. A vampiric hero of devilish charisma; a martyr for liberty, a licentious lothario; Byron’s cultural and literary impact cannot be underestimated. The remarkable course of his life, and his mercurial nature can in part be explained by the dark events of his childhood, and the outlandish history of his own family. Born with a club foot - his “satanic mark” - to “Mad Jack” Byron, a former gigolo dogged by incest and financial ruin, and an unpredictable mother, a strange curse seemed to lie over the family. Impoverished before the inheritance of his title and a romantic ruin in Nottinghamshire, the plump and provincial boy would finally find solace at school and university, where he transformed into the glamorous rake he would become. There too would he discover the dubious sexual passions that would haunt his life…

Join Tom and Dominic as they discuss the diabolic history of the Byron family, and the young Byron’s birth, troubled upbringing, and controversial adolescence.



*The Rest Is History LIVE in 2024*
Tom and Dominic are back onstage this summer, at Hampton Court Palace in London!

Buy your tickets here: therestishistory.com

Twitter:
@TheRestHistory
@holland_tom
@dcsandbrook

Producer: Theo Young-Smith
Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett
Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

440. Lord Byron: Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know (Part 1)

Music for sex, dancing, and watching the straight world go by… 

The explosion of Disco provides an extraordinary window into the tumultuous world of the 1970s, with its themes of sex, drugs, race and sexuality. By the start of the 1970s, America was a nation of dystopian gloom. The radical dream of the 1960’s had dissipated, with economic decline, Vietnam and Watergate polarising and disenchanting the public. Then, at a party in New York held by the DJ David Mancuso, something new was born: Disco. An intoxicating kaleidoscope of dancing and colour with an orgasmic new sound, it united disparate groups under the banner of music. An escape from the concerns of the day, it captivated the mainstream imagination with its idealism, open drug use, self-consciously flamboyant clothes, and acceptance of race and homosexuality at a time when the Civil Rights Movement was raging and gay rights still contentious. But, with its rising orthodoxy, Disco was also attracting a dedicated base of critics and detractors. They decried its hedonism, its debasement of traditional masculinity, and, with the Aids crisis swirling, its immorality. 

Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss the rise and fall of Disco, culminating in the shocking night of Disco Demolition at a White Sox game on the 12th of July 1979. Could it survive this ultimate reckoning?  


*The Rest Is History LIVE in 2024*
Tom and Dominic are back onstage this summer, at Hampton Court Palace in London!
Buy your tickets here: therestishistory.com

Twitter:
@TheRestHistory
@holland_tom
@dcsandbrook

Producer: Theo Young-Smith
Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett
Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

439. Disco: Sex and Race in Seventies America

“We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…”
In his speech at Rice University, Texas, in September 1962, President John F. Kennedy reaffirmed America's commitment to an extraordinary, startling project: landing a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. Facing fierce competition from the U.S.S.R., it would take 11 missions of unimaginable danger to reach this goal, with Neil Armstrong first setting foot on the Moon’s rocky surface on July 21st, 1969. 
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
650 million people watched in awe that day, as Apollo 11 unfolded on live TV. In today’s episode, Tom and Dominic are joined by one of those people, very special guest TOM HANKS, actor, filmmaker and expert on all things Apollo-related, to discuss the epic saga of how humankind made it to the Moon and back. From the tragedy of Apollo 1 and the disaster of Apollo 13, to Buzz Aldrin's "religious moment" after the Eagle had landed, driving foldable cars on the Moon, and the arguments over who would get to take the first lunar steps, Tom Hanks, Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland look at the dangerous, daring, and incredible stories of the Apollo missions.

The Moonwalkers: A Journey with Tom Hanks is on at Lightroom, in King’s Cross, London, until the 13th of October 2024. 
Find out more here: https://lightroom.uk/whats-on/the-moonwalkers/ 


*The Rest Is History LIVE in 2024*
Tom and Dominic are back onstage this summer, at Hampton Court Palace in London! 
Buy your tickets here: therestishistory.com


Twitter:
@TheRestHistory
@holland_tom
@dcsandbrook


Producer: Theo Young-Smith
Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett
Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

438. The Moonwalkers, with Tom Hanks

“I think there is not a devil left in hell, they have all gone into the peasants… smite, stab and slay all”. 
Following on from Martin Luther’s dramatic abduction by his powerful protector, Frederick III, he had been secretly kept safe at Wartburg. There, he abandoned his priestly garments for good, and violently wrestled against the devil, in unorthodox ways…Meanwhile, the religious revolution that he had ignited was sweeping through Europe, and setting everything aflame. A sense of apocalyptic flux saw waves of destructive violence unleashed upon all the old customs and idols, as rebellions erupted throughout Christendom. Luther’s reformation had taken on a terrifying new form of zealotry, which saw him transformed from radical to reactionary. His determination to destroy the new reformers enraged and infuriated many of his old followers. None more so than Andreas Karlstadt - the former chancellor of Wittenberg university against whom Luther unleashed a savage smear campaign - and Thomas Müntzer; an apocalyptic prophet who sought to discredit Luther’s reputation. Then, in May 1524, there exploded an uprising in Germany that would change everything, as militant evangelical peasants came up against their Catholic overlords. A religious war had broken out at last…
Join Tom and Dominic as they discuss the radical turn of Luther’s religious revolution and his efforts to quash it, the groundbreaking Peasants’ War, his unexpected marriage, and the colossal legacy of Luther's ideas, and the Reformation.


*The Rest Is History LIVE in 2024*
Tom and Dominic are back onstage this summer, at Hampton Court Palace in London! 
Buy your tickets here: therestishistory.com


Twitter:
@TheRestHistory
@holland_tom
@dcsandbrook

Producer: Theo Young-Smith
Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett
Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

335: The Freemasons: History's Greatest Conspiracy Theory

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