In this episode we focus in on the authors of Roman Britain's history and how they defined our understanding.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Railways crisscrossed across Wales. It was a network designed not for Wales, but through Wales. A network that tied valleys to ports, and ports to England.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A time before the NHS, before universal care, before the idea that healthcare might be something guaranteed. And yet, in this period, we begin to see something remarkable.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 41 CE, Rome did something unexpected. It made an emperor out of a man who had spent most of his life being ignored.

That man was Claudius.

Photos in this episode

http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=13471, Public Domain,

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2254930

Bust of Emperor Claudius

1:10 model reconstruction of a quadrireme

Follow us on social media:

Instagram, Bluesky: @Welshhistorypod

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/welshhistorypodcast

Please consider becoming a supporter at: http://patreon.com/WelshHistory

Music: Celtic Impulse - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100297Artist: http://incompetech.com/

© 2026 Evergreen Podcasts

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By the early twentieth century, rugby was not simply popular in Wales. It was emotional infrastructure. It was civic ritual. And in 1905 a game between Wales and New Zealand would set Rugby Union at the heart of Welsh national pride.

Instagram, Bluesky: @Welshhistorypod

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/welshhistorypodcast

Please consider becoming a supporter at: http://patreon.com/WelshHistory

Music: Celtic Impulse - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100297Artist: http://incompetech.com/

© 2026 Evergreen Podcasts

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Because we have so little written history it might seem that Britain was relatively static in the Iron Age. Britain, however, was not frozen in time. It was dynamic. And that dynamism, that competition between kingdoms and elites, created the conditions that made Roman intervention possible.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For centuries, the history of Wales was written as a history of men—of coal miners, ironmasters, and preachers. But by the 1880s, a quiet revolution was brewing in the valleys and coastal towns. Welsh women were no longer content to be the "angels of the hearth."

Follow us on social media:

Instagram, Bluesky: @Welshhistorypod

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/welshhistorypodcast

Please consider becoming a supporter at: http://patreon.com/WelshHistory

Music: Celtic Impulse - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100297Artist: http://incompetech.com/

© 2026 Evergreen Podcasts

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonathan has returned to the UK and talks about what he wants to do now that he has returned.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Between 1900 and 1914, Wales was not simply becoming modern. Wales was arguing about what modernity meant, and whether it had to come at the cost of Welsh language, Welsh institutions, and Welsh identity. Some of that argument happened in Parliament, through bills, speeches, and legislation. Some of it happened in newspapers, in chapels, at eisteddfodau, and in reading rooms. And some of it happened in verse, in voice, and in shared chorus.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before Rome ever landed soldiers on British shores in 43 CE, Britain had already been measured, judged, and classified. Not morally, but administratively.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/welshhistorypodcast

Please consider becoming a supporter at: http://patreon.com/WelshHistory

Music: Celtic Impulse - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100297

Artist: http://incompetech.com/

© 2026 Evergreen Podcasts

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices