Fake news about the past is fake history.
Did Hugo Boss design the Nazi uniforms?
Did medieval people think the world was flat?
Did Napoleon shoot the nose off the Sphinx?
*Spoiler Alert* The answer to all those questions is no.
From the famous quote 'Let them eat cake' - mistakenly attributed to Marie Antoinette - to the apocryphal horns that adorned V ... Show More
Nov 22
John Bodnar, "Divided by Terror: American Patriotism after 9/11" (UNC Press, 2021)
September 11th, 2001 marked the beginning of the so-called war on terror, but the attacks of that day also re-ignited battles over the nature of American patriotism. In Divided by Terror: American Patriotism after 9/11 (UNC Press, 2021), Professor John Bodnar argues that the natu ... Show More
1h 8m
Nov 22
Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy, "Videotape" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Over the span of a single decade, VHS technology changed the relationship between privacy and entertainment, pried open the closed societies behind the Iron Curtain, and then sank back into oblivion. Its meteoric rise and fall encapsulated the dynamics of the '80s and foreshadowe ... Show More
44m 53s
Nov 21
Jasbeer Musthafa Mamalipurath, "TEDified Islam: Postsecular Storytelling in New Media" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)
Jasbeer Mamalipurath’s TEDified Islam: Postsecular Storytelling in New Media (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) is the first of its kind in-depth examination of the TedTalk phenomenon and in particular how Islam and Muslim experiences are represented in these talks. Mamalipurath argues t ... Show More
1h 14m
Nov 2022
Unearthed! Autumn 2022, Part 2
<p>The second part of our autumn list of things that were unearthed in the recent past includes potpourri, repatriations, shipwrecks, medical finds, Viking items, and books and letters.</p> <p><strong>Research: </strong></p> <ul> <li>Abbott, Dennis. “Archaeologists unearth skelet ... Show More
41m 18s
Feb 2023
Medieval Leaders and Queens: Aethelfled, Hildegard & Jadwiga.
<p>Aethelfled, a warrior queen who crushed the Vikings, Jadwiga, the first Queen Regent of Poland and Hildegard of Bingen, an 11th-century polymath abbess who became a 20th-century feminist icon and saint. Art and cultural historian Dr Janina Ramirez joins Dan on today's episode ... Show More
36m 47s
Dec 2023
Nazi Germany: the myth of the innocent bystander
In 1945, after defeat in the Second World War, many Germans claimed to have known nothing about what had happened to their fellow Jewish citizens – and with that, the idea of the ‘innocent bystander’ was born. But just how true was this claim? Delving into a rich archive of perso ... Show More
37m 18s
Sep 2022
The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe
<p>Marilyn Monroe. She's got to be one of the most famous people of all time, hasn't she?</p><br><p>But what happens when an investigative war reporter dedicates years of his life to finding out who <em>real</em> Marilyn was, interviewing hundreds of people who knew her, from her ... Show More
40m 19s
Feb 2019
Love, Hate, and Sex from the History of Science
<p>This Valentine's Day we could have just brought you some sappy love stories from science's past. But instead we offer you three tales of lust, loneliness, betrayal, pettiness, and not one, but two beheadings.</p> <h2>Credits</h2> <p>Hosts: <a href="file:///profile/alexis-j-ped ... Show More
38m 34s