The British Army won a convincing series of victories between 1916 and 1918. But by 1939 the British Army was an entirely different animal. The hard-won knowledge, experience and strategic vision that delivered victory after victory in the closing...
Nov 20
A Utah Indian Chief Controlled the 1800s Mountain West Through Slave Trading, Building Pioneer Trails, Horse Stealing, and Becoming Mormon
<p>The American Indian leader Wakara was among the most influential and feared men in the nineteenth-century American West. He and his pan-tribal cavalry of horse thieves and slave traders dominated the Old Spanish Trail, the region’s most important overland route. They wid ... Show More
1 h
Nov 18
Why Did Rome Fall? Wrong Question. How Did it Last 2,000 Years Despite Changing its Religion, Language, and Government?
<p>Rome began as a pagan, Latin-speaking city state in central Italy during the early Iron Age and ended as a Christian, Greek-speaking empire as the age of gunpowder dawned. Everything about it changed, except its Roman identity. This was due to a unique willingness am ... Show More
53m 46s
Nov 13
The Real Deadwood: A Gold Rush Town Built in a War Zone but Obliterated in an Inferno
Gunslinging, gold-panning, stagecoach robbing, whiskey guzzling – the myth and infamy of the American West is synonymous with its most famous town: Deadwood, South Dakota. The storied mining town sprang up in early 1876 and came raining down in ashes only three years later, desti ... Show More
37m 30s
Oct 7
Andrew Lambert, "No More Napoleons: How Britain Managed Europe from Waterloo to World War One" (Yale UP, 2025)
How, for just over a century, Britain ensured it would not face another Napoleon Bonaparte--manipulating European powers while building a global maritime empire At the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, a fragile peace emerged in Europe. The continent's borders were redrawn, and ... Show More
53m 54s
Dec 2024
Alex Mayhew, "Making Sense of the Great War: Crisis, Englishness, and Morale on the Western Front" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
The First World War was an unprecedented crisis, with communities and societies enduring the unimaginable hardships of a prolonged conflict on an industrial scale. In Belgium and France, the terrible capacity of modern weaponry destroyed the natural world and exposed previously he ... Show More
57m 32s
Oct 2024
The War in the Pacific: How WWII Changed the World Forever - Dr Robert Lyman
Robert Lyman MBE is a British military historian. A former Major in the British Army, he has published over 16 books on the Second World War in Europe, North Africa and Asia. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, regularly appearing on TV and radio, lectures at organisa ... Show More
1h 13m
Oct 2018
Nathaniel Philbrick, “In the Hurricane’s Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown” (Viking, 2018)
Most Americans do not appreciate the extent to which victory in the American Revolution was due to the leadership of a French aristocrat. As Nathaniel Philbrick demonstrates in his new book In the Hurricane’s Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown (Vikin ... Show More
47m 18s
Jul 2025
Operation Mincemeat Revisited | Episode + Bonus Interview with Natasha Hodgson
When we first aired "Operation Mincemeat" back in 2020, it was a daring WWII thriller that felt almost too wild to be true. Now, it’s not just history — it’s a hit Broadway musical. This week, we're revisiting our original episode about the ingenious Allied ruse that helped turn ... Show More
48m 46s