992: The End of the Siege of Leningrad

On today’s Saturday Matinee, presenter Helena Merriman returns to one of the most contested- and consequential- stories in modern Russia. Link to The History Bureau: https://www.bbc.com/audio/brand/m002q5dk Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more. Histo ... Show More

January 16, 27 BCE. Octavian is granted the title Augustus by the Roman Senate, marking the beginning of the Roman Empire. This episode originally aired in 2025. Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more. History Daily is a co-production of Airship and No ... Show More

January 15, 1919. 21 people die in Boston, Massachusetts, when a storage tank bursts, triggering a killer wave of sticky molasses. Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more. History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for ... Show More

During World War Two, the Battle of Stalingrad was one of the most brutal engagements of the entire conflict, and would go on to be one of the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare. Over a course of six months, Soviet forces fought to defend their city against the German Ar ... Show More

Nicknamed "Artemis" and "The Limping Lady" by Nazi Germany, Virginia Hall was, without a doubt, one of the most effective—and certainly the most feared—Allied spies during the Second World War. She helped countless POWs escape and funneled a constant stream of weapons into and in ... Show More

In 1973, just two people attended the lonely funeral of May O’Callaghan, an Irish emigrant in North London. Few could have imagined that this quiet woman from Wexford had once stood at the very heart of Soviet power. In the 1920s, May O’Callaghan worked in the Kremlin as the Sovi ... Show More

What happened at the crucial, bloody, Battle of Ypres in October 1914? How did the battle come about? Why did the Germans and the British fight each other so brutally and for so long to take Ypres? What made the fighting so particularly violent? How were the British able to repel ... Show More

The summer of 1939, near the Mongolian village of Nomonhan, would see the largest clash between the Soviet Union and Japan of the interwar years, and it would have important ramifications for relations between the two nations as the world was rapidly descending into war. Sources: ... Show More

En juillet 1942 est lancé aux Etats-Unis le projet Manhattan destiné à produire la bombe atomique et gagner ainsi la course contre l'Allemagne sur la recherche nucléaire. Les travaux aboutiront le 16 juillet 1945 à l'explosion de la première bombe atomique de l'histoire à l'occas ... Show More

En avril 1945, un U-Boot a été coulé à cause d’une mauvaise utilisation de ses nouvelles toilettes. Une histoire peu connue et pourtant l’une des plus insolites de la Seconde Guerre mondiale ! Écoutez cet épisode de Pépites d'Histoire, partagez-le et abonnez-vous (sans oublier d' ... Show More

In Prussia and Poland Germany is again on the attack first at the Vistula River, where poison gas makes its first appearance of the war and then in Prussia at the Second Battle of the Masuria Lakes. As winter turns into spring the Russians make one more attempt to break through t ... Show More