Aug 5

03.44 - King Oliver the First?

Check out the University of Aberdeen Online Courses: http://on.abdn.ac.uk/online-history-courses⁠ Oliver Cromwell is offered a crown... but will he take it? Alice Hunt, Republic, 2024. Martyn Bennet, Oliver Cromwell, 2006. Michael Braddick (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Englis ... Show More

32m 3s

Jul 15

03.43 - Between Darkness and Light

Check out the University of Aberdeen Online Courses: http://on.abdn.ac.uk/online-history-courses The Second Protectorate Parliament meets, and the Major-Generals purge a third of the MPs before it even begins. Royalists and Levellers conspire to assassinate Lord Protector Cromwel ... Show More

29m 28s

Jun 16

Shattered Lands with Sam Dalrymple

As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait – were bound together under a single imperial banner, an entity known officially as the ‘Indian Empire’, or more simply as the Raj. Sam ... Show More

47m 55s

Mar 2025

235. The Viceroy, The Psychopath, and The Merchant: The Irish in Empire (Ep 3)

Ireland may have been England’s first colony but, by the 17th century, Irishmen were carving out their own imperial legacies in India. Gerald Aungier, an ambitious East India Company official, saw Bombay as a new frontier for plantation and trade. Drawing from his family’s planta ... Show More

53m 58s

Sep 2024

Napoleon: The Dictator Of Democracy

Napoleon Bonaparte is a household name; a rare example of someone who is as well remembered by his supporters as by his enemies. His life is rich with dramatic irony. He was a key figure in the creation of the First French Republic, yet became a self-appointed Emperor. Surrounded ... Show More

41m 58s

Feb 2025

233. Blood and Betrayal: Oliver Cromwell's Irish Invasion (Ep 1)

His statue may stand proudly outside the Houses of Parliament in London, but in Ireland, Oliver Cromwell is remembered as “the Devil from over the Sea” for the bloodshed he unleashed there from 1649 to 1653. Rising to prominence as a Parliamentarian during the English Civil Wars ... Show More

42m 27s

May 2023

History of Everything: The Marian Reforms

The Marian reforms were reforms of the ancient Roman army implemented in 107 BC by the statesman Gaius Marius, for whom they were later named. The reforms originated as a reaction to the military and logistical stagnation of the Roman Republic in the late 2nd century BC. While th ... Show More

1h 9m

Apr 2025

Ancient Egypt's Napoleon

Pharaoh Thutmose III’s legendary military career kicked off on 16th April, 1457 BC with the Battle of Megiddo, the first recorded battle in history. Facing a rebellion from the Canaanite city-states, who thought they could take advantage of his inexperience, Thutmose assembled a ... Show More

12m 53s

May 1

The Gracchi

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus whose names are entwined with the end of Rome's Republic and the rise of the Roman Emperors. As tribunes, they brought popular reforms to the Roman Republic at the end of the 2nd century BC. Tiberius (c163-1 ... Show More

49m 9s

Nov 2024

Thomas Cromwell: the triumph and tragedy of Henry VIII's right-hand man

In the spring of 1540 Thomas Cromwell was at the height of his power, but just a few months later he found himself at the scaffold on Tower Hill preparing to be executed for treason and heresy. What had gone so badly wrong for Henry VIII's right-hand man? As the BBC drama Wolf Ha ... Show More

39m 55s

Dec 2024

The Roman Caesars' Guide to Ruling

The Roman caesars were the rulers of the Roman Empire, beginning in 27 BC with Julius Caesar’s heir Augustus, from whom subsequent caesars took their name, and lasting until around the fall of the Western Empire in 476 AD. The caesars transitioned the Roman Republic to autocratic ... Show More

57m 14s

Oct 2024

Horace Walpole’s Gothic Castles, Part 2

Part two of our episode on Horace Walpole gets into the gothic literature and gothic castles his life is associated with, including his own eclectic and impressive home, Strawberry Hill. Research: "Horace Walpole." Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, vol. 38, Gale, 2018. Gal ... Show More

39m 52s

Feb 2025

231. Colonising Ireland: Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, & The Tudor Conquest (Ep 1)

Ireland is the only country in Western Europe that has experienced being colonised in the modern era. It was used by England as a laboratory for imperialism, and was the site of bloody colonial wars for centuries, yet many people in the neighbouring United Kingdom have little und ... Show More

40m 19s

03.42 - The Rule of the Major Generals