20th Century
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🎧 Anglo-American Rivalry in the Middle East with James Barr
Dan Snow talks to James Barr about a rivalry in the Middle East, but it's not the one you might expect...
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🎧 An American on the Western Front with Patrick Gregory
Patrick Gregory wrote and edited An American on the Western Front: The First World War Letters of Arthur Clifford Kimber, together with Elizabeth Nurser, who is Arthur Clifford Kimber’s niece. As programme producer for the BBC, he covered world events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and reali...
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🎧 America's Entry into the First World War with Michael Neiberg
Dan talks to Michael Neiburg, a leading historian of the transnational effects of war, who reveals everything you need to know about America's entry into World War One.
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🎧 Al Murray on Arnhem, Satire, Bartending and Drums
Dan catches Al Murray for a wide ranging discussion.
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🎧 Air Power at Gallipoli with Mike Pavelec
Dan chats to Mike Pavelec on the often-overlooked use of naval air power at Gallipoli during World War One in this minisode of the podcast.
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🎧 African Experiences in World War One with John Akomfrah
Dan talks to video artist John Akomfrah about his new work, Mimesis, produced in association with 14-18Now, the arts organisation dedicated to the commemoration of the First World War. It explores the experience of Africans in World War I, and John tells about all the surprising things he learned...
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🎧 A Lab of Their Own: Women Scientists in World War One with Patricia Fara
Dan is joined by Patricia Fara, a historian of science at the University of Cambridge, to talk about the women who worked as scientific researchers during the First World World War.
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🎧 1956: The World in Revolt with Simon Hall
Simon Hall is Professor of Modern History and Head of School of History at Leeds University, His new book is titled 1956: The World in Revolt.
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🎧 1918: The Decisive Year
Richard Van Emden catches up with Dan Snow to talk about the commemoration of the final year of World War One.
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🎧 12 Days That Shaped Modern Britain with Professor Andrew Hindmoor
Professor Andrew Hindmoor, head of Politics at the University of Sheffield, chats to Dan about the days that he thinks shaped Britain today. He talks about the notion of looking at specific days as a way of looking at history, and then talks about everything from Theresa May to Stephen Lawrence t...
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🎧 Goose Green: A Veteran Remembers
John Geddes joined the Parachute Regiment as a teenager in the late 1970s. Within a couple of years he was plunged into the Falklands War and the bloodiest battle the British Army had fought since the Korean War. In this podcast John talks to Dan about his experience in the army, his memories of ...
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The Second Great Fire of London
On 29 December 1940 London experienced one of its worst nights of the Blitz. German bombers dropped tens of thousands of bombs, destroying more of London than the city's famous Great Fire of 1666. The following morning, a photographer took a picture through the smoke and fire of Saint Paul’s Cath...
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The Christmas Truce
On Christmas Eve 1914 many sectors of the Western Front in France and Belgium fell silent. Troops from all sides put down their weapons and sang carols, exchanged gifts and buried their dead in No Man's Land. The following day the truce continued in many, but not all areas, and troops gathered in...
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Searching for My Father: The Story of 144 Squadron
80 years ago Wing Commander Joseph Watts was killed when his RAF Hampden Bomber crashed, as it returned from a bombing raid in Occupied Europe. He left behind a daughter, and also an unborn son. John Watts, born 8 months later, would never meet his father. But recently he discovered that at the R...
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Blitzkrieg! The Fall of France
Just before dawn on 10 May 1940 the largest concentration of motorised vehicles in history roared into action. After months of quiet it was the start of Hitler’s invasion of the West. What followed was a stunning combination of new tactics and new technologies that left Britain and France – two w...
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Remembering the Few with Wing Commander Tom Neil
Last summer, we were lucky enough to interview Wing Commander Tom Neil, one of the last of 'the Few' who fought in the Battle of Britain. During the Battle he shot down at least 13 enemy aircraft; he saw over half his squadron shot down within 5 minutes; he is also credited with the longest fligh...
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Parliament's Greatest Speeches
The Palace of Westminster is one of the world's most famous buildings: 'the mother of parliaments'. Since the days of Simon de Montfort parliaments having been meeting at this location in the heart of London. Though plagued by controversy and destruction over its long history the site's significa...
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Out of the Inferno: Surviving Dresden
On the 73rd anniversary of the firebombing of Dresden, Dan Snow accompanies British veteran Victor Gregg, a POW in Dresden during the raid, as he returns to the city for a historic meeting with Irene Uhlendorf, who was just 4 years old on the night of the bombing. Together they are able to talk a...
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Operation Legacy
State archives in Britain are thought of as being a pristine area in which we preserve, conserve and utilise the nation’s history. The Public Records acts of 1958 and 1967 require government departments to conserve any information that tells us about our shared past, and how we came to know it. M...
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Operation Dynamo: Escape from Dunkirk
At the end of May and the beginning of June 1940, over 370,000 Allied soldiers found themselves at great risk, surrounded by German forces on all sides & with their backs to the Channel. The eyes of the World fixed their gaze on the small Allied perimeter that remained, around the beaches of Dunk...
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Max Eisen: Surviving Auschwitz
Max Eisen was only 15 when he and his family were taken from their Hungarian home to the infamous Auschwitz Concentration Camp during the Second World War. All of his relatives were killed; only Max survived to see VE Day and eventual liberation. 74 years on from being liberated, he talks about t...
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Mary Ellis: Touching the Sky
During the years of World War Two, a short lived, but remarkable, organisation existed. The Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) was a civilian service that was tasked with the delivery of aircraft from factories to the squadrons of the RAF and Royal Navy, and the delivery of supplies. Featuring pilots ...
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Liberation 75: The Channel Islands
German forces seized control of the Channel Islands on 30 June 1940. By-passed by the Allies as they pushed east they remained under Nazi rule for almost 5 years, until the end of World War Two. This is the story of the British men and women who lived under the German occupation.
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Jan Stangreciuk: Veteran. Hero. Guinea Pig
Of all the clubs in the world, perhaps the most extraordinary is the Guinea Pig Club, a group of Second World War veterans that suffered terrible injuries and were then treated by pioneering surgeon Archibald McIndoe. Today there are only a handful left. Dan visits Jan Stangreciuk, one of the few...