75 years ago today, on 15 August 1945, Victory over Japan Day marked the end of one of the most devastating episodes in British military history, and the final end of the Second World War. It's estimated there were 71,000 British and Commonwealth casualties of the war against Japan, and the death...

Tom Bower joined me on the podcast to discuss the history and legacy of the Nuremberg Trials.

Suzie Boniface discusses those who were harmed by the nuclear tests conducted by the British atom bomb, as controversy surrounds the first British atomic test in 1952, and the subsequent testing program. Those who worked on the sites were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation and they have nev...

Ed Caesar joined me on the podcast to tell the story of World War I veteran Maurice Wilson, Britain's most mysterious mountaineering legend.

80 years ago, ships were gathering in Kent to begin the rescue of the British Expeditionary Force. Britain faced the prospect of the worst defeat in British military history and the loss of her entire military forces in Western Europe. Churchill called it "a colossal military disaster", admitting...

In 1940 the Polish resistance decided it needed to send an agent to Auschwitz concentration camp. They were desperate to find out what was going on in a place that even by that stage of the war had an evil reputation. Historian Jack Fairweather tells the story of Witold Pilecki the Pole who volun...

Victor Gregg, was taken prisoner as the Allies retreated during the Battle of Arnhem, and was taken as a POW to Dresden, where he was alive during the Dresden firebombing. He tells Dan what he's learned over his extraordinary life, from his wartime experiences to how he looks at the world. Produc...

70 years ago today, on 25th June 1950, North Korean forces invaded South Korea. The three-year conflict which followed took the lives of four million people including nearly 100,000 British troops. For many veterans, it is widely considered 'The Forgotten War'. So I was delighted to be joined by ...

Dan talks to the producers of a new documentary about a battalion cut off during the Meuse-Argonne offensive, Mark Fastoso and John King.

For most of us, VE Day conjures up black and white images of carefree servicemen and women dancing and beaming in Trafalgar Square, of Churchill greeted by jubilant crowds in Whitehall, and of course, lots and lots of bunting. But was it really like this? In this podcast, you'll hear the speech g...

Robert Harris joined me on the podcast to talk about Nazi Germany and the story of the V2 rocket.

I was delighted to be joined by James Rogers - a war historian, fellow of the London School of Economics, and presenter of History Hit's Untold History series. One of James' films explores HM Factory Gretna, a munitions factory built by the Ministry of Munitions in response to the Shell Crisis of...

Dan visits one of the greatest objects on planet Earth: USS Texas, the only dreadnought of its kind anywhere in the world. The dreadnought was the predominant type of battleship in the early 20th century. USS Texas was a second-class battleship built by the United States in the early 1890s, the f...

I was thrilled to be joined again by one of our most popular guests, John Nichol. John shot to international prominence when he served in the first Gulf War. When his Tornado was shot down in 1991 he was captured, tortured and paraded on television provoking worldwide condemnation and leaving one...

I was thrilled to be joined by H. W. Brands. He's authored 30 books on American history and his works have twice been selected as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. On the 70 year anniversary since the start of the Korean War, he took me through the remarkable course of events which saw an immense...

Dan made a stupid comment on twitter. Irish history twitter melted down. So we did a pod on why. 100 years ago the Irish War of Independence was being fought in Ireland as the UK government sought to keep Ireland within the Union while the Irish independence fighters seized control of much of the...

Roger Moorhouse discusses the Polish campaign of 1939 comprehensively, separating the myths from reality and outlining the abject horrors that the Poles suffered under the twin occupation of the Nazis and the Soviets. Producer: Peter Curry

The Battle of Prokhorovka was one of the largest tank battles in military history. Taking place on the Eastern Front, it was fought on 12 July 1943 as part of the wider Battle of Kursk. Two elite SS divisions were obliterated, and about 300 panzers were destroyed as the Red Army began to turn the...

Dan picks up from where he and Professor Ali Ansari left off as they discuss the history of Iran in the 20th century. Ali Ansari breaks down the White Revolution, the Islamic Revolution and why western negotiators have struggled to agree terms about Iran's nuclear program in recent years. Produce...

In the February 1945, the U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin met at an old Romanov palace in Crimea, which had once been enjoyed by Tsar Nicholas II and his family. Over eight days the 'Big Three' discussed and debated iss...

Today marks 100 years since Nancy Astor, the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons, was elected. Rachel Reeves, the current Labour candidate for Leeds West and a former member of the Shadow Cabinet, chats to Dan about the history of women in Westminster. She highlights the challeng...

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...

Chris Bryant joined me on the podcast to tell the story of the gay British politicians who were among the very first to warn Britain about the danger of Hitler’s rise to power and the most vocal in demanding an end to the government’s policy of appeasement.

Udham Singh, legendary in India but barely known in the western world, was present when the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar was perpetrated. Legend has it he picked a clump of bloody soil and swore to avenge the massacre. Twenty-one years later, he walked into Caxton Hall in order to shoot ...