During the First World War, many Chinese came to work as labourers on the Western Front, but their story is rarely told. Dan talks to Wenlang Peng about the impact of the Chinese Labour Corps, and what life was life for them.

Michael Puett is Professor of Chinese History at Harvard and has lectured widely at the world's leading universities. His course in Chinese philosophy is among the most popular at Harvard and in 2013 he was awarded a Harvard College Professorship for excellence in undergraduate teaching.

Joshua Levine was the historical advisor on Dunkirk, directed by Christopher Nolan. He is also the author of Dunkirk: The History Behind the Major Motion Picture.

Annie Gray is a wonderful historian and broadcaster. Her latest project is a biography of the woman who cooked for Churchill. Georgina Landemare was one of the few people able to cope with the demands, eccentricities and public nudity that came with working for the Churchills. Where all the other...

Their finest hour", "we shall fight on the beaches", "never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few". These words of Winston Churchill are synonymous with our idea of the British war effort during the darkest days of WWII. Richard Toye joined me on the podcast to take...

Dan and bestselling author Madeleine Miller chat Greek myths and the Odyssey. They talk about Virgil, the Aenead, Patroclus and Agamemnon, and whether Dan should sacrifice his daughter to ensure prevailing winds. Producer: Peter Curry

Dan sits down with John Bew to talk about Clement Attlee, the British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. Guest appearance by Anna Whitelock

In 1943, Grimsby was hit by a new type of weapon: butterfly bombs, also know as cluster bombs. James Rogers tells Dan about the terrifying experience of being attacked by cluster bombs, and how they've been used around the world since.

Coffee. Most of us are addicted. We need it on Monday mornings, post nights out, during nights out, in fact every morning. And afternoons. Augustine Sedgewick teaches history at the City University of New York. He has a new book out on how coffee reshaped the world as it became one of the most va...

Eric Thompson has had his finger literally on the nuclear button. He joined the Royal Navy submarine service in the early days of the Cold War. He served on WW2 era ships and submarine before ending his career as a senior officer on Britain's state of the art nuclear submarines. Each one armed wi...

Dan talks to Colonel Waddy about his part in World War Two in the first of two podcasts on the Colonel.

Professor Mary Fulbrook's book Reckonings won the 2019 Wolfson History Prize for its unique approach to the Holocaust, and in particular, those who perpetrated the atrocities. Fulbrook claims that the West German justice process was far too lenient on many ex-Nazis, who had condemned thousands or...

Command of the Oceans' is the name of the new interactive galleries at Chatham. It reveals the full dockyard story, thrilling archaeology and long-hidden objects for the first time. It tells powerful, compelling stories of innovation and craftsmanship. It shows how Chatham Dockyard and its people...

In early 1900, Rudyard Kipling, Mary Kingsley and Arthur Conan Doyle crossed paths in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War. Motivated in various ways by notions of duty, service, patriotism and jingoism, they were each shaped by the theatre of war. Sarah LeFanu joined me on the podcast to explo...

Dan talks to Dr Christine Schmidt, a curator if the Wiener Library about the historical parallels for internment, and whether the situation we are in today is comparable.

Derek Nieman and Noemie Lopian work together. Two people from very different backgrounds, they tour the world telling people about their family stories. Author and writer Derek Niemann discovered only a few years ago that the grandfather he never knew had been an SS officer, in charge of slave la...

Dan and Roel Sterckz sit down to talk about all things Confucius, the ancient Chinese philosopher and politician. They discuss his influence in the trajectory of intellectual history and what we know about the historical Confucius. Producer: Oliver Nelken

Carolyn A. Day is Assistant Professor at Furman University where she teaches British History and the History of Medicine. She received a BA in History and a BSc in Microbiology from Louisiana State University, US, an MPhil in History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University, UK, and a ...

The greatest threats we face are climate breakdown and pandemic disease. This was the assessment of security advisers before the Covid outbreak and the last few months have seen the stunning reality of this as the world lurches into a giant economic and political crisis. I am joined by Calder Wal...

It came from Asia via the Middle East and Italy. But, says 17th Century historian, Rebecca Rideal, the parallels with the Black Death, The Plague, are not helpful. It was great to catch up with Rebecca again on the podcast. She tells me what effect plague had on British people and society when it...

Professor John Oxford is a virologist. He is one of the world's leading experts on influenza. He is a leader in the study of the great Influenza outbreak of 100 years ago that killed upwards of 50 million people around the world. I talked to him today to ask him, what are the key lessons that we ...

David McGrory joined me on the podcast to discuss Coventry’s Blitz. On the night of 14 November 1940, a Luftwaffe air raid devastated the city of Coventry.

I was thrilled to be joined by Mark Vincent, an expert in criminal subculture and prisoner society in Stalinist Labour camps. Mark has looked at thousands of journals, song collections, tattoo drawings and slang dictionaries to reveal a hidden side of Gulag daily life. In this podcast, he also ex...

Sarah Parcak is an American archaeologist, Egyptologist, and remote sensing expert, who has used satellite imaging to identify potential archaeological sites in Egypt, Rome, and elsewhere in the former Roman Empire. She is the associate professor of Anthropology and director of the Laboratory for...