On December 16th, 1773, a band of American patriots quietly boarded three ships in Boston Harbour, under the cover of night. Armed with axes and hatchets, they pried open the crates on board and poured their contents into the ocean. The crates contained tea; black-leaved Bohea and green tea from ...

By the age of just 7, Sara Forbes Bonetta had survived a West African war, lost her parents, been enslaved and finally, exchanged as a gift for a far-flung queen. When she arrived in the court of Queen Victoria in 1850, the monarch was immediately impressed by the determined, intelligent young gi...

From Ann Boleyn and Walter Raleigh to Rudolf Hess and the Kray twins, London's iconic Tower of London has held some of history's most notorious figures over its 1000 year history. Host of Gone Medieval podcast Matt Lewis joins Dan to uncover the secrets embedded within the tower's formidable wall...

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of sexual behaviour which may not be suitable for children.

Appointed by the Romans as king of Judaea, King Herod's reign was defined by great architectural projects and canny diplomacy. But he could also be cruel and paranoid, with scandal and f...

The warrior knight William Wallace is one of Scotland's great national heroes. He is remembered as the man who beat the English and inspired Scottish resistance to King Edward I. But how accurate is the common retelling of his life? Who was the real William Wallace?

Dan is joined by Dauvit Broun...

Egypt was a vast kingdom of the ancient world. Its rulers were considered gods and wielded tremendous power and wealth. Egyptian scholars, astrologists and thinkers pioneered in their fields. Lasting for millennia, the kingdom's influence on culture, economics and politics was felt across North A...

Today we find ourselves in 9th-century Baghdad, the beating heart of the Islamic Abbasid Caliphate. This was a vast empire that stretched from North Africa through the Middle East, and all the way to Central Asia. At the height of the Islamic Golden Age, it hosted profound cultural and intellectu...

For over 500 years, the mysterious disappearance of two English princes has perplexed the world. Historians have long assumed that Edward V and Richard, Duke of York were murdered in 1483 by their uncle, Richard III. But Dan's guest today brings a dramatic new theory to the table.

Philippa Langl...

In Dan's long career as a broadcaster, he's come across all sorts of unexplained phenomena, myths and mysteries- from searching for the Nazi Gold Train in Poland to debunking the mummy's curse in Tutankhamun's tomb and looking for answers about ball lightning. History is full of the weird and won...

The permanent home of the Parthenon Marbles, also known as the 'Elgin' Marbles, has been the subject of a heated, decades-long debate. That debate was reignited this week when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cancelled a meeting with the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis who had planned to raise...

The legend of Rasputin's death goes that he survived poisoning, being shot in the head before being thrown through a hole in the ice in the Neva River, where he finally died by drowning. But Rasputin biographer Douglas Smith, Dan's guest today, says that isn't what happened. He's been to Russia t...

From the famed poet Homer to King John of Bohemia, people without sight have always been prominent in our collective history. These figures have been heroised, demonised, and everything in between. The retelling of their lives indicates that blindness is typically seen as either an affliction to ...

Napoleon has become more than a man. His name is a concept, a way of being, a psychological term- the 'Napoleon' complex. Napoleon began working on his legacy during his exile on St Helena in the last years of his life, his journal- memoir 'The Memorial of Saint Helena' was Napoleon's own persona...

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains discussions about sex which may not be suitable for children.

Napoleon Bonaparte is one of the few commanders in history to be known for his capacity as a fierce fighter and a passionate lover. His romance with Joséphine de Beauharnais is one of the greates...

During the Napoleonic Wars, 18th-century leaders in Europe quickly decided the best way to beat Napoleon Bonaparte was to retreat and not meet him on the battlefield at all. He was head and shoulders above the other commanders of the day. So why did it go so spectacularly wrong for him at Waterlo...

He clawed his way to the zenith of power with a relentless determination that few could fathom... he conquered empires, destroyed armies and out of the smouldering rubble of the revolution made himself the Emperor of the French; his name was Napoleon Bonaparte.

Was Napoleon destined for greatnes...

John Watts never knew his father. He was conceived days before his father, Wing Commander Joseph Watts, was killed on a bombing mission over occupied Europe. He left behind a daughter, and also an unborn son. But, recently John discovered that at the RAF Museum at Cosford, they have one of the ve...

Napoleon Bonaparte is one of the most accomplished military commanders in world history. He rose to become Emperor of the French after a series of spectacular battlefield victories and continued this success until the very end of his rule.

On this episode, Dan is joined by the famed filmmaker Ri...

In this special 4-part series, we look back at the life of Adolf Hitler. With the help of Frank McDonough, a leading historian of the Third Reich, we follow Hitler from childhood to adulthood and learn how an awkward, aspiring artist became one of history's most infamous dictators.

In this fourt...

In this special 4-part series, we look back at the life of Adolf Hitler. With the help of Frank McDonough, a leading historian of the Third Reich, we follow Hitler from childhood to adulthood and learn how an awkward, aspiring artist became one of history's most infamous dictators.

In this third...

In this special 4-part series, we look back at the life of Adolf Hitler. With the help of Frank McDonough, a leading historian of the Third Reich, we follow Hitler from childhood to adulthood and learn how an awkward, aspiring artist became one of history's most infamous dictators.

In this secon...

In this special 4-part series, we look back at the life of Adolf Hitler. With the help of Frank McDonough, a leading historian of the Third Reich, we follow Hitler from childhood to adulthood and learn how this awkward, aspiring artist became one of history's most infamous dictators.

In this fir...

Despite her being a household name, how much do we really know about Pocahontas? Where did she come from? How old was she? And what was her real relationship with the colonists?

Don is joined for this episode by Camilla Townsend, a Historian of Early Native American and Latin American History at...

By the early 1990s, the Colombian city of Medellín was at the centre of the world's largest drug empire. The fearsome Medellín Cartel, led by the notorious drug lord and narcoterrorist Pablo Escobar, brought murder and mayhem to the city and the world for nearly two decades.

In this episode, Dan...