Most people think that Britain's worst moment of the war was in 1940 when the nation stood up against the threat of German invasion. Yet, eighty years ago, Britain stood at the brink of defeat. In 1942, a string of military disasters engulfed Britain in rapid succession, including the collapse in Malaya; the biggest surrender in British history at Singapore and the passing of three large German warships through the Straits of Dover in broad daylight.
Taylor Downing, historian, writer and broadcaster, joins Dan on the podcast to draw the startling parallels between events in 1942 and today. They discuss just how unpopular Churchill became in 1942 against the backdrop of a new low of public morale, the two votes attacking his leadership in the Commons and the emergence of a serious political rival. As people began to claim that Churchill was not up to the job and that his leadership was failing badly, it was 1942 that was in fact Britain’s real darkest hour.
Antwerp during the Renaissance was as sensational as nineteenth-century Paris or twentieth-century New York. For half the sixteenth century, it was the place for breaking rules - religious, sexual and intellectual. But when Antwerp rebelled with the Dutch against the Spanish and lost, all of its ...
Kateryn Parr - as she herself wrote her name - is often portrayed as a colourless, prudish figure, known mainly for surviving her marriage to King Henry VIII. But Parr's life reads like a Renaissance romance, filled with peril, jealous husbands, personal patronage of the arts, writing and transla...
Join James this week for a special episode of Warfare, chatting to the writer and cast of the new film 'Munich - the Edge of War'. Set in 1938, the movie follows Chamberlain's attempts to appease Hitler, desperate to avoid another Great War. Joining James is author Robert Harris, along with lead ...
