Germans soldiers called it Blitzkatarrh, British soldiers called it Flanders Grippe, but the 1918 pandemic was most commonly known as 'Spanish Flu'. Catherine Arnold is the author of 'Pandemic 1918', and she joined me on the pod to discuss this terrible disease. A disease where victims suffered haemorrhages from the lungs and nose, skin turning blue from lack of oxygen and choking to death from 'air hunger' as the lungs filled with blood and pus. As Catherine explains, communities across the world battled with the infection in different ways, sometimes confronted with whole swathes of disobedient citizens. Yet again, it seems looking into the past provides valuable guidance for our actions today.
In this pod I was joined by two people who have played quite an important part in my life: my mum and dad (known to the rest of the world as Peter Snow and Ann MacMillan). Their latest book is a bold examination of world history, told through 50 of our most important documents. They have been sou...
Could Liz Truss be Britain's worst Prime Minister? As the political scene in the UK hurtles into further disarray, Dan gets together historians Tim Bale, Catherine Haddon and Robin Eagles to put forward who they think has been Britain's worst Prime Minister over the centuries. Anthony Eden, Edwar...
Simon Sebag Montefiore joined me on the podcast to talk about history's greatest speeches. From Martin Luther King Jr. to John Boyega, from Churchill to Trump, we also discuss British institutions and their link to Empire.
