Simon Jenkins comes on the show to provide a short history of London: from Roman times to present day.

The Battle of Stalingrad was the deadliest battle of the Second World War, and one of the bloodiest in the history of warfare. Infamous for its atrocious conditions and brutal house-to-house fighting, the battle raged for just over 5 months and concluded with an estimated 2 million casualties. Da...

Mary Ann Ochota is a TV presenter, anthropologist, lover of the outdoors, people & the past. Royal Geographical Society Fellow, Ordnance Survey Champion, and Climb Britain Ambassador. Her latest book, Hidden Histories: A Spotter's Guide to the British Landscape is out now.

I was delighted to be joined by Caleb McDaniel, History professor and author of the Pulitzer prizewinning book, “Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America”. He told me the remarkable story of Henrietta Wood. Born into slavery in Kentucky, she was freed as an adult...

We were delighted to have comedy royalty on the podcast. Omid Djalili talked to me about one of his earliest stage creations, first performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1993. Over the next four years it was performed 109 times in 10 different countries. The backdrop of this epic storytel...

The American Civil War saw a transformation in medical provision on the battlefield. A loose grouping of medical practitioners was reshaped into a burgeoning, professionalised occupation. How did the medical profession rise to the challenge of treating thousands of wounded soldiers? What lessons ...

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 ...

According to tradition, if it rains on Saint Swithun's bridge in Winchester on St. Swithun’s day — 15 July — it will continue for 40 days. But who was the real Swithun? And why has his historical importance as an Anglo-Saxon bishop of Winchester been overshadowed by his reputation as a miracle ...

Dan heads to Mayfair to discuss a very Victorian murder with Claire Harman, a literary writer and novelist. This podcast talks about the murder of Lord William Russell in 1840, and answers the most important question: Who did it?

With the 2022 FIFA World Cup well underway, the phenomenon of sportswashing is once again in everybody's minds. Autocracies and democracies alike have long relied on major sporting events to shore up their legitimacy and project their presence on the world stage. But why is sporting prowess so im...

A. C. Grayling discusses the complete history of philosophy, whether it is still possible to ask questions about our existence, and how we should frame those questions in light of those thinkers who have gone before. Producer: Peter Curry

Adam Frankel worked in the Obama White House administration as a speech writer. His grandparents were holocaust survivors from eastern Europe. His mother had profound mental health problems and he discovered that his father was not his father. in an effort to understand the roots of this he learn...

Olivette Otele joined me on the podcast to discuss the long African European heritage through the lives of individuals.

Dan talks to video artist John Akomfrah about his new work, Mimesis, produced in association with 14-18Now, the arts organisation dedicated to the commemoration of the First World War. It explores the experience of Africans in World War I, and John tells about all the surprising things he learned...

The Christmas carols we sing each year have their roots in medieval church music. But as Matt Lewis finds out in this episode, carols were not just for Christmas but could be sung in different settings all your round.

To find out the origins of carols, Matt talks to Micah Mackay, who is a doctor...

Dan chats to Mike Pavelec on the often-overlooked use of naval air power at Gallipoli during World War One in this minisode of the podcast.

Dan and Mike Pavelec talk about Air Power: it's short history and how it will shake the future up.

Rapper and intellectual Akala talks to Dan about the way historical narratives are created, maintained and then broken down. He discusses slavery and abolitionism, the need for Britain to do more to acknowledge its imperial history, and how his own experiences growing up were shaped by these narr...

A Mesopotamian metropolis that thrived for millennia, Uruk is even claimed by some to have been the first true city in history.

Located in modern day Iraq, Uruk was certainly among the oldest urban settlements of the ancient world, and has been a treasure trove of archaeological finds. But was i...

One of the greatest rulers of the 16th century was Akbar the Great, a man whose power and influence extended over much of the Indian subcontinent, after he unified the vast Mughal state. But recently, Akbar's reputation has plummeted as modern India has examined the controversial aspects of his r...

Dan catches Al Murray for a wide ranging discussion.

How can you condense the history of the world into a book? Well-celebrated historian Simon Sebag Montefiore does just that in his new epic. He takes Dan on an exhilarating journey through the families that have shaped our world: the Caesars, Medicis and Incas, Ottomans and Mughals, and Bonapartes...

Now that the first Blair government is being taught in history classes, Dan talks to Alastair Campbell about his new book, football, and power. Image credit: Chatham House / Commons.

Atlantis is one of the most compelling legends - an advanced, mythical civilisation, wiped out by an unknown phenomenon. The allure of this civilisation, rich in lost knowledge and culture, is obvious. But how do archaeologists separate fact from fiction? How can they be confident about the past,...