Modern England as we know it started in the industrial heart of Ironbridge in Shropshire- now a verdant gorge that once was black with smog, fire and slag heaps. Dan tries his hand at casting iron at one of the last working foundries in the country and gets the scoop on the scandals of Georgian h...

Giant mouse ears at the ready, we're off to Disneyland! Hop on board and travel with us inside Walt Disney's mind (for better or for worse). We discover how he came up with the idea, what it all means, and how his dream of a Utopian city led indirectly to the Magic Kingdom.

Dallas's guest today ...

The Tudors were the dynasty that had it all- power, family feuds, sex and scandal. Dan couldn't do a history of England without a hearty helping of our favourite family and for this episode, he's joined in the Elizabethan garden at mighty Kenilworth Castle by Dr Joanne Paul who tells the intricat...

King Henry VII and his Tudor heirs knew very little about Ireland, over which they ruled in name at least. During the 118 years of Tudor rule, not one of its monarchs ever set foot in the Emerald Isle. Yet the history of the Tudor monarchy cannot fully be told without understanding its relations ...

Queen Charlotte is back in the spotlight, thanks to the new Bridgerton spin-off series looking into her life and marriage to King George III.

We know Bridgerton uses a lot of creative license when it comes to historical accuracy (just in case you didn't know, people in the Regency period did not...

What does archaeology tell us about how regions in the Mediterranean built their wealth between the 10th to 12th centuries?  How did economies grow in Egypt, Tunisia, Sicily, the Byzantine empire, Islamic Spain and Portugal, and north-central Italy? And what were their trading relationships with ...

Great Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, bloodshed at the battle of Hastings, Bubonic Plague and Roland the celebrity flatulist. As dawn breaks, Dan walks the beach at Pevensey where William the Conqueror and his Norman Invaders landed in 1066, but not before getting a quick lesson from Medieval Historian Dr ...

The 15th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, published in 1974, cost $32 million to create. The largest investment in publishing history. And yet you can now buy the complete set for pennies.

Who invented encyclopedias? Who wrote for them? And why did Samuel Taylor Coleridge get so upset abo...

A legendary, ancient architectural wonder, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are one of the most famed wonders of the Ancient world. Described in cuneiform texts, and even the bible, as being a luscious green space - likened to distant mountains, and fed by the Euphrates river, it's hard to know wha...

Dan begins his ultimate historical road trip at the mysterious plinths at Stonehenge in the South-West of England. Dan uncovers how the stones arrived in Salisbury all the way from Western Wales and unravels the ancient burial practices of England’s early humans with English Heritage curator Heat...

Was the USA already a superpower when it joined the Second World War? How did it turn from an isolationist nation to a force ready for action? 

Today Don is joined by Craig Nelson to find out how President Franklin D. Roosevelt manoeuvred the country from the isolationism of the interwar years t...

It's 1943, you're part of the French resistance, and you've been sentenced to death. You're allowed to write one last letter before you're shot by the Nazis. Who do you write to? Friends? Family? Fellow comrades? How do you know if they'll even get it?

Of the 10,000 or so executions during the S...

In the 16th Century, rude jokes and scatological humour were just as much a feature of life as they are today.  Between 1529 and 1539, a Swiss linen trader called Johannes Rütiner included many jokes and humorous anecdotes in his personal notebooks. They offer an amazing insight into both the jo...

Fighting has broken out in Sudan following years of power struggle between the country's military leadership: General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the armed forces, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

However, the origins of this conflict can be traced...

It’s hard to imagine London’s gay scene before vibrant night spots like Heaven and G.A.Y, but come back with us to the 18th Century to find out about where it all began: Molly Houses. 

This was when to be gay in England was a crime punishable by death, and so a network of secretive gay gathering...

An ancient, colossal site in Northeastern Louisiana, Poverty Point is a mystery amongst archaeologist and anthropologists a like. Dating back nearly 4 millennia, Poverty Point is renowned for it's massive earthworks, with gigantic concentric circles, complex mounds, and towering ridges - it's a s...

Deception and trickery have always been a universal feature of warfare and the wars of the Middle Ages were no exception - from the Battle of Hastings to the “fake corpse ruse”.  But how did Medieval mores justify deception during wars?  Was cunning considered an admirable quality in a warrior? W...

Between 1871 and 1872, Labette County, Kansas became a source of mystery. Several people have gone missing on their journey west and a few bodies have been found. Is this the work of highway robbers? Or could it be the peculiar family who live beside the Great Osage Trail?

Don is joined for this...

History has painted Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn in two very different hues: one wife, one mistress; one Spanish, one French; one committed Catholic, one radical reformer. But a new exhibition at Hever Castle examines one curious moment of confluence, right in the midst of the crucial year...

We live in a world where everything is bugged. We all know we are being monitored. The surprising thing is that this is nothing new.

From tapped telegraph wires to bugged Martini olives, Dallas is finding out about the history of Wiretapping with Brian Hochman, author of The Listeners: A History...

The Second World War placed a tremendous strain on Britain's natural resources. One of the most important materials for fuelling the war effort was wood - used to make everything from ammunition boxes to Spitfires, Britain's timber would be harvested at an unprecedented rate during the war. It wa...

The Ancient Romans are often thought of as ahead of their time. They invented concrete, sophisticated road systems and even underfloor heating.

But their approach to murder is starkly different to how the modern world recognises it, and frankly it’s a bit weird. These people saw 26 emperors murd...

After speaking to Gone Medieval in April 2022 about the first volume of his magisterial biography of Henry III, David Carpenter promised Matt Lewis that he would pay the podcast a return visit when the second volume came out. Henry III 1258-1272: Reform, Rebellion, Civil War, Settlement picks up ...

80 years ago, in the late hours of May 16th 1943, Wing Commander Guy Gibson fearlessly commanded the 617 Squadron of the Royal Air Force to execute a daring bombing mission. Their aim - to destroy three dams in the Ruhr valley - Germany's vital industrial hub. This top-secret operation was known ...