In 1943, Grimsby was hit by a new type of weapon: butterfly bombs, also know as cluster bombs. James Rogers tells Dan about the terrifying experience of being attacked by cluster bombs, and how they've been used around the world since.

Coffee. Most of us are addicted. We need it on Monday mornings, post nights out, during nights out, in fact every morning. And afternoons. Augustine Sedgewick teaches history at the City University of New York. He has a new book out on how coffee reshaped the world as it became one of the most va...

For at least 1,500 years, since the mists swirling around the Dark Ages began to clear, the British Isles have had monarchical rulers. For hundreds of years, they were the central figures of the nation: the focus of its politics and society, consecrated by God, endorsed (or not) by the nobility, ...

Dan talks to Colonel Waddy about his part in World War Two in the first of two podcasts on the Colonel.

In November of 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter, thanks to benefactor Lord Carnarvon, discovered the untouched tomb of Tutankhamun. Otherwise erased from history, the tomb of this 18th Dynasty Pharaoh would go on to change the world. Undoubtedly cited as one of the greatest archaeologica...

Professor Mary Fulbrook's book Reckonings won the 2019 Wolfson History Prize for its unique approach to the Holocaust, and in particular, those who perpetrated the atrocities. Fulbrook claims that the West German justice process was far too lenient on many ex-Nazis, who had condemned thousands or...

Command of the Oceans' is the name of the new interactive galleries at Chatham. It reveals the full dockyard story, thrilling archaeology and long-hidden objects for the first time. It tells powerful, compelling stories of innovation and craftsmanship. It shows how Chatham Dockyard and its people...

In early 1900, Rudyard Kipling, Mary Kingsley and Arthur Conan Doyle crossed paths in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War. Motivated in various ways by notions of duty, service, patriotism and jingoism, they were each shaped by the theatre of war. Sarah LeFanu joined me on the podcast to explo...

Dan talks to Dr Christine Schmidt, a curator if the Wiener Library about the historical parallels for internment, and whether the situation we are in today is comparable.

On November 9th, 1989, 33 years ago to the day, the Berlin Wall that had symbolised the ideological and physical division of Europe came crumbling down. We remember this in the West as a triumph of Democracy and the beginning of a new, post-Cold War world. But was it that clear cut for the people...

Derek Nieman and Noemie Lopian work together. Two people from very different backgrounds, they tour the world telling people about their family stories. Author and writer Derek Niemann discovered only a few years ago that the grandfather he never knew had been an SS officer, in charge of slave la...

Dan and Roel Sterckz sit down to talk about all things Confucius, the ancient Chinese philosopher and politician. They discuss his influence in the trajectory of intellectual history and what we know about the historical Confucius. Producer: Oliver Nelken

Carolyn A. Day is Assistant Professor at Furman University where she teaches British History and the History of Medicine. She received a BA in History and a BSc in Microbiology from Louisiana State University, US, an MPhil in History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University, UK, and a ...

Professor John Oxford is a virologist. He is one of the world's leading experts on influenza. He is a leader in the study of the great Influenza outbreak of 100 years ago that killed upwards of 50 million people around the world. I talked to him today to ask him, what are the key lessons that we ...

It came from Asia via the Middle East and Italy. But, says 17th Century historian, Rebecca Rideal, the parallels with the Black Death, The Plague, are not helpful. It was great to catch up with Rebecca again on the podcast. She tells me what effect plague had on British people and society when it...

The greatest threats we face are climate breakdown and pandemic disease. This was the assessment of security advisers before the Covid outbreak and the last few months have seen the stunning reality of this as the world lurches into a giant economic and political crisis. I am joined by Calder Wal...

David McGrory joined me on the podcast to discuss Coventry’s Blitz. On the night of 14 November 1940, a Luftwaffe air raid devastated the city of Coventry.

I was thrilled to be joined by Mark Vincent, an expert in criminal subculture and prisoner society in Stalinist Labour camps. Mark has looked at thousands of journals, song collections, tattoo drawings and slang dictionaries to reveal a hidden side of Gulag daily life. In this podcast, he also ex...

Sarah Parcak is an American archaeologist, Egyptologist, and remote sensing expert, who has used satellite imaging to identify potential archaeological sites in Egypt, Rome, and elsewhere in the former Roman Empire. She is the associate professor of Anthropology and director of the Laboratory for...

Charles Emmerson thinks the crucible of the modern world was not the 1960s but the tumultuous years at the end of the First World War and those that followed. This was when Communism and Fascism became mainstream movements. This was when the borders of the Middle East, and Eastern Europe were dra...

American intelligence services like the CIA are commonly thought of as global behemoths of international surveillance and covert operations, responsible for carrying out everything from cyber espionage to assassinations and political coups. But its origins in the Second World War paint a picture ...

Orlando Figes talks to Dan about social and technological developments and their relationship to cultural changes in the 19th century.

A very special episode for the 75th anniversary of the Dambusters raid. Dan talks to Paul Beaver, Secretary of State for Defence Gavin Williamson MP, and Wing Commander John Butcher, from today's 617 squadron.

The two Dans are back. And this time, they're talking all things crusades. Dan Jones provides his namesake host a thrilling background to the series of holy wars that have come to define Medieval Europe.

If you love Dan Jones, then join him at our book club. He is the History Hit Book Club's aut...