Dan explores the birth and development of chemical warfare during the First World War.

Historian Robert Saunders from Queen Mary University of London talks about the elections in the past that he feels have most resonance and parallels today.

Northumbrian patriot' Dan Jackson, who has just written a book on the history of Northeast England and its people, comes on the podcast to talk about Northumbria's prestigious past.

Earlier this month, it was reported that DNA analysis of the skeleton of a 10-year-old girl buried in Kent in the 7th century showed she was of West African descent. Thirty-three per cent of her DNA suggests that the girl’s grandfather or great-grandfather was probably from the Esan or Yoruba peo...

1984 is one of the greatest books ever written, and continues to both haunt and inform public perceptions of totalitarianism. Dan talks to Dorian Lynskey, who has written a biography of this critical text, discussing Orwell's reasons for writing and 1984's relevance to the present day, as well as...

Eamonn O'Keeffe is a young Oxford Researcher in the midst of a PhD. He stopped off in Wakefield Library to look at a journal Yorkshire farmer Matthew Tomlinson to see if the author had any opinions on the subject of his research: military music. Tomlinson did not. However what O'Keeffe found in t...

We know the story of enigma, but what was the German Alan Turing doing in the heart of the Reich? German codebreakers had similar successes to the Allies, and in this episode, Dan chats to Christian Jennings about cracking codes, the Battle of the Atlantic, and how to use a Romanian Opera Program...

Born to slaves in 1863, John Wesley Gilbert was the first student of the Paine Institute, a graduate of Brown University, and the first black archaeologist.

While at Brown, he was awarded a scholarship to study abroad at the American School of Classical studies in Athens, Greece. Here, he helped...

Dr Innes McCartney is a Nautical Archaeologist. He is Research Fellow at Bournemouth University and author of Jutland 1916: The Archaeology of a Naval Battlefield.

2,000 years ago, the heroic general Germanicus Caesar died at Epidaphnae just outside Antioch on the Orontes. Roman historian Lindsay Powell unravels the mystery surrounding the demise of Ancient Rome’s most popular son and explains why he was such a remarkable figure.

No man knew Adolf Hitler as intimately as his trusted physician, Theodoor Morell. As part of Hitler's inner social circle, he assisted the leader in virtually everything for the entire war years. His unconventional treatments were famed in Germany, and Hitler so trusted the 'miracle' prescription...

Fought in the second half of 1942, the Battles of El Alamein were a series of climactic confrontations in Egypt between British Imperial and Commonwealth forces, and a combined German and Italian army. Intended as a last-ditch attempts by the British to halt German gains in North Africa, they res...

Kate Summerscale has written one of the Sunday Time books of the year exploring the world of poltergeists and ghosts in the build up to the Second World War. She came on the podcast to tell us all about Nandor Fodor – a Jewish-Hungarian refugee and chief ghost hunter for the International Institu...

The second ever History Hit live show saw Dan talking about ghosts with Martha McGill, the British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Warwick. How do ghosts change throughout history? What ghostly misdemeanour saw one servant forced to wear a sackcloth to church for a year?

Globalisation. It's a word we often associate with the politics, society and economics of our own lifetimes. But Valerie Hansen, an esteemed professor of History at Yale, has argued that globalisation is embedded deep in the past. Whilst traditionally, historians have cited Columbus' 1492 voyage ...

This Friday sees the 200th anniversary of Queen Victoria's birth. BAFTA winning historian and Joint Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces Lucy Worsley takes Dan on a tour of Kensington Palace, one of the principle royal residences since 1689, and the childhood home of Queen Victoria. The rooms ...

Jessie Childs is an award-winning author and historian. In this fascinating interview, she explores the Catholic predicament in Elizabethan England - an age in which their faith was criminalised, and almost two hundred Catholics were executed. In exposing the tensions masked by the cult of Gloria...

Natalie Haynes joined me on the podcast to retell the stories of remarkable women at the heart of Greek myths, from Medusa, Penelope, and Pandora, to the Amazons.

On 21 October 1422 - 600 years ago - King Charles VI of France died at the age of 53 after reigning for 42 years. He was known as both Charles le Bien-Aimé (the Beloved) and Charles le Fou (the Mad) - the latter a reference to the mental health episodes that frequently dogged his life. Because he...

Julia Samuel is a psychotherapist and paediatric counsellor. In this episode, she discusses our different approaches to grief throughout the ages - and what we can learn from history to assuage our feelings.

Gross-Rosen concentration camp was a Nazi German network of Nazi concentration camps built and operated during World War 2. The main camp was located in the village of Gross-Rosen not far from the border with occupied Poland, in the modern-day Rogo?nica in Lower Silesia, Poland, directly on the r...

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Channel Islands. Dan went to meet four people who remember the war years on the islands and hear their experiences of occupation.

The Battle of Brunanburh is one of the most important battles in British history. It was fought in 937 between Æthelstan, King of England, and an alliance of Olaf Guthfrithson, King of Dublin;Constantine II, King of Scotland and Owain, King of Strathclyde. English victory at the battle defined th...

On 18th April, 1947, British forces set off the largest non-nuclear explosion in history. The target was a small island in the North Sea, thirty miles off the German coast, which for generations had stood as a symbol of Anglo-German conflict - Heligoland. Jan Rueger is Professor of History as Bir...