Around 5200 years ago, during the Neolithic period, when farming first took hold, Orkney was a hugely influential cultural centre. Yet, as Europe moved into the Bronze Age, the islands’ influence dwindled and Orkney became more insular.
But what do we know about the arrival of the Bronze Age in O...

Professor George Dehner is a world environmental historian who examines the intersection of humans and disease in the modern era. We talked about the great flu pandemics of the later 20th Century, 1968 and 1976.

Exploring the foundation of Hong Kong, Dan ventures to the Pearl River Delta, one of the most densely urbanised regions in the world and is an economic hub of China. Vaudine England is a journalist and historian based on Hong Kong.

Jason Wordie is an established local historian and writer who conducts historical walks in Hong Kong for Hong Kong residents. Jason has written extensively on Hong Kong, Macao and the surrounding region and he has a regular column in the South China Morning Post.

From a plague in Athens during the Peloponnesian War in 430 BCE, to another in 540 that wiped out half the population of the Roman empire, down through the Black Death in the Middle Ages and on through the 1918 flu epidemic (which killed between 50 and 100 million people) and this century's deadl...

There are more historic artefacts on our ocean floor than there are in every museum in the world put together. Over thousands of years ships carrying every conceivable cargo have sunk in the rivers and oceans of the world. Protecting them is an enormous challenge. Thankfully there are heroes out ...

Dan talks to the editor of the Times Literary Supplement, Stig Abell about what ideas and institutions govern Britain, and how they have developed.

Dan talks to Martin Slater about the history of national debts, how they powered nations and the changing function and timeframe of debt in the modern world.

For centuries, the pub has played a central role in our lives and communities. Throughout Britain, there are many pubs saying that they are the oldest - some of them even claim to have Medieval origins.

In this episode of Gone Medieval, Dr. Cat Jarman welcomes back award-winning buildings archae...

Lewis Dartnell joined me on the podcast to talk about a theory that links the outcome of the US election to geology.

Dan talks to academic and Washington Post columnist Brian Klaas the decay of democracy and the slide into authoritarian nationalism.

I was thrilled to be joined on the podcast by the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, Anne Applebaum. Anne's written extensively on Marxism–Leninism, the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe, and was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic ...

I was delighted to be joined by Nicholas O'Shaughnessy, who took me through the remarkable rise of Adolf Hitler. Starting with his experience of the First World War, Nicholas took me through the events and turning points which turned a failed art student into one of the most powerful men in histo...

Mike Loades joined me on the podcast to talk about the history of dogs, and how they are intertwined with human history.

The world faces a unique environmental challenge. The scale of response to this looming catastrophe can be overwhelming. But economist and activist Andrew Simms believes that history provides us with a guide. It can inspire us to see that we have overcome greater challenges than those we face now...

Award winning broadcaster, journalist and author Gaia Vince talks to Dan about why humans evolved. Not just biologically but in terms of our language, culture and relationships. This is a big, wide ranging conversation about how we came to be - who we are over hundreds of thousands of years.

Russia's current conflict in Ukraine was supposed to be a showcase of military prowess, a quick war that solidified her status as a great power. Instead, it has laid bare issues in leadership, training, supply and morale, all of which have crippled the military's operational capabilities. Althoug...

Professor Frank Snowden is currently on lockdown in Rome, experiencing at first hand life in a pandemic. For years he has written about the great waves of disease that swept across the world in the past. Now he is experiencing one. I talked to him about what pandemics have done to us. How they ha...

In July 1799 a group of French soldiers stumbled upon a stone that set to change our understanding of the ancient world.
The iconic Rosetta Stone, a stela or inscribed slab, was dug up in the foundations of a fort in the town of Rashid a port city east of Alexandria. This discovery provided the k...

Dan chats to Tim Mohr, a Club DJ turned writer, who has a very different story of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Tim talks about East German punks, who opposed the oppressive DDR government with their music and their actions, and describes how many of them were arrested because what they stood for ...

On Armistice Sunday, Dan talks to Dan Todman about remembrance, and the ways in which we think about the events of the First World War.

The question of wars and how we remember them has always fascinated me. With WW1 we always seem to talk about the enormous, tragic loss of life - captured so beautifully by the likes of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. But WW2 seems to be more about stoicism, Spitfires and speeches. Lucy Noake...

Were sub-Saharan African people present in Medieval Europe? Despite their absence from many histories, they were, arriving as traders, as explorers, as warriors, or - for those only known from archaeological discoveries - for many reasons that we may never find out.

In this episode, Matt Lewis ...

Padraic Scanlan joined me on the podcast to talk about how Britain rose to global power on the backs of enslaved workers. Modern Britain has inherited the legacies and contradictions of a liberal empire built on slavery. Modern capitalism and liberalism emphasise 'freedom' - for individuals and f...