Dan talks to Paul Stickler about a bizarre murder in the aftermath of the First World War.

May 28, 1940: Major Akbar Khan of the Royal Indian Army Service Corps marches at the head of 299 soldiers along the beach at Dunkirk - the only Indians in the BEF in France and the only ones at Dunkirk. These men of the Indian Army, carrying their disabled imam, find their way to the East Mole an...

Angus Konstam joined me on the podcast to tell the dramatic story of HMS Hermione. In 1797, the British frigate was the site of the bloodiest mutiny in British naval history.

Dan talks to Lord Daniel Finkelstein about his family's experience of the Holocaust, their time in Belsen, and their friendship with Anne Frank.

Off the coast of the Gaza Strip fishermen have been discovering coins of extreme rarity and importance. They date from the brief reign of Alexander the Great in the Third Century BC. Strangely, months later, a collection of very very similar coins were sold in a London auction house. What's the s...

If you want to know anything about RMS Titanic, Tim Maltin's your man. He is one of the world’s leading experts on the Titanic and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of every nut and bolt secured in place in Belfast, and every moment of its terrifying submersion in the freezing waters of the Atlantic...

A friend of Merlin, the husband of Guinevere, and the inspiration for numerous Hollywood blockbusters - the story of King Arthur is known by many across the globe, but who is the man behind the myth?

Ambrosius Aurelianus emerged from the chaos of 5th Century AD Britain in the aftermath of the Ro...

Dan talks to Adam Zamoyski, a historian who has recently written a new biography of Napoleon.

When captured Nazi generals found themselves in Britain in the Second World War, they were probably surprised to be brought to a beautiful country house where they were wined and dined by a senior British aristocrat. But it was all a charade. For the skirting boards, the swings seats and the flow...

Walking around Second World War fortifications, Patrick Bury is able to draw on his time in the infantry to tell the stories of the battles that occured over them. During his time working on Nazi Megastructures, Paddy accessed the lived history of the important structures built to protect and str...

Located on the banks of the River Nile in Luxor, Egypt, the Karnak Temple complex is one of the largest buildings ever built for religious purposes. Dedicated to the god Amun-Ra and covering over 200 acres - the Karnak Temple complex is bigger than some ancient cities.

Earlier this year, Tristan...

Vice Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson died at Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. Recently there has been considerable interest in Nelson's views on the slave trade and the plantation economy of the West Indies. A letter of Nelson's written months before his death in 1805 to the infamous Jamaican slave owne...

Shusma Malik joined me on the podcast to discuss the infamous Emperor Nero. He ruled nearly 2000 years ago, after taking over from his stepfather Claudius. Nero was a despotic ruler, enamoured in his own talents. His reign was characterised by tyranny and debauchery. To what extent is the commonl...

The Lion House is a riveting new book from journalist and historian Christopher De Bellaigue, written like a novel that tells the dramatic story of Suleyman the Magnificent and his power and influence over 16th Century Europe. In this episode recorded at the Chalke Valley History festival earlier...

75 years ago this spring a fascinating but forgotten battle was fought in the dying days of the Second World War. A group of Georgians rose up against their German overlords on the Dutch island of Texel. Thousands of Georgians served in the Soviet forces during World War II and among those who we...

Odette Sansom, was the most highly decorated woman, and the most decorated spy of any gender during World War II. She was awarded both the George Cross and was appointed a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. Her wartime exploits and later imprisonment by the Nazis were celebrated in the years after...

Dr Colleen Darnell talks to Dan about 'Tutmania', the phase of obsession with the uncovering of the tomb of Tutankhamun, as well as all things Egyptology.

Marc Morris shows me around the Battlefield of Hastings.

James Rebanks joined me on the podcast to tell the history of his family farm in the Lake District hills. This was part of an ancient agricultural landscape: a patchwork of crops and meadows, of pastures grazed with livestock, and hedgerows teeming with wildlife. We talk about how it has transfor...

Paul John Darran joined the army 1980. He was ninth generation of his family to do so. The story begins with his ancestor John Carberry joined the Tyrone militia in Ireland in 1795. He later transferred to the regular army and fought in the Peninsula with Wellington. he was killed during the noto...

This episode features military historian Douglas Gill who has extensively researched the origins of the Spanish Influenza as it emerged in 1915 and 1916 in northern France. Douglas has worked alongside leading virologist, and previous guest on Dan's podcast, John Oxford, to track the initial case...

Chris Bryant joined me on the podcast to tell the story of the gay British politicians who were among the very first to warn Britain about the danger of Hitler’s rise to power and the most vocal in demanding an end to the government’s policy of appeasement.

After service as a Royal Marine and as an intelligence officer for the UK security services, Paddy Ashdown was a Member of Parliament for Yeovil from 1983 to 2001, and leader of the Liberal Democrats from 1988 until 1999. Later he was the international High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovi...

The Covid crisis has seen a huge deployment of UK armed forces personnel to assist the civilian government. Named Operation RESCRIPT it has seen soldiers, sailors and aviators fulfil a wide range of tasks. I wanted to get a sense of the different challenges that the forces face when operating on ...