Getting to the moon was no easy feat, no matter how confident Kennedy may have sounded in his famous 1961 speech. NASA built a team from the ground up, and there were plenty of moments where it seemed as if they weren't going to make it. Fong tells stories of just how close they came, and how ris...

Argentina surrendered to British forces in Port Stanley on the 14th of June 1982. The Falklands conflict was over. In the months after the fighting ended troops and their equipment shipped out, graves were dug and memorials were put up across the islands for those killed in battle. British milita...

Dan talks to Daisy Dunn, a historian and classicist, about the lives of the two Plinys in the shadow of Vesuvius. The younger Pliny witnessed the eruption and would later write an account of the eruption. The elder Pliny, actually the uncle of the younger Pliny, would die in the blaze. Producer: ...

Misha Glenny is the host of a radio show called The Invention of Britain and he discusses with Dan the development of Britain. Glenny explores the history of our relationships with Scotland, Wales and Ireland, as well as the no less tempestuous relationship with Europe.

On the 100th anniversary, Gervase Philips tells the story of the Battle of Amiens of 1918.

Alexander the Great’s untimely death at Babylon in 323 BC triggered an unprecedented crisis across his continent-spanning empire.

Within a couple of days, the very chamber in which he died witnessed a gore-soaked showdown between his previously united commanders and soldiers. Within a fortnight,...

The Battle of Mount Tumbledown was an attack by the British Army and the Royal Marines on the heights overlooking Stanley, the Falkland Islands' capital. One of a number of night battles that took place during the British advance towards Stanley, the battle led to British troops capturing all the...

The wreck of one of the most famous ships of the 17th century - which sank 340 years ago while carrying the future King of England James Stuart - has been discovered off the coast of Norfolk in the UK, it can be revealed today.

Since running aground on a sandbank on May 6, 1682, the wreck of the...

Matt Lewis concludes his series on the Wars of the Roses with a look at a figure who is often divisive and misunderstood, despised or loved, but who might even be labelled as a winner, maybe the winner of the Wars of the Roses. Margaret Beaufort was the mother of Henry Tudor and the matriarch of ...

Please note that this episode contains descriptions of conflict and torture that some may find distressing.

When the British arrived on the Falklands Islands in 1982, they battled the Argentines. But on the other side, it was a very different story. For the young Argentine combatants, their grea...

Clothing has been essential for human evolution. From protection against changing climates, through to the driving force behind technological innovation in the production of fabrics and agriculture.
In this episode, Tristan with the help of Ian Gilligan, delves deep into our prehistory to uncover...

London, LA, and Suffolk, an unexpected yet homely trio for author and Broadcaster Danny Wallace. Having escaped to the country just in time for the 2020 lockdowns a mere ten minutes up the road from friend and host Jimmy, Danny talks today about how he adapted to country life, and just how good t...

When HM The Queen was crowned in 1953, her Coronation ceremony contained some subtle nods to another Queen who made history 1100 years earlier. Princess Judith of Flanders was the first woman to be crowned as Queen among the West Saxons. But her two royal marriages were not without controversy.

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In 1919, excavators working near Edinburgh in Scotland unearthed the largest hoard of Roman hacksilver ever found. The trove, containing mostly silver vessels but also some personal items and coins, was probably buried in the early 5th century AD - just as the legions were finally pulling out of ...

On June 6, 1944, D-Day, Patrick Thomas, a young Royal Navy telegraphist, boarded the craft in Portsmouth. The boat was part of the first wave on Sword Beach, covering communications for land battles while providing defence from enemy ships and torpedoes. On June 25, it was hit by an acoustic mine...

What happens when a traditional family farm gets passed down to a born YouTuber? Tom Pemberton.

For six generations, the Pemberton family have farmed at Birks Farm in the picturesque town of Lytham, Lancashire. In 2016 Tom (the farmer’s son) uploaded his first video to Youtube about a raw milk d...

On the 4th of June 1942, the US Navy took on the might of Japan's Imperial Navy in the battle of Midway. It was America's Trafalgar! At the end of the fighting devastating losses had been inflicted on the Japanese and the entire strategic position in the Pacific was upended in favour of the Allie...

Queen Elizabeth II is the longest-reigning monarch in British history and one of the longest-reigning in the world. To mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, we have brought together some of today’s best historians to discuss the life and times of Britain's long history of queens from the Medieval pe...

What do human remains - and the objects buried with them - tell us about people’s lives in Britain in the first millennium, what they thought about mortality, how they felt about loss, and what they believed came next?

The anthropologist and author Professor Alice Roberts has been exploring the ...

From May 31 to June 1, 1921, a white mob attacked residents, homes and businesses in the predominantly Black ‘Greenwood District’ of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hundreds of people died or were injured in the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921— the event remains one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. his...

Every March cities around the world gear up to celebrate Saint Patrick's day, but from 2023 Ireland will have a new bank holiday. This time they will be celebrating Saint Brigid. But who was she? This other patron saint of Ireland was a pupil and successor to Patrick, and unlike him she was born ...

Please note that this episode contains descriptions of combat and some explicit language.

At the Battle of Goose Green the Second Battalion the Parachute Regiment (2 Para) fought against various sub-units of the Argentine army and air force— this would be the first and the longest battle of the ...

David Stirling was an aristocrat, innovator and special forces legend that earned him the nickname 'The Phantom Major'. His formation of the Special Air Service in the summer of 1941 led to a new form of warfare and Stirling is remembered as the father of special forces soldiering. But was he rea...

As part of our Wars of the Roses special month, there’s one family that demands more attention than they usually get: The Beauforts’.

The influence of the Beauforts’ in the Wars of the Roses can still be felt today, as Margaret Beaufort, the eventual heiress, gave birth to Henry VII, the first ...