One of the world's most famous and well-preserved pieces of medieval embroidery, the 70-metre-wide Bayeux Tapestry depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England concerning William, Duke of Normandy, and Harold, Earl of Wessex, later King of England, culminating in the Battle of ...

The Wars of the Roses were one of the bloodiest periods in English history. After 30 years of conflict between the royal houses of Lancaster and York, the nobility was shattered, and the Plantagenet dynasty was ended. But what caused this long period of internecine violence? It's a story of such ...

They might be more famous today for their cameos in The Da Vinci Code and Assassin’s Creed, but in real life they were an army of valiant, daring Crusaders famous for their self-discipline, who fought in the Middle Ages' most bloody battles. They were allowed no sex, no personal possessions, and ...

Seb Falk, a historian of medieval science at Cambridge University and the author of The Light Ages, tackles the big questions about science in the Middle Ages.

The oldest known evidence of the use of the bow comes from South Africa, where microliths, believed to be arrowheads dating from around 70,000 years ago, have been found.

Evidence of humans' use of the bow can be found all over the world, from cave art in Algeria that shows a man shooting a slig...

In part one we followed Ray as he uncovered how the bow developed from a tool used by our ancient ancestors to hunt to its early use as a deadly weapon on the battlefield.

In this episode we'll join Ray as he continues his journey into the evolution of the bow and birth of the most deadly weapo...

1066 - one of the most famous years in English history. In a succession crisis like no other three warlords separated by hundreds of miles and savage seas vied for control of the English throne in a series of bloody battles. From Harald Hardrada's crowning victory at Fulford to the renowned Battl...

In 865 AD, England was invaded by the Great Heathen Army. The Great Viking Army, as it was also known, was made up of a coalition of Scandinavian warriors mainly from Denmark and, legend has it, four of the five sons of Ragnar Lothbrok, including Halfdan Ragnarsson, Ivar the Boneless, Bjorn Irone...

In July 2021, the remains of a 13th Century Carmelite friary, also known as Whitefriars, were recently found by archaeologists beneath a demolished multi-storey car park in Gloucester city centre.

Historians knew roughly where Whitefriars had stood, but its exact location was a mystery. The dig,...

Just east of where the Strand turns into Fleet Street in London, there is a small stone archway. Walking through it, one stumbles across a hidden world – one that is leafy, serene and historic. Most of the people who wind their way here don’t realise that the whole area was actually the stronghol...

The region stretching from eastern Europe and sweeping right across into Arabia and the north coast of Africa, was home to one of the most extraordinary empires in history: the Ottoman Empire. Along its routes flowed ideas, goods, disease and death. In existence for 600 years, it also saw the swe...

Windsor Castle has a legendary connection to the British monarchy: the longest-serving royal palace in the whole of Europe. Ever since the days of William the Conqueror, the Castle has dominated this strategic point on the banks of the Thames, overlooking west London. Over the next 1,000 years ki...

Dan sat down with Angela Saini to talk about the history behind race and the history of interactions between civilisations.

I invited Kate Lister to join me after the enormous popularity of her last appearance on the pod. But this time we talked about how our sexual habits are both dulled and invigorated in unprecedented times - wars, plagues, pandemics. We discussed licentious widows who let loose during plagues, the...

I was thrilled to be joined by the legendary Peter Frankopan, Professor of Global History at Oxford University and bestselling author of 'The Silk Roads: A New History of the World'. In this podcast we discussed the current crisis in a wider historical context, and Peter gave some fascinating ins...

In the past few months more than a billion people have faced restrictions unlike any seen before. Shops are closed; the death toll is rising; people across the globe have been forced to rise to an extraordinary challenge. But it is important to remember that humans have experienced pandemics befo...

For nearly a thousand years, something high in the forest has been watching over the Welsh capital. A community pulled together in the Sixties, giving St. Mary's church in Caerau a short new life.

To many, Columbus is still the man who discovered America. Yet, there had been others before him. The Viking Leif Eriksson, who around 1000 AD became the first European to set foot on American soil. A medieval Welsh Prince named Madoc supposed to have built fortified places along the Ohio River. ...

Toby Green has been fascinated by the history of West Africa for decades after he visited as a student and heard whispers of history that didn’t appear in text books. Years later he wrote ‘Fistful of Shells,’ a survey of West Africa and West-Central Africa before the slave trade, and the effect t...

For more than 900 years, the Tower of London has occupied its place at the heart of English life. At various times a royal citadel, palace, menagerie, observatory, public records office, mint, arsenal and, even to this day, the home of the crown jewels of England, since 1100 it has famously serve...

High on the peak of the Cotswolds stands one of the most remarkable buildings in Britain. Built as a folly in the final days of the 18th century, Broadway Tower sprung up during the height of the French Revolutionary Wars under the distracted watch of the architect James Wyatt. In the following y...

Lincoln is one of the most historic settlements in Britain: from being the site of a key legionary fort in Roman times to its towering cathedral being the first landmark British bomber crews would see upon their return from daring raids over Nazi-occupied Europe during World War Two. At Lincoln's...

Prof. Diarmaid MacCulloch embarks on a ‘church crawl' around a selection of beautiful parish churches.

In this episode, Diarmaid MacCulloch takes us on a ‘church crawl’ to his local parish church of St Barnabas Jericho in Oxford.

Prof. Diarmaid MacCulloch embarks on a ‘church crawl' around a selection of beautiful parish churches.

In this episode, Diarmaid MacCulloch takes us to Inglesham in Wiltsire to visit one of Britain's ancient churches.