The night was freezing cold. The hard ground shrouded in mist. By dawn the soldiers were on the move. It was 2 December 1805 and just outside what is now Brno, 3 mighty armies were about to fight one of the greatest battles in history. By the time the sun set, the French Emperor Napoleon Bonapart...

In Spring of 1815 the exiled Napoleon Bonaparte, one of history's most accomplished generals, escaped his jailers and returned to Paris in what is known as the 'Hundred Days'. After receiving the news, the powers of Europe formed the Seventh Coalition to remove Napoleon from the French throne and...

Napoleon was one of the most significant soldiers and statesmen in world history. And his last years spent on the remote island of St Helena only adds to the fascination of his story.

Dan Snow visits the key sites on St Helena, linked to Napoleon's stay on this island. St Helena has been COVID ...

A major breaking story filmed by History Hit.

Incredibly rare bones of men and horses have been discovered in July 2022 at the Waterloo Battlefield - and History Hit has been there to record the excavations as they unfold.

The veterans support charity 'Waterloo Uncovered' returned to the Water...

He was the man who would define the start of the 19th century. He has more documented victories than any other battlefield commanders in history. From a relatively humble background, he rose to become master of Europe. This is the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. Featuring historians Dr Michael Rowe, ...

BREAKING NEWS: The bones of up to 10 soldiers killed in the Battle of Waterloo have been discovered - the largest cache of Waterloo casualties ever found.

Uncovered by a team of Belgium and German academics, it's believed these bones belong to a mix of Prussian, French and British Soldiers all ...

On 21st of August 1808, the 39-year-old Sir Arthur Wellesley (later to become the Duke of Wellington) stood at the head of an Anglo-Portuguese army numbering approximately 14,000.

His army was positioned on the blind side of a slope, awaiting the advance of a French Army under General Jean-Ando...

Victory was total. An enemy fleet obliterated. The course of a great war determined. A hero struck down and a legend born. In October 1805 the British Royal Navy defeated the combined battle fleets of the French and Spanish empires 20 miles northwest of a promontory of rock and sand in southern S...

200 years ago, Britain's Royal Navy was the most technologically advanced and supremely efficient force in the history of naval warfare.

But what was it like to live and work on board these ships? What did the men eat? How did the ships sail? What were the weapons they used?

In this documentar...

The Haitian Revolution caused a seismic shift in global politics. When a mixture of different groups on the French colony of Saint Domingue rose against the colonists, few expected the rebellion to succeed. However, under the leadership of figures such as Toussaint L'Ouverture, Henry Christophe a...

The British Army is one of the world’s most experienced fighting forces. From Blenheim to Waterloo, from Balaclava to the Somme, it has played its part in the history’s most bloody conflicts. But as these troops executed Herculean tasks in the worlds harshest terrains, what were they wearing? How...

On 2 December 1805 Napoleon Bonaparte won his greatest victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, crushing a combined Austro-Russian Allied force. Victory was total;Napoleon forever boasted this as the military success he was most proud of. In this podcast Dan chats to Ian Castle, an expert on the Batt...

Sudhir Hazareesingh joined me to discuss the life of Toussaint Louverture, a revolutionary leader who confronted the forces of slavery, settler colonialism, imperialism and racial hierarchy. The Haitian Revolution began in the French Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue with a slave revolt in Augus...

For the 214th anniversary of Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson's decisive victory at Trafalgar Andrew Baines, curator of HMS Victory, talks Dan through the events of 21 October 1805: the ship, the man, the battle.

205 years ago today, 60,000 men were slaughtered in the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon Bonaparte's French army was finally defeated by an almighty coalition of troops from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick and Nassau, led by the Duke of Wellington, and the Prussian army under ...

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

The Battle of Waterloo brought a generation of terrible warfare to a close, decisively ending the career of Napoleon Bonaparte. How did the Duke of Wellington defeat Napoleon? Why did Napoleon make a fatal blunder? And how did Waterloo shape convictions about Britain’s future role in the world? R...

The common sailor was a crucial engine of British prosperity and expansion up until the Industrial Revolution. From exploring the South Seas with Cook to establishing the East India Company as a global corporation;from the sea battles that made Britain a superpower to the crisis of the 1797 mutin...

The Haitian Revolution caused a seismic shift in global politics. When a mixture of different groups on the French colony of Saint Domingue rose against the colonists, few expected the rebellion to succeed. However, under the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture, the Haitians became one of the few...

We revisit Dan's interview with Peter Snow to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, and learn more about this conflict which changed the face of Europe. Producer: Peter Curry

In 1791 the slaves of the French colony of Sant-Domingue rose up against their colonial masters and after a long and bloody struggle, defeated them to found the state of Haiti. Led by charismatic leaders such as Toussaint Louverture it was the only example of a successful slave revolution and the...

Few historical figures have made as much of an impact on the arts and popular culture as Napoleon Bonaparte, portrayed at times as a heroic visionary, and at others as comically short and bossy. But how does the Napoleon of novels, plays and films, compare with the real man? And how did he contro...