Dan explores the birth and development of chemical warfare during the First World War.

1984 is one of the greatest books ever written, and continues to both haunt and inform public perceptions of totalitarianism. Dan talks to Dorian Lynskey, who has written a biography of this critical text, discussing Orwell's reasons for writing and 1984's relevance to the present day, as well as...

We know the story of enigma, but what was the German Alan Turing doing in the heart of the Reich? German codebreakers had similar successes to the Allies, and in this episode, Dan chats to Christian Jennings about cracking codes, the Battle of the Atlantic, and how to use a Romanian Opera Program...

Dr Innes McCartney is a Nautical Archaeologist. He is Research Fellow at Bournemouth University and author of Jutland 1916: The Archaeology of a Naval Battlefield.

No man knew Adolf Hitler as intimately as his trusted physician, Theodoor Morell. As part of Hitler's inner social circle, he assisted the leader in virtually everything for the entire war years. His unconventional treatments were famed in Germany, and Hitler so trusted the 'miracle' prescription...

Kate Summerscale has written one of the Sunday Time books of the year exploring the world of poltergeists and ghosts in the build up to the Second World War. She came on the podcast to tell us all about Nandor Fodor – a Jewish-Hungarian refugee and chief ghost hunter for the International Institu...

Gross-Rosen concentration camp was a Nazi German network of Nazi concentration camps built and operated during World War 2. The main camp was located in the village of Gross-Rosen not far from the border with occupied Poland, in the modern-day Rogo?nica in Lower Silesia, Poland, directly on the r...

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Channel Islands. Dan went to meet four people who remember the war years on the islands and hear their experiences of occupation.

On 18th April, 1947, British forces set off the largest non-nuclear explosion in history. The target was a small island in the North Sea, thirty miles off the German coast, which for generations had stood as a symbol of Anglo-German conflict - Heligoland. Jan Rueger is Professor of History as Bir...

Dan talks to Hirata San, a survivor of the Hiroshima attacks, and one of the few remaining survivors who speak English, about the Hiroshima bombing.

Margaret MacMillan talks to her nephew Dan about her seminal book 'The War That Ended Peace: The Road To 1914'. They discuss the importance of Storytelling to the historian's process, the ways in which political actors at the time viewed the relation between fate and choice, the role that masculi...

The Christmas Truce was one of the most miraculous episodes in the history of warfare, and History Hit have a major new podcast and film dropping next week. Watch this space…

Tristan Donovan joined me on the podcast to talk about the history of gaming.

Germans soldiers called it Blitzkatarrh, British soldiers called it Flanders Grippe, but the 1918 pandemic was most commonly known as 'Spanish Flu'. Catherine Arnold is the author of 'Pandemic 1918', and she joined me on the pod to discuss this terrible disease. A disease where victims suffered h...

Dan talks to Tim Tate about the uncomfortable history of the Nazi secret service's operations in the UK.

Dan sits down with writer and teacher Emma Craigie to come up with the latest theory on Hitler's genitals.

Ksi?? Castle. Medieval castle, baroque palace, Fuhrer HQ. It was seized by the Nazi regime in 1944. It was a part of the Project Riese until 1945 when it was occupied by the Red Army. Countless artefacts were stolen or destroyed by the Soviets.

Roger Moorhouse is an historian of the Third Reich and WW2, author of The Devils' Alliance, Killing Hitler & Berlin at War. In this fascinating episode, he discusses the worst maritime disaster in history: the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff in 1945.

Dan explores HMS Caroline, the last surviving Royal Navy veteran of Jutland. The team from the HMS Caroline museum and William Hughes, the man in charge of much of its restoration and maintenance, give him a tour.

Dan talks to Dr. Phil Weir about the history of the HMS President and reinstating her place along the Thames.

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.

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.