James Hawes @jameshawes2 is a former professional archaeologist and university lecturer in German, Doctor of German literature in the lead-up to WW1, novelist and Kafka biographer.

Jill Lepore joined me on the podcast to discuss The Simulmatics Corporation. Founded in 1959, it mined data, targeted voters, accelerated news, manipulated consumers, destabilized politics, and disordered knowledge—decades before Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Cambridge Analytica.

At the end of World War One, the Allies seized the German fleet and held it at Scapa Flow, in Orkney, until the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were announced. At least, that was the plan. The German navy covertly scuttled their own boats under the noses of their captors, rendering the fleet us...

Francine Hirsch joined me on the pod to discuss the full story of the Nuremberg Trials, one in which the Soviet Union was a defining player.

After WWII, many of the men and women who had worked at Bletchley Park moved on to GCHQ, the British government's new facility, established to fight a new foe - Stalin's KGB. Sinclair McKay has interviewed various members of this secret organisation, from codebreakers to radio listeners to mechan...

Ruth Ben-Ghiat joined me on the podcast to discuss what modern authoritarian leaders have in common and how they can be stopped. We discussed the strongman playbook from Mussolini to Putin, Johnson and Trump.

Dan talks to Dr Naomi Paxton, historian of Actresses' Franchise League and Associate Fellow at the School of Advanced Study at the University of London, about the coming of suffrage.

Historian James Barr explains the Sykes-Picot Agreement, 100 years after it was signed.

David Willey, curator at the Tank Museum, Bovington, discusses the development of tank warfare and the impact of tanks at the Battle of Cambrai in 1917.

Just after midnight on 30th 1945, the USS Indianapolis was sailing alone in the Philippine Sea when she was struck by two Japanese torpedoes, almost three hundred miles from land. She sank in 12 minutes. For the next five nights, nearly nine hundred men struggled with battle injuries, shark attac...

In the winter of 1941 an alien-seeming object was spotted by an RAF reconnaissance pilot flying a lone unarmed Spitfire across the French coast. Balanced upon the cliffs near Le Havre was what appeared to be a giant convex dish, directed across the Channel at the war-torn British coastline. With ...

100 years ago today, the Unknown Warrior, a common soldier and an unidentified casualty of war, was buried in Westminster Abbey with all the pomp and ceremony of an empire at its zenith. King George V looked on as 100 Victoria Cross bearers formed a guard of honour and the unknown solider was lai...

Today we remember the suffragettes as a peaceful movement, but in the years before the First World War, the WSPU launched one of the most shocking terrorist campaigns the British mainland has ever seen. Dan talks to Fern Riddell about Kitty Marion, one of the most militant suffragettes, and her s...

Victor Gregg is a veteran of World War Two and the Dresden Bombings, and travelled with Dan to visit Dresden last year for a documentary. In this episode, Dan discusses Victor's time in North Africa, and the trauma of war.

Dan talks to Dr Bill Frankland, a 106 year old veteran of World War Two who lived through a Japanese prisoner of war camp and who also made important contributions to our understanding of allergies.

Dan talks to Dr Bill Frankland, a 106 year old veteran of World War II who lived through a Japanese prisoner of war camp and who also made important contributions to our understanding of allergies. Second of two episodes.

Dan goes to an excavation that's happening now of a World War One fortification near the Belgian village of Wijtschate. He talks to the archaeologists and historians and anthropologists at work at the incredibly preserved, hotly contested ridge, before it is lost forever to the bulldozers later t...

Today marks 100 years since Nancy Astor, the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons, was elected. Rachel Reeves, the current Labour candidate for Leeds West and a former member of the Shadow Cabinet, chats to Dan about the history of women in Westminster. She highlights the challeng...

Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvtunzelmann is a historian and screenwriter. Alex writes a weekly column about historical films for The Guardian Online, entitled Reel Histories.;Alex’s latest book entitled ‘ Reel History ‘, picks through Hollywood’s version of events, sorting the fact from the fiction. ...

In the February 1945, the U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin met at an old Romanov palace in Crimea, which had once been enjoyed by Tsar Nicholas II and his family. Over eight days the 'Big Three' discussed and debated iss...

Dr David Kenyon is a British archaeologist and military historian. He was one of the military advisors on the film War Horse. David is the Research Historian at Bletchley Park @BletchleyPark.

The Battle of Prokhorovka was one of the largest tank battles in military history. Taking place on the Eastern Front, it was fought on 12 July 1943 as part of the wider Battle of Kursk. Two elite SS divisions were obliterated, and about 300 panzers were destroyed as the Red Army began to turn the...

Dan talks to Ruth Ben-Ghiat about what the history of Italian Fascism can teach us about the modern political landscape.

Two weeks before the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Richard Brookhiser joined me on the podcast to discuss Trump and presidential history.