20th Century
Defined by a rise of nationalism, two world wars, clashing super powers, nuclear weapons and space exploration, the 20th Century is certainly not void of fascinating history. Enjoy our enormous library of documentaries on key events such as D-Day or the sinkng of the Titanic, interviews with leading experts such as Tom Holland, David Cannadine and fascinating podcasts on the history of warfare.
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My Life and World War Two
Happy Birthday Victor Gregg - he has turned 100 this week. Victor volunteered to join the army before the Second World War and he fought all the way through - from clashes with the Italians in North Africa in 1940 to being captured 75 years ago this autumn at Arnhem. He was a Prisoner of War in D...
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Mudlarking
Dan joins author and mudlark expert Lara Maiklem for a spot of mudlarking.
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Modern Spain
Sir Paul Preston CBE comes on the show to discuss Spain's modern history and explain how the stripping away of its empire in the early 19th century had such a catastrophic impact on the country.
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Korea in 90 Seconds
Join Dan Snow as he takes you through what you need to know about Korea in a mere 90 seconds.
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Inside Blenheim Palace
One of the grandest private houses in the world, the site of Blenheim Palace has been host to the murder of a royal mistress, the downfall of a quarrelling Duchess and the birth of Sir Winston Churchill. Dan Snow takes a tour of one of Britain's most famous attractions.
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Ink: A History of Tattooing
Matt Lodder is the world's leading expert on the history of tattoos. He has found evidence of people using ink or charcoal on their bodies stretching back thousands of years. He explodes myths at every turn. Tattoos were common long before Captain Cook allegedly imported them back from the Pacifi...
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How to Be a Dictator with Frank Dikötter
"Dictators study power: how do you take it, how do you keep it, how do you expand it". Dutch historian Frank Dikötter sits down with Dan to explain the history behind dictatorship and the various methods these individuals used to gain and maintain power.
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How Christianity Shapes Our Morality
Tom Holland sits down with Dan to talk about the history of Christianity, and how the religion has shaped morality in Western civilisation to this day.
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Culture of Memory: Germany's Post-WW2 Statues and Memorials
Throughout Germany post World War Two monuments can be found in all shapes and sizes. But what they are memorialising is unique: ‘Erinnerungskultur’ – ‘culture of memory’. Focused around the sins of Nazi Germany, these memorials were designed to commemorate the country’s sins between 1933 and 194...
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Arnhem: Battle for the Bridges
Operation Market Garden was the Allied operation to end the Second World War by Christmas 1944. The brainchild of Bernard Montgomery, it involved the combined use of airborne and armoured divisions carving a path through the Netherlands, securing several vital bridges, bypassing the formidable Si...
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Apollo 11: How Humans Reached the Moon
By the late 1950s the superpowers of USA and Soviet had moved beyond attempting to dominate land, sea and air and now set their sights firmly on space. After the USSR succeeded in launching an unmanned satellite and sending a man into orbit first, the USA announced a massive spending programme in...
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Africa: Written out of History
Historian Luke Pepera looks at how and why the history of Africa was written out of world history. He also explores how and why, as a consequence of this, the history of Africans in Britain was written out of British history.
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Acting Up: Why The Royal Wedding Puts Women Centre Stage
Historian Rebecca Rideal explores the significance of the wedding of Meghan Markle to Prince Harry by looking at how actresses have furthered the cause of equal rights and elevated the status of women, breaking new ground and subverting expectations, from restoration England right up to the prese...
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Drake's Island: Plymouth's Island Fortress
For generations, Drake's Island, situated just outside of Plymouth harbour, had been owned by the Ministry of Defence. Recently, however, this island bastion has gone into private ownership. In this documentary Bob King, the gatekeeper of Drake's Island, gives Dan an exclusive tour of this extrem...
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Salisbury Plain: Training for War
Salisbury Plain is the Ministry of Defence's largest training ground, covering an area the size of the Isle of Wight. Dan Snow is shown around the Plain by MOD archaeologist Richard Osgood, to explore how British, Commonwealth and Allied troops prepared for the two great wars.
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Remember Pearl Harbor
Narrated by Tom Selleck: Sunday, December 7, 1941 was a beautiful morning on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. A few sailors and soldiers were already up and playing a game of football near Pearl Harbor. Others were sleeping in their barracks or aboard ships after a late night of partying in Honolulu....
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10 Steps to World War Two
After the Great War of 1914-18, European powers were desperate to avoid another conflict of that scale. But just 20 years later, they found themselves plunged into catastrophe on an even greater scale. The outbreak of World War Two has been blamed on the policy of 'appeasement' - with the Great P...
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The Room Where It Happened: Cuban Missile Crisis
In this first episode of 'The Room Where It Happened', History Hit invites three experts to deconstruct the thoughts and feelings of the key players at the heart of this crucial historic moment - each taking the perspective of one of the main protagonists: Khrushchev, Kennedy and Castro.
October...
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The Forgotten Battle of World War I
This documentary sees military historian Alex Churchill travelling through Germany and the Belgian battlefields, retracing the opening weeks of the First World War - a blood battle that took place before the trenches, barbed wire and gas we typically think of when we think "First World War" - ins...
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Ireland: War and Revolution
Between 1919 and 1921, Ireland played host to a long and bloody guerrilla conflict between British state forces and Irish republican guerrillas, in the form of Irish Volunteers or the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The conflict would completely transform the political landscape in Ireland.
In this...
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Endurance: Rediscovered
It was one of the last great lost shipwrecks of history - Sir Ernest Shackleton's Endurance. But now, incredibly, it has been rediscovered - over a century after it sank beneath the ice in freezing Antarctic waters.
Organised by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, the expedition to locate the...
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Inside Britain's Secret Nuclear Bunker
In the wake of the Second World War, Britain moved to cement itself as one of the world's main nuclear powers. The erection of a series of nuclear bunkers followed across the UK, tasked with protecting a fortunate few against any devastating nuclear attack. Sarah Agha explores Britain's secret nu...
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The Greatest Air Race and the Heroes the World Forgot
The Greatest Air Race is the story of how Sir Ross Smith and his three-man crew became the first aviators to cross the planet. It’s a feat that remains largely overlooked in the history of flight.
The Greatest Air Race is presented and narrated by astronaut Andy Thomas as he embarks on a trans-c...