At the end of World War Two the British public wanted to get back to ‘normal’. The gay men who had served their King and country found themselves subjected to a vigorous enforcement of the draconian law that would put them into prison if they were found guilty of indecency. But servicemen living ...

China started out as a neutral country during the First World War. But by early 1917, one thousand Chinese men were on their way to the Western Front. Tens of thousands more would follow, to provide logistical support to the Allies. They constituted one of the largest labour corps of the war. The...

At about 1am on 17 July 1918, in a fortified mansion in Ekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains, the Romanovs – ex-tsar Nicholas II, ex-tsarina Alexandra, their 5 children, and their 4 remaining servants – were awoken by Bolshevik captors and told they must dress and gather their belongings for a swif...

Professor Paul Preston doesn’t pull his punches. His magisterial new history of modern Spain is called 'A People Betrayed'. He is the greatest living authority on Spain and he is not a fan of how that country had been governed. In this podcast he tells me a sorry story of corruption, war and brut...

Gary Sheffield is Professor of War Studies, University of Wolverhampton, and a specialist on Britain at war 1914-45. Douglas Haig: From the Somme to Victory is Gary's latest book.

75 years ago this week Dresden, in Saxony, known as the ‘jewel box’ because of its stunning architecture was obliterated by British and American bombers. The flames reached almost a mile high. Around 25,000 people were thought to have been killed. The novelist Kurt Vonnegut was there. It was he w...

Dan meets some of the surviving Dunkirk veterans on the famous Little Ships which helped to rescue them from the beaches.;The Little Ships of Dunkirk were 700 private boats that sailed from Ramsgate in England to Dunkirk in France between 26 May and 4 June 1940 as part of Operation Dynamo, helpin...

It’s 1940. And the world’s first real air battle is being fought in the skies of the UK. This is the Battle of Britain, in which the Royal Air Force would triumphantly fight off the threat of the German Luftwaffe. Behind the brave pilots and pioneering technology lies an often-forgotten secret we...

A moving and visually dramatic tribute to more than 16,000 members of the Armed Forces killed in action since 1945, the Armed Forces Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum was dedicated in 2007. This intimate and emotional film explores the stories behind some of the names on this towering s...

Dr Heather Jones @WW1POWs is Associate Professor at the Department of International History London School of Economics and Political Science. Dr Jones is author of Violence against Prisoners of War in the First World War.

Dan speaks to historian and author Ted Powell about why Edward VIII's fascinating relationship with the USA.

Clare Mulley chats to Dan about Eglantyne Jebb, the founder of Save the Children. Now 100 years old, Save the Children was initially founded in response to the plight of German and Austrian children during the blockade of Germany in the aftermath of World War One. Producer: Peter Curry

Keith Joyce's grandfather claimed that he had been General Eisenhower's train driver during the Second World War, and Keith has spent years trying to find the records that tell the story of the remarkable train and the remarkable man who drove it. Thumbnail image credit: Alan Wilson / Commons.

March 1944: 76 Allied airmen escaped through a tunnel from their prisoner of war camp deep in occupied Poland. Their aim was not only to get back to Britain and rejoin the war, but also to cause as much inconvenience for the German war machine as possible. Within a few days, all but 3 had been re...

Of all the clubs in the world, perhaps the most extraordinary is the Guinea Pig Club, a group of Second World War veterans that suffered terrible injuries and were then treated by pioneering surgeon Archibald McIndoe. Today there are only a handful left. Dan visits Jan Stangreciuk, one of the few...

A short, animated video of John F Kennedy's famous speech, made to Congress on 25 May 1961, where he outlined the United States' intentions to put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.

Made in 1944, this documentary was produced by the United States War Department to boost Anglo-American relations. It relates the similarities and differences between American and British culture and seeks to demystify certain aspects of British life for an American audience. It's a rather rose t...

In July 1942, Japanese forces made landings at Gona on the north coast of modern Papua New Guinea, as part of a wider plan to defend the naval base of Rabaul. Having been unable to land at Port Moresby in May - a move that resulted in the Battle of the Coral Sea - they now planned to reach the ca...

Join Dan Snow as he takes you through what you need to know about Korea in a mere 90 seconds.

Dan talks to actor, activist, and "part-time suffragette" Kate Willoughby about Emily Davison, the centenary of the Representation of the People Act, and what still needs to be done.

German forces seized control of the Channel Islands on 30 June 1940. By-passed by the Allies as they pushed east they remained under Nazi rule for almost 5 years, until the end of World War Two. This is the story of the British men and women who lived under the German occupation.

Documentary charting the US campaign on the island of Saipan in the Marianas in June and July 1944. The film draws attention to the high number of civilian casualties - sadly a feature of the Pacific island campaigns. Saipan was also among the first occasions where American forces witnessed mass ...

During the years of World War Two, a short lived, but remarkable, organisation existed. The Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) was a civilian service that was tasked with the delivery of aircraft from factories to the squadrons of the RAF and Royal Navy, and the delivery of supplies. Featuring pilots ...