We all know the name, Joan of Arc. But who really was this celebrated voice of the people of France? For some she is a simple peasant girl - one of the people. For others, she is a champion of nation and church. For the English, she was simply the enemy.

Dr Eleanor Janega is on a mission to deci...

Penises, they’re everywhere in ancient art and sculpture…But back in Ancient Greece they were artistically embodied a bit differently…why? Size spoke volumes.

Dr Kate Lister and her handy tape measure are on a quest to get the measure of Ancient Greek statues in the Cambridge Museum of Classics...

Women have been fighting to be seen as professional artists for hundreds of years.

Dr Kate Lister explores a brand new exhibition at the Tate Britain that features the work of over 100 female professional artists: 'Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520–1920'. Kate investigates the chall...

This winter, Dr Eleanor Janega leads us into the darker corners of the medieval imagination - a world where the boundary between the living and the dead was dangerously thin.

Drawing on medieval chronicles, religious monuments, and Icelandic sagas, we learn why people believed the dead could ret...

17th century Iceland was a remote place. But its isolation didn’t stop it getting caught in one of the most horrifying crazes of the time, the witch hunts. But in the breathtaking landscape of Iceland something was different. In Iceland 93% of witches killed were men. Dr Kate Lister is on a missi...

History Hit has special access to the Six Lives exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery - a remarkable gathering of paintings, brought together for the first time, representing six Tudor women who had something in common: they were all married to King Henry VIII.

Prof. Suzannah Lipscomb take...

When you wake up every morning and get dressed, you probably don’t stop to think that you’re taking part in a millennia-old cultural tradition. How you choose to look is all part of the long history of humans altering their appearance to make a statement - from self-expression and individuality t...

Dr Eleanor Janega investigates one of the least recorded aspects of medieval life - working women. But dig deep and you can find the evidence - proving the medieval period is a fascinating window into the true history of women…and work!

Eleanor takes on the jobs and businesses of real medieval ...

March 2022 marks the 500th anniversary since Anne Boleyn made her debut at the court of King Henry VIII.

Prof. Suzannah Lipscomb investigates the story of Anne’s remarkable upbringing in England, the Netherlands and France before she arrived at the heart of Tudor England. For all Anne Boleyn’s...

For medieval people, the apocalypse was not some distant prophecy—it was an imminent reality shaping their lives.

In Medieval Apocalypse, historian Dr. Eleanor Janega embarks on a journey through England and France to uncover how our ancestors understood the end of days. From the terrifying vis...

Mary’s biography is enormously dramatic, packed with romance, betrayal, imprisonment and violence. Unsurprisingly, it has proved irresistible to film-makers, recreating a time when two queens vied for power - Mary in Scotland and Elizabeth I in England. Their relationship was blighted with mistr...

January 1649, Whitehall. A king steps onto the scaffold. Moments later, Charles I is dead... tried and executed by his own subjects. For the first time in its history, England is without a monarch.

What follows is one of the most radical experiments in British history. The House of Lords is abol...

Join Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney on the dark streets of Edinburgh as they investigate the infamous nineteenth century case of Burke and Hare: Scotland’s most notorious serial killers.

William Burke and William Hare murdered for money, killing in cold blood at least 16 times, so that they ...

Few British monarchs loom as large in the public imagination as King Henry VIII. Straddling the line between man and myth, he is best known for his infamous six marriages and his penchant for beheadings. But where does fiction meet fact? In cinema and on television, he has been portrayed by a hos...

November 5th, 1605... beneath the shadowed vaults of the Houses of Parliament, a man waits with 36 barrels of gunpowder by his side, and a plan that could change the fate of a nation forever.

Then, in a moment, it's over... Guy Fawkes is caught and the plan thwarted. But what if he wasn't?

Led ...

The second film in our series exploring the remarkable collections of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. In this episode, Prof. Suzannah Lipscomb journeys into the world of Ancient Mesopotamian protectors. Guided by curator Dr Nancy Highcock, we uncover a fascinating array of objects, from fearsome ...

The third film in our series exploring the remarkable collections of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

In this episode, Prof. Suzannah Lipscomb investigates the shifting image of witches in the early modern imagination. In conversation with curator An Van Camp, we trace how witches were portrayed...