HMS Black Joke
Please note that this episode contains mentions of racial trauma, slavery and violence.The most feared ship in Britain’s West Africa Squadron, His Majesty’s Black Joke was one of a handful of ships ta...
16 Touko 202223min
The Secret Plot to Kill the Government
On the night of February 23 1820, twenty-five impoverished craftsmen assembled in an obscure stable in Cato Street, London, with a plan to massacre the whole British cabinet at its monthly dinner. The...
15 Touko 202233min
How to Survive in Medieval England
If you travelled back in time to the Medieval period this very second, do you think you would survive? The short answer is probably not. If you weren't wearing a hat, wore glasses on the street, or ev...
12 Touko 202232min
Codebreaking at Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park, Britain's key decryption centre during WWI, is known for the success of breaking the Nazi Enigma codes - experts have suggested that the Bletchley Park codebreakers may have shortened ...
11 Touko 202230min
Mental Health in Victorian Britain
This week is Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK so we’ve got a special episode exploring the surprising way Victorians approached mental health treatment in the 19th century. Oral historian Stella...
10 Touko 202228min
The 1650s: Britain's Decade Without a Crown
In 1649 Britain was engulfed by revolution. Charles I was executed for treason and within weeks the English monarchy had been abolished and the House of Lords discarded. The people, it was announced, ...
9 Touko 202228min
VE Day
For most of us, VE Day conjures up black and white images of carefree servicemen and women dancing and beaming in Trafalgar Square, of Churchill greeted by jubilant crowds in Whitehall, and of course,...
8 Touko 202222min
Diving for Lost Slave Shipwrecks
From the 16th to the 19th centuries, European slave traders forcibly uprooted millions of African people and shipped them across the Atlantic in conditions of great cruelty. Today, on the bottom of th...
5 Touko 202236min
