Pertinax. Son of a Slave to Emperor of Rome.
The son of a former slave, Pertinax was the Roman Emperor who proved that no matter how lowly your birth, you could rise to the very top through hard work, grit and determination.This previously untol...
7 Aug 202041min
How and Why History: America, Japan and the Atomic Bomb
On 6 August 1945, an American B29 bomber dropped the world's first deployed atomic bomb over Hiroshima. Three days later, Nagasaki was at the receiving end of a second American A-bomb. Why did America...
6 Aug 202033min
Rum, Sodomy and the Lash?
The common sailor was a crucial engine of British prosperity and expansion up until the Industrial Revolution. From exploring the South Seas with Cook to establishing the East India Company as a globa...
5 Aug 202030min
The Road to 1914: Myths of Nationalism
This week in 1914 saw the outbreak of the First World War. In this special episode from the archive, Margaret MacMillan talks to her nephew Dan about her seminal book 'The War That Ended Peace: The Ro...
4 Aug 202034min
Gallipoli: the Endgame
In December 1915, some 135,000 allied troops, nearly 400 guns and 15,000 horses were collectively trapped in the bridgeheads at Anzac, Suvla and Helles. It was clear that the operation to seize contro...
3 Aug 202032min
Conan Doyle, Kipling and Kingsley in the Boer War
In early 1900, Rudyard Kipling, Mary Kingsley and Arthur Conan Doyle crossed paths in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War. Motivated in various ways by notions of duty, service, patriotism and jing...
2 Aug 202020min
Leading Germany's Resistance against The Nazis
Norman Ohler joined me on the pod to discuss two remarkable lovers who led Germany's resistance against the Nazis. Harro Schulze-Boysen and Libertas Haas-Heye led a complex network of antifascists, wh...
1 Aug 202027min
The Tudors
Jessie Childs is an award-winning author, historian and expert on the Tudors. She joined me on the podcast to discuss this notorious family. What did people think of them at the time? Do they deserve ...
31 Jul 202022min
