Tank Standoff at Checkpoint Charlie

Tank Standoff at Checkpoint Charlie

For 16 hours between the 27 to 28 October 1961, the world held its breath as Soviet and US tanks faced each other down at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin and came very close to turning the Cold War hot. However, one of the most dramatic and dangerous showdowns of the cold war has been largely overshadowed by the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later which saw the two superpowers go head to head once more. To discuss how it was that tanks came to be deployed ready for battle at one of the most sensitive locations along the Iron Curtain Dan is joined by Iain MacGregor, author of Checkpoint Charlie: The Cold War, the Berlin Wall and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth. Iain and Dan discuss how the confrontation was brought about by a trip to the opera, the political miscalculations that led the world to the brink of war and how the crisis was averted.

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Episoder(1488)

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The Great Famine

The Great Famine

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How Did Three Samurai Warlords Unite Japan?

Today, we dive into the chaotic final act of Japan’s Warring States period, and hear about the three warlords who brought it to an end. Oda Nobunaga, the ruthless innovator who shattered the status qu...

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2 Feb 52min

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Teenage peasant, visionary commander, convicted heretic, national saint - Joan of Arc's life reads like a legend. Today, Dan digs past that legend to understand who Joan really was, and why her story ...

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