How and Why History: William the Conqueror
On 14 October 1066, Norman invaders led by Duke William of Normandy won a decisive victory over the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson. But why did William have a claim on the English throne? How did t...
30 Jun 202021min
Disease and the Victorians
Dr Emma Liggins is an expert on Victorian Gothic literature. She joined me on the pod to examine how great female writers of the 19th century - such as Elizabeth Gaskell and the Brontes - responded to...
29 Jun 202019min
Western Europe’s Age of Democracy
In the second half of the twentieth century, western Europe was shaped by a revolutionary political force: democracy. Or at least that's what Professor Martin Conway has argued in his major new histor...
28 Jun 202024min
28 Years on Death Row
Anthony Ray Hinton was held on death row for 28 years. He was incorrectly convicted of the murders of two restaurant managers, John Davidson and Thomas Wayne Vasona, in 1985. He was released in 2015 a...
27 Jun 202034min
Forgotten Women of the Civil Rights Movement
I was delighted to be joined by Keisha Blain, an Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh. She took me far into the past - years before Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks - to the roots of No...
26 Jun 202015min
Veterans of the Korean War
70 years ago today, on 25th June 1950, North Korean forces invaded South Korea. The three-year conflict which followed took the lives of four million people including nearly 100,000 British troops. Fo...
25 Jun 202037min
Politics of the Potato
Rebecca Earle joined me on the pod to talk about spuds. She took me through the story of this starchy tuber's dramatic career, which has been at the heart of the development of the world we live in to...
24 Jun 202022min
How and Why History: Operation Barbarossa
In June 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, opening up the Eastern Front in World War II – a campaign to which more forces were committed than in any other theatre of war in history. But why d...
23 Jun 202027min
