The History of the RNLI

The History of the RNLI

Since its foundation in 1824, the volunteers of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution have been braving the most savage of elements at sea to rescue sailors in distress. Their work has saved the lives of an estimated 143,000 people and helped many, many thousands more. Funded entirely by charitable donations and staffed primarily by volunteers it is a much loved national institution in the UK and Ireland.


Today, Dan is joined by Mark Wordsworth who spent over a decade as a volunteer crewmember and now serves on the board of the RNLI council. Mark and Dan explore how the RNLI came to be founded, its history and some of its most notable rescues. They also discuss the organisations' ethos, which was set out by its founder Sir William Hillary, and how that continues to shape its work today.


If you would like to make a donation to the RNLI you can do so here.


If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.


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Episoder(1491)

Oppenheimer vs Einstein

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10 Mar 202444min

4. Machu Picchu: The Fall of the Inca Empire

4. Machu Picchu: The Fall of the Inca Empire

Part 4/4. The Spanish conquistadors arrived in Peru in 1526 in a bloody pursuit of gold and riches; it was the beginning of the end for the Inca. The Inca were unable to comprehend the Spanish weapons...

7 Mar 202429min

3. Machu Picchu: Inca Gods and Human Sacrifices

3. Machu Picchu: Inca Gods and Human Sacrifices

Part 3/4. Juanita the Ice Maiden is one of the most famous mummies in the world. She was found in 1991 by anthropologist Johan Reinhard lying out in the sun on top of a dormant volcano in the Peruvian...

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2. Machu Picchu: The Rise of the Inca Empire

Part 2/4. At their most powerful, the Inca had the largest empire in the world. Lasting just one century from the mid-15th century, it stretched across the South American continent from the Amazon to ...

5 Mar 202439min

Machu Picchu: The 'Lost City'

Machu Picchu: The 'Lost City'

Part 1/4. Dan takes the podcast to the Peruvian Andes as he follows in the footsteps of intrepid American explorer Hiram Bingham who revealed Machu Picchu to the world.At the turn of the 20th century,...

4 Mar 202442min

History of Gulags

History of Gulags

On the 16th of February, 2024, the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service announced that opposition leader Alexei Navalny had died. He had been imprisoned in the far-flung "Polar Wolf" penal colony, bui...

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Life in Tudor England was risky. In addition to the outbreaks of plague, the threat of poverty and the dangers of childbirth, there were social risks - of not fitting in, of social death. How was a pe...

27 Feb 202436min

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Atatürk: Fall of the Ottoman Empire

On the 19th of May, 1919, an Ottoman general stepped ashore at the Black Sea port city of Samsun. This marked the beginning of the Turkish War of Independence, and ultimately the end of the Ottoman Em...

26 Feb 202433min

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