Dan Snow's History Hit5 Sep 2023

Marco Polo

You may have heard the many myths about the life and exploits of Marco Polo- was he really the one who brought ice cream and spaghetti from his travels on the Silk Road from the court of Kublai Khan, where he served as a diplomat? Almost as soon as he wrote his memoir, people doubted the wild stories of his travels across Europe and Asia.

His life and myth are unravelled on today's podcast with Laurence Bergreen, historian and author of 'Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu' who followed in the footsteps of Polo, travelling the old Silk Road all the way to China, to see for himself if the stories of the great Venetian merchant were true…

Produced by Mariana Des Forges, sound design and editing by Dougal Patmore.

PLEASE VOTE NOW! for Dan Snow's History Hit in the British Podcast Awards Listener's Choice category here. Every vote counts, thank you!

Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world-renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more.

Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.

If you want to get in touch with the podcast, you can email us at ds.hh@historyhit.com, we'd love to hear from you!

You can take part in our listener survey here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(1545)

The Battle of New York Explained

Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Hudson, the East River - today, these are the very heart and soul of New York City. But in 1776, they were the battlefield on which the American Revolution nearly died. Today ...

7 Sep 1h 42min

The Rise & Fall of Babylon

Babylon has a PR problem, and it's 2,600 years in the making.The Bible remembers it as the ultimate city of sin, the place that crushed Jerusalem and dragged the Jewish people into exile. But if you l...

3 Sep 48min

Templar's Tunnels, HMS Victory and Troy: History's Best Historical Sites with Dan Jones

The two great Dans of history - Dan Snow and Dan Jones - team up to explore the stories behind some of the world's best historical sites. Dan Jones explains the mysteries of the Templars' Tunnels in ...

31 Aug 32min

The Brutal History of The First Warplanes

Flying aces, flaming wreckage and deadly dogfights in the skies defined the First World War’s brutal air war. From fragile reconnaissance planes to lethal fighter aircraft, aerial warfare evolved at a...

27 Aug 50min

Medieval Krakow

In the Middle Ages, Krakow was one of Central Europe’s greatest cities: a thriving crossroads of kings, merchants and legends, crowned by a royal castle and haunted by tales of dragons. But in 1241, c...

24 Aug 1h 2min

Was Henry VIII England's Most Evil King?

This is the turbulent reign of that infamous Tudor monarch, Henry VIII. His spectacularly complicated love life, break with Rome, political executions and ruthless pursuit of power. Today we examine h...

20 Aug 48min

The Making of Osama bin Laden

A deep dive into the rise and fall of Osama bin Laden, from his affluent childhood in Saudi Arabia to his assassination during the biggest manhunt in modern history. For this, Dan is joined by Jason B...

17 Aug 1h 7min

Marco Polo and The Court of the Great Kublai Khan

No throne on Earth came close to rivalling it. The court of Kublai Khan stood at the centre of an empire that threw every other power of its age into shadow. Vast and wealthy beyond comprehension, it ...

13 Aug 36min