The astonishing laws of medieval Wales
From divorce settlements and cattle disputes to surprisingly modern ideas about gender and compensation, the laws of Hywel Dda shed unique light on how society functioned, in a turbulent age of rival ...
28 Jun 45min
Inside the Declaration of Independence
It’s 250 years since the Declaration of Independence brought a new nation into formal existence. But what did it actually say – and who did it leave out? In the second episode of HistoryExtra’s series...
27 Jun 32min
Cannibalism, heartbreak and Madame Guillotine: George Forster's extraordinary life
He sailed to Antarctica with Captain Cook, rubbed shoulders with Benjamin Franklin and helped found a revolutionary republic. It’s little wonder, then, that Andrea Wulf describes George Forster – the ...
25 Jun 43min
Charlotte Brontë's life through clothes
We might picture Charlotte Brontë's life as an isolated one, separated from much of the world and its fashions as she whiled away the hours in her father's Haworth parsonage. But the truth, as Eleanor...
23 Jun 36min
Emma Goldman: life of the week
Anarchist, feminist, revolutionary: 19th-century activist and writer Emma Goldman emigrated from the Russian empire to the United States as a teenager, and spent decades challenging power and conventi...
22 Jun 40min
Stealing the V2 rocket: Britain’s secret WW2 intelligence coup
In 1944, as Allied troops pushed across Europe after D-Day, the Allies faced a terrifying new threat: Hitler’s V2 weapons, striking without warning at supersonic speed. In this episode, Emily Briffett...
21 Jun 31min
The road to the American Revolutionary War
The United States often presents its birth as a straightforward struggle for liberty – but reality was far more messy. In this first episode of HistoryExtra's four-part series on the American Revoluti...
20 Jun 43min
The protestant missionaries that didn't change the world
Why did Protestant missionaries travel the globe across the course of centuries, only to convert remarkably few people? Alec Ryrie – author of new book The World’s Reformation – tells Elinor Evans abo...
18 Jun 43min
