History Topics

History Podcasts

Our History Extra podcast comes out every week, featuring interviews with notable historians talking about topics ranging from crusading knights to Tudor monarchs and the D-Day landings. It's free to listen to, and all the past editions of the podcast, going back to June 2007, are still available online for you to download.

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If you don't have a podcast player, you can download the mp3 files from the links below. Please be patient as this may take some time to download.

This week's podcast

The English in America

Thursday 20th July 2017

James Evans talks to us about his new book Emigrants, which explores why hundreds of thousands of English people decided to make a new life in the Americas during the 17th century

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Podcast archive

Germany’s World War Two

Monday 17th July 2017

Professor Nicholas Stargardt reflects on how the Second World War was experienced by ordinary Germans, in a talk he gave at our recent World War Two day event

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Voices of the Cold War

Thursday 13th July 2017

BBC journalist Bridget Kendall picks out some of the most fascinating stories that feature in her new book and Radio 4 series on life in the Cold War

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A legendary spymaster

Monday 10th July 2017

Henry Hemming discusses the life and career of Maxwell Knight, an eccentric spymaster who may have inspired the Bond character M

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Hans Sloane and the British Museum

Thursday 6th July 2017

Author and historian James Delbourgo reflects on the life of the 18th-century natural historian and collector Hans Sloane whose collections formed the basis of the British Museum

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Female flyers in Nazi Germany

Monday 3rd July 2017

Author and biographer Clare Mulley discusses her new book The Women Who Flew for Hitler, which explores the lives of two remarkable women who became leading aviators in the Third Reich

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Children at war

Thursday 29th June 2017

Historian Emma Butcher reflects on the experiences of child soldiers throughout history, ranging from Ancient Sparta to the Hitler Youth and recent conflicts in Africa.

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The Second World War

Thursday 22nd June 2017

James Holland discusses the second book in his The War in the West trilogy with John Buckley, focusing on the years 1941-43.

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Jane Austen and Tudor London

Thursday 15th June 2017

Lucy Worsley shares her thoughts on the Georgian novelist, while Stephen Alford explains how the English capital was transformed in the 16th century

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Medieval manuscripts and the First World War

Thursday 8th June 2017

Christopher de Hamel discusses his book Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, which has just won the Wolfson History Prize, while Jonathan Ruffle gives us the lowdown on the latest events in his wartime radio drama Tommies

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The Six-Day War and the Great Fire of London

Thursday 1st June 2017

Matthew Hughes reflects on a pivotal Arab-Israeli conflict that began 50 years ago this month, while Dan Jones discusses some of the most interesting aspects of the 1666 inferno

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