HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-02-04T17:20:02.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: How the work of American folk song collectors inspired The History of Sound
items: Chief of War: the true story behind the creation of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi
items: The Narrow Road to the Deep North: the real story behind the construction of the Burma Railway
items: Whiskey on the Rocks: the real story behind Soviet submarine S-363’s Cold War grounding
items: SAS Rogue Heroes season 2 preview: "They’re very much thumbing their noses at authority"
items: “He’s making choices that we would perceive as ruthless” | Wolf Hall’s researcher on Thomas Cromwell
items: 6 shocking presidential scandals that rocked the White House: from the Petticoat Affair to Clinton-Lewinsky
items: Watch tonight: historical TV series and films streaming now
items: Oleg Gordievsky: the double agent who changed the course of the Cold War
items: Were there any real highwaywomen, and did they dress up as men?

How the work of American folk song collectors inspired The History of Sound
type: item
date: 2026-02-04T17:20:02.000Z
creator: Jonathan Wright
subject: 20th Century
subject: First World War
subject: Period
subject: Trends-Entertainment
subject: TV interest
description: In the early 20th century, armed with new-fangled recording devices, folklorists and ethnomusicologists set out on song-collecting expeditions across the US. Their work documented music that might otherwise have been lost or changed as it was passed on between generations. Jonathan Wright looks at their work and speaks with Oliver Hermanus, director of The History of Sound, about the inspirations from real history that informed the film
encoded: Period romance The History of Sound focuses on the relationship between two musicians, Lionel (Paul Mescal) and David (Josh O’Connor). The duo begin an affair at the New England Conservatory of Music in 1917, but their lives diverge with the US’s entry into the First World War. David is drafted to fight on the Western Front. Lionel, whose poor eyesight precludes military service, returns to his family’s modest farm in Kentucky. Post-conflict, the men meet again for a trip across Maine, visiting rural homes to record folk songs on wax phonograph cylinders – sometimes called Edison cylinders after inventor Thomas Edison (1847–1931). But in a film of lost love, there’s no conventional happy ending here. The drama also deals with class, repression, missed opportunities, grief and the way we all time-travel across our own personal histories so that, to quote director Oliver Hermanus, we sometimes find ourselves “having conversations from the past in our heads”. Underpinning the emotional truth of the drama is the filmmakers’ research into the early 20th century – and, more specifically, into the work of those hardy souls who set out to document the traditional music they heard in shacks, on porches and around campfires. View oEmbed on the source website Is The History of Sound a true story? And were Lionel and David real? No, the History of Sound is not a true story – it’s based on Ben Shattuck’s 2018 short story of the same name – however, Paul Mescal’s Lionel and Josh O’Connor’s David are historically plausible figures, despite both being fictional. From the 19th century onwards, men and women on both sides of the Atlantic were fascinated by the folk tradition and set out to catalogue songs, first by collating lyrics and annotating tunes, and later via making recordings. Who were these real-life collectors? In the UK, the major name in the field was Cecil Sharp (1859–1924). Among his many achievements, Morris dancing enthusiast Sharp co-founded the English Folk Dance S…

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Chief of War: the true story behind the creation of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi
type: item
date: 2025-08-01T15:05:58.000Z
creator: Jonathan Wright
subject: Georgian
subject: Period
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: Charting the unification of Hawaiʻi, Apple TV+’drama Chief of War explores a pivotal moment in Pacific history through the eyes of warrior Kaʻiana. But how true to history is the epic drama – and what role did European contact play in shaping events?
encoded: Kamehameha I has gone down in history as the man who drove the creation of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, which was formed in 1795. As aliʻi nui, or supreme leader, of the island of Hawaiʻi, Kamehameha conquered the neighbouring islands of Oʻahu, Maui, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi, and united them under one government. In 1810, following a peaceful surrender, the islands of Kauaʻi and Niʻiha also became part of a kingdom that endured for close to a century. Kamehameha’s victories brought an end to an era where each island was its own kingdom. His military success occurred at a time when American and European influence on the islands was growing; the first recorded European encounter, by James Cook, had only occurred in 1778. This is the historic backdrop to Chief of War, an Apple TV+ drama that explores the unification of the islands though the eyes of warrior Ka’iana. Is Chief Of War a true story? Yes, Chief of War is a true story broadly speaking, although to quote scriptwriter Thomas Paʻa Sibbett, the series takes 20 years of chronology and “crunches it into a smaller story”. At the heart of the drama is Kaʻiana (Jason Momoa), who was a real warrior and noble born around 1755. The real Kaʻiana fought alongside another important character in Chief of War, Kahekili II (c1737-94), during his invasion of O’ahu. Later, Kaʻiana fought for Kamehameha I – although he ultimately turned against the king. It’s important to emphasise Chief of War tells what’s first and foremost a Hawaiʻian history. Kamehameha I, after all, was widely thought to have fulfilled a prophecy by uniting the islands. That said, contact with Europeans is an integral part of the wider narrative here. Captain Cook was killed in February 1779 after trying to kidnap Kalaniʻōpuʻu, the aliʻi nui of Hawaiʻi. In the wake of Cook’s death, Kaʻiana is reputed to have sailed from Kauaʻi to Niʻihau aboard HMS Resolution – although some accounts suggest the traveller was actually Kaʻiana’s cousin. According to the ship’s surgeon…

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The Narrow Road to the Deep North: the real story behind the construction of the Burma Railway
type: item
date: 2025-07-20T16:01:16.000Z
creator: Jonathan Wright
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: In 1942, using forced labour, the Japanese began building a 415km train track through heavy jungle, to link the town of Ban Pong in Thailand with Thanbyuzayat in present-day Myanmar. Jonathan Wright explores the story of the so-called ‘Death Railway’ and talks to the scriptwriter of a 2025 series that has the experience of an Australian PoW at its centre
encoded: In 2014, Australian novelist Richard Flanagan won the Man Booker Prize for his sixth novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North. It tells the story of an Australian surgeon, Dorrigo Evans, who in later life finds fame as a Second World War veteran. But Evans is a man haunted by both a pre-war affair with his uncle’s wife and by his time as a prisoner of the Japanese, after being captured at the 1942 battle of Java. The book has since been adapted as a mini-series, scripted by Shaun Grant and directed by Justin Kurzel, available to stream in the UK via BBC iPlayer. Is The Narrow Road to the Deep North a true story? Though the specifics of the plot are a work of fiction, the historical background of The Narrow Road to the Deep North – and the horrors of working on the Death Railway – are all true. Working in brutal heat and humidity, and with inadequate food supplies, up to 16,000 Allied prisoners of war died during its construction – of poor health, in accidents and because of executions. In his acclaimed memoir, The Railway Man (1995), veteran Eric Lomax writes of torture, including waterboarding, and of nearly starving to death. There were also around 90,000 civilian casualties; as many as 250,000 southeast Asians were subjected to forced labour. Why did Japan build the Death Railway? Japan began using prisoners of war to build the Death Railway to further its military ambitions in both China and India, following naval losses that threatened their supply lines. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/528051-4122839-e1752858921443.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Men in khaki fatigues stand in two lines either side of a railway track" title="The so-called 'Death Railway' was built between Thailand and Burma by Allied POWs captured by the Japanese during WW2, as depicted in The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Photo via BBC/Curio Pictures/Sony Pictures Television)" /> The Japanese were intent on occupying Burma (present-day Myanma…

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Whiskey on the Rocks: the real story behind Soviet submarine S-363’s Cold War grounding
type: item
date: 2025-01-29T11:22:53.000Z
creator: Jonathan Wright
subject: 20th Century
subject: Cold War
subject: Period
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: In 1981, Cold War tensions rose after a Soviet submarine, possibly armed with nuclear weapons, surfaced off the Swedish coast after hitting a rock. Jonathan Wright explores this lesser-known crisis and speaks to the makers of a new series inspired by the bizarre events…
encoded: Unless you remember it happening, this story – referred to as the ‘whiskey on the rocks’ incident – could all-too easily sound like the stuff of fiction. Indeed, it has inspired a new satirical comedy series, Whiskey on the Rocks, available on Disney+. Is Whiskey on the Rocks a true story? Yes, Whiskey on the Rocks is based on a true story – Whiskey-class Soviet submarine S-363 really did run aground in the Swedish archipelago during the Cold War. On 27 October 1981, S-363, part of the Soviet Navy’s Baltic fleet, hit an underwater rock off the south coast of Sweden, and was forced to surface approximately six miles from its main naval base, Karlskrona. According to the official Soviet version of events, S-363 had been forced towards shore due to an emergency – despite no distress call being issued. This doesn’t tally with the account of the skipper, Captain Pyotr Gushchin, who claimed the submarine became lost following a failure of navigational equipment. Another theory suggests that the crew had been drinking heavily and throwing a party that got out of hand just before S-363 struck the rock. The world reeled at the sight of a Soviet submarine, possibly carrying nuclear weapons, stranded on the Swedish coast. This was at the height of the Cold War, when the threat of nuclear catastrophe cast a shadow over everyday life. In the White House, the hawkish Ronald Reagan was US president. In the Kremlin, an ailing, ageing and paranoid Leonid Brezhnev held sway. And the man who had to mediate between them was the Swedish prime minister: the politician, and farmer, Thorbjörn Fälldin. Although Sweden maintained strong ties with the US and other western governments, it was officially neutral during the Cold War. It would be 1995 before the country became a member of the European Union, and 2024 when it joined NATO. But perhaps it was their neutrality, and the widespread view that the country was a backwater led by a man more interested in agriculture than geopolitics, that …

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SAS Rogue Heroes season 2 preview: "They’re very much thumbing their noses at authority"
type: item
date: 2024-12-27T10:30:10.000Z
creator: Jonathan Wright
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Trends-Entertainment
subject: TV interest
description: With SAS Rogue Heroes making a big, brash and brilliant return to our screens, Jonathan Wright sat down with the show’s director Stephen Woolfenden and producer Stephen Smallwood to get a sneak preview of what’s to come…
encoded: Fans of the hit Second World War military drama, SAS Rogue Heroes, which aired on the BBC in 2022, may be asking: how do you have a second series when the hero, David Stirling (Connor Swindells) has been captured and is now a prisoner of war? Show creator Steven Knight (the man also behind Peaky Blinders) has an elegantly straightforward answer for its imminent return. Without losing any of the espionage and political machinations that made the first series so compelling, the focus has shifted to another founder member of the Special Air Service, Paddy Mayne (Jack O’Connell). The narrative action – with the emphasis very much on action – opens in 1943, at a time with the future of the SAS in doubt. After it gets reorganised into two separate parts, it would be Mayne, a former British and Irish Lions international rugby player with a wholly justified reputation for insubordination, who took command of the newly formed Special Raiding Squadron. Read more | The original rogue heroes of the SAS Previously, the SAS had operated behind enemy lines in the vast emptiness of the desert, but the second series of SAS Rogue Heroes sees Mayne and his motley crew of hard-as-nails misfits face new challenges in the invasion of Sicily, which would then be followed with Italy. Director Stephen Woolfenden and producer Stephen Smallwood talk to HistoryExtra about how they went about bringing this story to life… The new series of SAS Rogue Heroes begins with David Stirling having been captured. But his brother, Bill Stirling (Gwilym Lee), emerges as a key character. Who was he? Stephen Woolfenden: Bill was the older brother of the two siblings and we learn that he has been in the Special Operations Executive (SOE) for the last couple of years. He’s supportive of his brother’s endeavours in the desert, and breaks out of the SOE to come and sort out the SAS. Stephen Smallwood: I think Ben Macintyre [the author of the book on which the series is based] stated that Bill was a more consider…

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“He’s making choices that we would perceive as ruthless” | Wolf Hall’s researcher on Thomas Cromwell
type: item
date: 2024-11-28T09:39:06.000Z
creator: Jonathan Wright
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: Kirsten Claiden-Yardley, a production researcher on the BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s final novel, The Mirror & the Light, tells us about recreating the world of the Tudors in Wolf Hall.
encoded: It was a bolt out of the blue. When the first series of Wolf Hall was being readied for filming, Kirsten Claiden-Yardley was studying towards her doctorate in Tudor history. Would, the Wolf Hall production team asked, she be interested in answering queries from the show’s director, Peter Kosminsky? Naturally, she said yes. When the dramatisation of the third book in Hilary Mantel’s trilogy, The Mirror & the Light, went into production, Yardley, who now works as a historian, researcher and historic buildings consultant, was again on board. Here, she shares the realities of the society in which the real Thomas Cromwell operated. Part of your job was to help Peter Kosminsky understand the world of Thomas Cromwell. Do we sometimes underestimate how alien it would be for us if we were suddenly transported back to 16th-century England? The Tudor era is kind of a weird mishmash of both the familiar and utterly unfamiliar. We sometimes see the people as totally alien. And sometimes we go too far that way in that core emotions are often the same. People are still motivated by love, greed, grief. But we do underestimate the importance of religion, just how ingrained into everyday life religious belief is, and how much people’s days and weeks and months and years were structured around a religious calendar – and particular times of day when you pray. To what degree would Cromwell’s religious beliefs have driven him? There’s an impression in Hilary Mantel’s books that he kept his personal faith a little under wraps. Yes, and I don’t think he’s the only one to have done this. In underestimating how important religious beliefs are to people at the time, I think it can be a little easy to dismiss them. Was that really such a driving factor? Was it more to do with greed or desire for political power? I think most of the people that we come across in Wolf Hall and The Mirror & The Light are deeply religious in their own ways. They may not agree exactly on how they think their religi…

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6 shocking presidential scandals that rocked the White House: from the Petticoat Affair to Clinton-Lewinsky
type: item
date: 2024-11-04T14:14:52.000Z
creator: Jonathan Wright
subject: General History
subject: Period
subject: Trends-News
subject: US presidents
description: The history of the US presidency is littered with tales of extra-marital affairs and allegations of corruption. Jonathan Wright turns back the clock to examine half a dozen of the biggest presidential scandals to have engulfed the White House during the 19th and 20th centuries
encoded: The Petticoat Affair (1829–31) Andrew Jackson It might seem astonishing that so much political energy could be consumed by what came to be known as the Petticoat Affair, which began in 1829 when members of Andrew Jackson’s cabinet and their wives (dubbed the ‘Petticoats’) ostracised the secretary of war, John Eaton, and his wife, Peggy. The couple had married just nine months after the death of Peggy’s first husband, John B Timberlake, a purser in the US Navy. This was a scandalously short period of mourning. Suspicions John and Peggy had been conducting a clandestine affair compounded the sense of impropriety, especially when combined with rumours Timberlake had taken his own life over the supposed liaison. Politically, it might have been easier had Jackson followed his cabinet and distanced himself from Eaton. Instead, he took the Eatons’ side – perhaps because he himself had been bruised by accusations that he had lived in sin for a time with his late wife, Rachel (the pair had wed bigamously after mistakenly believing that Rachel’s divorce from her first husband had been granted). The upshot was that Jackson, a man who had come to power off the back of being an energetic general in the War of 1812 against the British, found himself bogged down on a political battlefield. The Petticoat Affair rumbled on for 30 months until, eventually, Jackson found an opportunity to demand the resignation of most of his ineffective and fractious cabinet. Read more | Lincoln, Adams and George W Bush: 6 disputed presidential elections in American history The Whiskey Ring (1875–76) Ulysses S Grant By 1875, Ulysses S Grant, the commanding general who had led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War, had been president for six years. While he personally worked diligently to push reforms, he led an administration that had become synonymous with sleaze, backroom deals and corruption. The Whiskey Ring was among the worst of the scandals to beset Grant. The story first hit the…

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Watch tonight: historical TV series and films streaming now
type: item
date: 2024-05-30T10:18:18.000Z
creator: Jonathan Wright
subject: General Modern
subject: Period
subject: TV interest
description: Looking for a new historical TV show or film to watch? From Shōgun and The Last Kingdom to Bridgerton, we've rounded up the best history content streaming on BBC iPlayer, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Now, HBO and other on-demand services in the UK and US
encoded: Looking for something to watch? Here are the best historical dramas, TV shows and films available to streaming in the UK and US this month, from binge-watchable period dramas to fascinating documentaries. Jump to your preferred streaming platform: BBC iPlayer Netflix Amazon Prime ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, BritBox, UKTV Play Lionsgate+ Now Disney+ Apple TV+ HBO Hulu Best historical movies, dramas and documentaries on Netflix African Queens: Cleopatra Streaming in the UK and US | drama-documentary series The second offering in Hollywood star Jada Pinkett Smith’s anthology drama-doc series focuses on Cleopatra, who ruled the Ptolemaic Kingdom from 51-30BC. It’s a portrait of a royal whose beauty, in this reading, has come to overshadow her intellect and daring. It’s also a series that was greeted by controversy in Egypt for casting a mixed-heritage actor, Adele James, in the lead role. Also available to stream via Netflix, African Queens: Njinga focuses on the extraordinary life of Princess Njinga (c1583–1663), who became leader of both Ndongo and Matamba, kingdoms located in modern-day Angola. Read more | The face of Cleopatra: what did she look like, and was she really so beautiful? Alexander: The Making Of A God Streaming in the UK and US | drama-documentary series It’s not often that a politician intervenes directly to criticise a historical drama-doc. But this was what happened in February 2024 when Lina Mendoni, Greece’s minister for culture, called Alexander: The Making Of A God “extremely poor-quality fiction”. The main problem, it seems, is the show’s portrayal of a a romantic relationship between Alexander and his confidant, Hephaestion. Whatever your thoughts on how Alexander expressed his sexuality, this six-parter adds up to a comprehensive overview of the all-conquering military leader’s life and times, which tells its story through combination of historians talking, analysis of recent archaeology and dramatic reconstructions. All Quiet On The Western Fr…

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Oleg Gordievsky: the double agent who changed the course of the Cold War
type: item
date: 2024-05-09T09:29:49.000Z
creator: Jonathan Wright
subject: 20th Century
subject: Cold War
subject: Period
subject: Espionage
subject: Historical people
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: As BBC Two’s documentary series Secrets & Spies: A Nuclear Game tracks the spies operating behind the scenes in the Reagan era, Jonathan Wright takes a closer look at the remarkable dual life of the double agent that changed global policy, and lived to defect and tell his secret-filled tale
encoded: In the early 1980s, Oleg Gordievsky was arguably the most important spy in the world. This was not primarily because of his work for what was ostensibly his employer, the KGB, but because he was a double agent for MI6. For over a decade, he leaked Russian secrets that would inform international policy in both London and Washington. His is an extraordinary story, now outlined in a documentary series on BBC Two, Secrets & Spies: A Nuclear Game, which looks at how espionage shaped the end of the Cold War. More than that, it may well have helped save the world from Armageddon at a time when the USSR and the United States possessed, respectively, 33,000 and 22,000 nuclear warheads. Who is Oleg Gordievsky and why does he matter? Now in his 80s and living, it’s said, somewhere in the south of England, Gordievsky was a career KGB spy who rose to become bureau chief in London in the early 1980s. Yet by then, he was also committed to passing information to British secret intelligence, fuelled by a disillusionment in the system he was serving. “I hated the communist system, I wanted to fight against it,” he says in an archive recording, which features in the new documentary. While we now know the Cold War was winding down, that’s not how it would have felt to those living through that time, with aggressive rhetoric coming from both sides and when it seemed that one misstep might have led to nuclear calamity. Gordievsky’s insights proved to be invaluable to the British and their US allies as they tried to manage relations with the Soviet bloc. How did Gordievsky come to occupy such an important position? To take the long view, espionage was a family business. Born in Moscow in 1938, Gordievsky was the son of an agent in the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, or NKVD, the Soviet secret police and the forerunner of the KGB. His older brother would also serve in the KGB. Read more | Stanislav Petrov: the Soviet who saved the world A talented student with a knack for langu…

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Were there any real highwaywomen, and did they dress up as men?
type: item
date: 2024-03-30T08:58:56.000Z
creator: Jonathan Wright
subject: Georgian
subject: Period
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: Created by Sally Wainwright, Disney+’s drama Renegade Nell is a historical fantasy that follows the adventures of a tavern-keeper’s daughter who becomes a highwaywoman after being framed for murder. But did highwaywomen really menace England’s roads? Why would they have taken to holding up travellers in real life? And did these dandy highwaywomen dress in men’s clothing?
encoded: The term ‘highwayman’ dates from the early 17th century. However, the ‘golden age’ of highway robbery in England is arguably associated with the years between the Restoration in 1660 and Queen Anne’s death, in 1714. There was often a romance attached to stories of highwaymen, who travelled on horseback and were often portrayed as gentlemen, socially superior to ‘footpads’ (who were more akin to modern-day muggers). Images of highwaymen in the popular imagination were stoked by picture stories by artists such as William Hogarth. Perhaps pre-eminent among these tales was the legend of Dick Turpin. Were there highwaywomen in real life? Yes, credible records of highwaywomen can be found in the records of county session court trials. Highwaywomen also appear in The Newgate Calendar, an 18th and 19th-century volume of crime tales once as ubiquitous in English homes as the Bible. There are likewise stories in broadside ballads. These were single sheets of cheap paper printed on just one side, whose name underlines the connection to popular story-songs. At least two ballads from 1640 tell of Susan Higges, who is said to have enjoyed a 20-year career “in mens attire… upon a Gelding stout” before being recognised and executed. That said, we need to be cautious about believing hearsay, as the story of Katherine Ferrers illustrates. A Hertfordshire gentlewoman born in 1634, and the heiress to a substantial fortune, Ferrers lost her wealth on account of her teenage husband’s family pilfering her inheritance amidst the turmoil of the English Civil War and its aftermath. As some stories have it, Ferrers turned to crime, and was suspected to be the ‘Wicked Lady’, a highwaywoman who terrorised Hertfordshire on horseback. Ferrers fit into the popular trope of a person of genteel background and dwindling fortune, who turned to highway robbery to make a living. Ferrers was reputed to have died in 1660 from gunshot wounds received during a robbery. Rumours of her body being found by ser…

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