HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: The official website for BBC History Magazine
date: 2025-11-03T09:01:03.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Terror in the deep: how Hitler's U-boats pushed Britain to the brink
items: The place where TIME began | A history of GMT
items: Tudor explorers: everything you wanted to know
items: Seven of history's most disturbing ghost ship stories that will haunt your dreams
items: North, south, east and west: how ancient civilisations found their bearings before the compass
items: What are the Cinque Ports?
items: Clotilda: the last slave ship to America
items: When pirates ruled Asia's waves
items: Into the jaws of hell: the WW2 sinking of USS Indianapolis
items: Tails from the deep: separating the real folklore of mermaids from Disney stories

Terror in the deep: how Hitler's U-boats pushed Britain to the brink
type: item
date: 2025-11-03T09:00:20.000Z
creator: Roger Moorhouse
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Historical events
subject: Naval battles
subject: Second World War battles
description: Did German U-boats conduct a ‘clean’ campaign during the Second World War? Or were they guilty of routinely murdering survivors in the water? Roger Moorhouse weighs the evidence
encoded: On the night of 13 March 1944, the Greek-registered steamship SS Peleus was en route from Freetown to Buenos Aires when she was hit amidships by two torpedoes, launched by a German U-boat, U-852. The twin-masted merchantman, of around 5,000 tons, swiftly began to sink, her internal bulkheads ruptured by the detonations. Within three minutes, the Peleus disappeared below the surface, leaving the surviving members of her 39-strong crew clinging to rafts and flotsam in the darkness. As sinkings go during the naval war, it was unremarkable, one might even say routine. But what followed would set it apart. Soon after, U-852 surfaced close to the debris field, hoping to identify her prey and glean some information. Her captain, 27-year-old Kapitänleutnant Heinz‑Wilhelm Eck, ordered one of his men – who spoke some English – to come up to the bow to question one of the survivors. After learning the identity of his target, Eck gave the order for U-852 to move away. But then he changed his mind. Eck was nervous. Prior to his departure from port, he had been given a lecture from his superiors on the perils of passing through the Atlantic Narrows, around Ascension, and was told that all four of the previous patrols undertaken by his predecessors had ended with the vessels being sunk. Due to the heightened risk of air attack he was urged to take every precaution to avoid being spotted by enemy aircraft. Even debris from a sinking, it was stressed, could give away his position. Calculating that he could be only some 200 miles away by daybreak, when the wreckage of the Peleus would doubtless be spotted, he made the decision to attempt to destroy the debris. He brought a party of his men up on deck and ordered them to open fire on the rafts and other debris with machine guns. In the moonless night, they were largely firing blind, but the operation continued for hours, with grenades being thrown and U-852’s anti-aircraft gun even being brought to bear. The number killed by these act…

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The place where TIME began | A history of GMT
type: item
date: 2025-10-25T15:27:20.000Z
creator: Elinor Evans
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: On location at Royal Observatory, Greenwich in southeast London, HistoryExtra's Elinor Evans unpacks how astronomers, mathematicians, and global powers collaborated to create Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
encoded: Long before smartphones and digital clocks, time was a local affair, creating chaos, confusion and even danger. On location at Royal Observatory, Greenwich in southeast London, HistoryExtra's Elinor Evans unpacks how astronomers, mathematicians, and global powers collaborated to create Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Joined by Louise Devoy, Senior Curator of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, we investigate the milestone innovations in this story, including the story of the Observatory Time Ball, the Shepherd Motor Clock, and George Biddell Airy's meridian Prime Meridian. From solving longitude at sea to defining timezones for the entire planet, this is the story of how we learned to master time. View Green Video on the source website Find out more about the history of time, space and navigation and plan a visit to the Royal Observatory

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Tudor explorers: everything you wanted to know
type: item
date: 2024-12-01T07:00:02.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: Everything you wanted to know about history (podcast series)
subject: Tudor exploration
description: Jerry Brotton guides us through the turbulent waters of Tudor exploration
encoded: By the time the Tudors took to the waves, much of the world had already been mapped by Europeans. So what was left for Tudor explorers to uncover – and should we call them 'explorers' at all? Historian Jerry Brotton doesn't think so. In this episode, he tells Kev Lochun how the Reformation drove the Tudors to sea, how Ireland became their Vietnam, and why some of the era's most famous names were little more than pirates. Jerry Brotton takes listeners on a whistle-stop tour around the world in AD 1500

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Seven of history's most disturbing ghost ship stories that will haunt your dreams
type: item
date: 2024-10-17T14:29:41.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: 20th Century
subject: General Early Modern
subject: General History
subject: Georgian
subject: Period
subject: Renaissance
subject: Pirates
description: Discover the truth behind the mysteries and histories of ghost ships, from the most famous examples in nautical legend to forgotten vessels adrift on the oceans…
encoded: You're a sailor (or, maybe even a famous pirate). Several weeks out to sea, you come across another ship that seems to be acting strangely. Getting a closer look, you realise it is floating adrift, with no sign whatsoever of its crew. It’s a ghost ship. What is a ghost ship? Ghost ships, also known as phantom ships, are vessels that are found derelict at sea with no crew aboard and nothing to explain what happened to them. While it sounds like the stuff of legend – and fuel for seafarers’ nightmares – ghost ships are real nautical phenomena. They have inspired horror-infused stories and wild theories alike, and their names can send shivers down the spine. Here, from the golden age of piracy to 20th century tales, explore some of the most famous and mysterious ghost ships throughout history, each with its own chilling tale. What are most famous ghost ships in history? ● Mary Celeste ● SS Baychimo ● Flying Dutchman ● MV Joyita ● Carroll A. Deering ● Ourang Medan ● Jian Seng Mary Celeste The most famous ghost ship of them all has to be the Mary Celeste. Having left New York in early November 1872, bound for Italy, the merchant brigantine was spotted drifting alone in the Atlantic Ocean on 5 December. The abandoned ship was found by the Dei Gratia off the Azores, but there was no trace of Captain Benjamin Briggs, his wife, their two-year-old daughter, or his small crew of seven. While the cargo and crew’s personal belongings were undisturbed, the sails had been only partially set, a log entry had not been made in the last 10 days, and a lifeboat was missing. Read more | John Ward: the real Jack Sparrow? What’s more, although there was water in the hold, the Mary Celeste was at no risk of sinking. So, what caused Briggs and the crew to desert a seaworthy ship? And what were their fates? There have been many theories. Despite a lack of evidence, some were suspicious of mutiny, piracy or an elaborate fraud. In the years since, natural phenomena like waterspouts (essentiall…

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North, south, east and west: how ancient civilisations found their bearings before the compass
type: item
date: 2024-10-15T16:26:40.000Z
creator: Professor Jerry Brotton
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Why did the ancient Chinese associate north with power? What led early Muslims to pray to the south? And what role did winds have to play in our understanding of directions? Jerry Brotton takes us on a journey through the history of the four points of the compass
encoded: Writing in his philosophical work the New Organon in 1620, the English scientist and philosopher Sir Francis Bacon famously identified China’s three great inventions, “which were unknown to the ancients, and of which the origin, though recent, is obscure and inglorious; namely printing, gunpowder and the magnet. For these three have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world.” Much has been written about the historical impact of printing and gunpowder. But there’s been far less emphasis on the magnet, and how (using lodestones to magnetise iron needles) it enabled the ‘obscure’ invention of the magnetic compass during the Han dynasty in the third century BC. This technology enabled China and, subsequently, other societies to navigate and orientate themselves according to the four points of the compass: north, east, south and west. We tend to think about these directions and the art of navigation as a consequence of the invention of the compass, but this is not in fact the case. The ancient history of direction and its relationship to the magnetic compass is altogether more surprising. How ancient civilisations understood east and west Thousands of years before the discovery of the compass, early human societies observed the sun rising in the direction we now call ‘east’ and watched it setting in the direction now known as ‘west’. East to west was probably the earliest prime axis that people understood by simply watching the sun’s path across the sky. The worship of the sun, or heliolatry, characterised ancient Egyptian worship of solar gods: Horus (the rising sun), Ra (the noon sun) and Osiris (the dying or setting sun). Read more | Sun gods and goddesses: 16 solar deities from world history This initial east-west solar axis was gradually followed by the understanding of another axis. This one ran vertically from north to south, and could be identified by observing the sun and stars. At noon the sun is always due south in the northern hemisphere…

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What are the Cinque Ports?
type: item
date: 2024-04-17T13:07:34.000Z
creator: Jonny Wilkes
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
description: Why and when was such a confederation formed, and are there really five of them? Jonny Wilkes explains the history behind the coastal alliance…
encoded: Long before the British Isles had a professional navy – let alone laid claim to rule the waves – lessons had been learned on the need to protect the lands from seaborne threats. The Romans had found the tribal peoples of Britain divided and ripe for invasion; Vikings crossed the North Sea unimpeded to maraud the coast; and as the French increasingly entered the picture, the narrowness of the stretch of water today known as the English Channel posed an obvious danger. It was to combat this danger that a federation was formed of coastal towns, predominantly in Kent and Sussex, to ensure there were always ships, and men to crew them, for the crown. In return for their ‘ship service’, these so-called ‘Cinque Ports’ received privileges, freedoms and honours, enough to see them survive in a ceremonial capacity to this day. What are the Cinque Ports? There were five original ports, although more towns would be added over the years. They were: Sandwich Dover Hythe New Romney Hastings While the idea of the Cinque Ports developed gradually, the first formal acknowledgement of the confederation came in the reign of Edward the Confessor (r1042–66). It turned out the Anglo-Saxon king had good reason to fear boats crossing the channel, with the Normans on the way. The role and stature of the Cinque Ports truly bloomed after the Norman Conquest of 1066, and they remained a powerful entity throughout the Plantagenet dynasty, complete with their own coat of arms, and judicial and political influence. Why are they called Cinque Ports? Since the Cinque Ports were properly established under the Normans – earning a mention in William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book – the name that caught on was, unsurprisingly, the Old French version of ‘five harbours’. It didn’t stay at ‘cinque’ for long, however. The Ports turned to their neighbours to help build the ships, so more than 30 towns ended up in the confederation. These included the two so-called ‘ancient towns’ of Rye and Winchelsea and ‘li…

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Clotilda: the last slave ship to America
type: item
date: 2024-04-10T06:00:40.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove, FSA
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Hannah Durkin tells the story of the survivors of Clotilda, the last ship to transport enslaved people from Africa to America
encoded: The transatlantic slave trade was formally abolished in both Britain and the US in 1807 and 1808 – yet slave ships were still forcibly bringing enslaved African people to the Americas right up to the 1860s. David Musgrove speaks to historian Hannah Durkin about the long history of this horrific trade, through the eyes of the survivors of Clotilda, the last ship to transport slaves to America. Hannah Durkin is the author of Survivors: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the Atlantic Slave Trade (HarperCollins, 2024). Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Waterstones

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When pirates ruled Asia's waves
type: item
date: 2023-10-03T06:50:55.000Z
creator: Professor Adam Clulow
subject: General Early Modern
subject: Period
subject: Pirates
description: Pirates didn’t only spread chaos in Caribbean and Atlantic waters. Adam Clulow reveals how east Asian raiders, including a female commander ignored by historians, terrorised China’s shores from the 16th century
encoded: Spring 1553 brought terror to large swathes of the coast. Settlements along the shore were hit with successive assaults from the sea as, in “the third month... [pirates launched] a large campaign to attack [the coast]. The combined fleet consisted of several hundred warships that covered the sea.” This account, which goes on to list the towns and cities that fell to the marauders’ depredations, gives a sense of the scale of these raids, describing a vast armada of pirate vessels carrying thousands of men. These large-scale series of raids weren’t launched on the Spanish Main by Caribbean buccaneers or by Barbary corsairs in the Mediterranean. In fact, the description comes from the Mingshi, a history of the Ming dynasty in China. It recounts an attack by so-called wakō, or Japanese pirates, under the command of their leader Wang Zhi, who assembled huge fleets for raids on the coast. Read more | Ghost ships through history Piracy has always been a global phenomenon. For millennia, pirates have preyed on rich shipping lanes and vulnerable coastal settlements. Although European pirates dominate the popular imagination, east Asia – particularly China and Japan – was one of the great centres of historical piracy. East Asian piracy was vast in scale and reach. It was also stunningly persistent with successive waves of large-scale piracy. And it was strikingly cosmopolitan, with multi-ethnic crews straddling national boundaries. In the 16th century, huge pirate fleets consisting of hundreds of vessels ransacked the Chinese coast. Although dressed as ferocious Japanese warriors, most of these pirates were in fact Chinese, and they were led by Chinese entrepreneurs based in Japan. Then, in the 17th century, a new pirate king created a maritime organisation that would come to challenge the Dutch East India Company, eventually invading Taiwan and ejecting the Dutch from their prized east Asian colony. And in the 19th century, a Chinese female leader emerged from the Cantonese …

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Into the jaws of hell: the WW2 sinking of USS Indianapolis
type: item
date: 2023-07-28T06:15:07.000Z
creator: Jonny Wilkes
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Second World War battles
description: In the final days of World War II, a US Navy crew endured unimaginable horrors when they were left stranded in the waters of the Pacific, facing hypothermia, madness and sharks. Jonny Wilkes tells the story of USS Indianapolis, and reveals how its sinking inspired a speech in Steven Spielberg masterpiece Jaws
encoded: “That’s the USS Indianapolis,” mumbles Quint as he points to a scar on his arm; a tattoo he had removed a long time ago. The very name stops Hooper’s laughter. The jovial mood is lost and the men’s drunken, one-upping exchange of stories about their shark inflicted wounds abandoned. A look of pained understanding now on his face, Hooper can only say: “You were on the Indianapolis?” So begins a monologue by the grizzled, briny and fanatical shark hunter Quint in Jaws (1975), a chilling three-and-a-half minutes that have gone down in cinema lore. At the core of the scene was a real ship, a heavy cruiser sunk by the enemy in the Second World War after completing the most top-secret of missions. And that was just the beginning of a traumatic ordeal, the worst disaster in US naval history. While not everything said by Quint – played to perfection by Robert Shaw – was factually accurate, the scene captured the tragedy with harrowing authenticity. It got survivors who saw Steven Spielberg’s movie talking about what they went through, many for the first time, and helped ensure the Indianapolis would not be forgotten. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2023/06/2K4KXDM-1987b38.png" width="620" height="413" alt="Robert Shaw as Quint in Jaws. In an iconic scene, the character talks of surviving the sinking of USS Indianapolis – and his terrifying encounters with sharks (Photo by Alamy Images)" title="Robert Shaw as Quint in Jaws. In an iconic scene, the character talks of surviving the sinking of USS Indianapolis – and his terrifying encounters with sharks (Photo by Alamy Images)" /> By mid-1945, USS Indianapolis, or ‘Indy’ to the crew, had earned 10 battle stars serving in the Pacific Theatre, but its war looked to be over when damaged by a Japanese kamikaze fighter off Okinawa. Instead, while at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco Bay, orders came in to transport a mystery cargo with all haste to the island of Tinian. No one, includ…

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Tails from the deep: separating the real folklore of mermaids from Disney stories
type: item
date: 2023-06-14T06:42:00.000Z
creator: Dr Hetta Howes
subject: General ancient history
subject: General Early Modern
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Renaissance
description: Mermaids are beautiful, benevolent and captivating – or at least that is the Disneyfied version. Writing for BBC History Revealed, Dr Hetta Howes separates the real-world legends from the fishwives’ stories...
encoded: What image comes to mind when you hear the word ‘mermaid’? For many people, it will be Ariel, the redheaded Disney princess who trades her tail for legs and her voice for a chance to win herself a life on land. For others, the word will conjure the wan heroine of Hans Christian Andersen’s original fairytale who, unlike her Disney counterpart, is rejected by her prince and dissolves into sea foam, losing the chance to gain an immortal soul. It’s largely thanks to the popularity of Andersen’s fairytale that mermaids have become standardised in the west over the past two centuries. Like Ariel, they are depicted as hybrid creatures, with the torso and head of a beautiful woman and the tail of a fish. They often carry a mirror and a comb, and have the speech and personality of a human woman. On the podcast | Sirens, succubi & sex symbols: a history of female monsters However, the history of the mermaid myth, and its many manifestations across the globe, reveals a far more complex picture. Mermaids transform depending on which seas we find them in. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes monstrous, sometimes seductive, sometimes maternal – and oftentimes all of these at once – these enchanting entities can be a far cry from the tragic victim of Andersen’s influential tale. Mermaids, regardless of where they call home, are persistently contradictory, ambivalent and powerful figures, used to represent the unknown and the undiscovered. Were mermaids and sirens one and the same? The origins of mermaids are difficult to trace. While some cultural historians believe that fish goddesses in early religions were their ancestors, others consider sirens to be the first models for mermaids. Made famous by Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey, sirens are bird-woman hybrids who lure sailors to their deaths through song and who may eat the flesh of men who do not please them sexually. In the 13th century, writer Richard de Fournival recorded three kinds of sirens, two of which are actually half woman a…

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