HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-04-17T12:37:13.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: How to find a billion-dollar shipwreck
items: The battle of the Arctic: the forgotten crucible of WW2
items: In 1756, a young Englishwoman was taken hostage by Barbary pirates. This is her story
items: From krakens to serpents: 5 fearsome sea monsters from history
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?

How to find a billion-dollar shipwreck
type: item
date: 2026-04-17T07:49:54.000Z
creator: Jon Bauckham
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Julian Sancton tells the extraordinary story of Roger Dooley – a maverick maritime archaeologist who embarked on a decades-long search for a sunken Spanish galleon
encoded: In 1708, the Spanish galleon San José was sunk by a British warship off the coast of Colombia, vanishing beneath the waves with a treasure trove of unimaginable riches. The wreck's exact location remained a mystery for centuries – until a maritime archaeologist named Roger Dooley made it his life’s mission to find it. In this episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, Julian Sancton tells Jon Bauckham about Dooley’s incredible search, set against a backdrop of secrecy, sacrifice and Cold War tensions.

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The battle of the Arctic: the forgotten crucible of WW2
type: item
date: 2026-04-06T10:48:53.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove, FSA
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
description: Hugh Sebag-Montefiore considers the significance of the battle of the Arctic in shaping the outcome of the Second World War
encoded: The US and UK supplied the USSR with vast amounts of military materiel during the Second World War via the Arctic convoys. In this episode, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore speaks to David Musgrove about the importance of this campaign in shaping the outcome of the war – and details the many horrors faced by the merchant sailors who made the difficult and dangerous journey from Iceland to Russia.

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In 1756, a young Englishwoman was taken hostage by Barbary pirates. This is her story
type: item
date: 2026-01-09T15:00:12.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Amazing lives
subject: Historical people
subject: Islam
subject: Pirates
description: Taken hostage by a Barbary ship’s captain in the 18th century, a young Englishwoman found herself fighting for her freedom in Marrakech. Adam Nichols introduces a brave captive who later wrote a book about her dramatic experiences
encoded: The Barbary corsair ship appeared suddenly on the horizon, bristling with cannon. Its decks swarming with armed men, it sliced through the waves at a clip that its quarry – the British merchant ship Ann – could not match. At that time, in the mid-18th century, such pirate attacks were violent, bloody affairs; if the Ann’s captain tried to resist, he would be risking the lives of his crew, his passengers and himself, and would likely see his ship sunk. He surrendered. The corsair captain swaggered aboard the British vessel without firing a shot, and surveyed his captives. He was one of the infamous Sallee Rovers operating out of Salé, on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, who sold any Europeans they captured into slavery. The captain ordered the Ann’s four passengers to be taken to his ship, along with the crew, who were chained up in the hold. One of the passengers was a young Englishwoman named Elizabeth Marsh, barely 21 years old. It is because of her that we know these details. She later published an account of her experiences: The Female Captive: A Narrative of Facts Which Happened in Barbary in the Year 1756, Written by Herself. The corsair attack occurred in August 1756, a few months after the beginning of the Seven Years’ War. Marsh’s father, an administrator for the Royal Navy, had moved his family from their home in Menorca to Gibraltar, which he considered safer. To further protect his daughter, he then booked her a berth on the Ann, which set sail for England in late July. Read more | Liquor, loot and death on the high seas: 5 things you (probably) didn't know about the history of pirates Marsh’s family aspired to be “respectable people”, and she had received a genteel education. The future planned for her was typical of young women of her position and era: to marry a well-to-do man and bear his children. Now, torn from that sheltered life, she faced a very different fate. As a young, attractive European woman, Marsh would have been a highly sought-after comm…

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From krakens to serpents: 5 fearsome sea monsters from history
type: item
date: 2026-01-02T15:30:11.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical people
description: Sea monsters have haunted human imaginations for millennia. From the kraken to killer serpents, Prema Arasu explores what five mythical creatures reveal about our deepest fears
encoded: 1. Armed and dangerous The writhing tentacles of the kraken inspired horror and disgust Sea monsters have fired our imaginations – and chilled our blood – for as long as humanity has sailed the seas. The Babylonian epic Enūma Eliš, which dates back to at least 1200 BC, describes the creation of the world from two fearsome primordial beings: Apsû, the embodiment of subterranean fresh water, and Tiamat, the sea. Like the many mythical aquatic creatures that have occupied our dreams and our nightmares, Apsû and Tiamat reveal much about how the Babylonians saw the world, acting as projections through which their anxieties about nature could be expressed, examined and, perhaps, mastered. Fast forward more than a thousand years and, in Naturalis Historia (c77 AD), the earliest extant work of natural history, the Roman author Pliny the Elder argued that the largest animals found in the sea “exceed in size any of the terrestrial animals” because of the “superabundance of moisture with which they are supplied”. One such giant creature is the kraken, its origins lying in Nordic mythology and folklore. In his 1752–53 proto-scientific work The Natural History of Norway, Danish bishop Erik Pontoppidan described the “Kraken, Kraxen, or, as some world name it, Krabben” as an island-sized creature, “round, flat, and full of arms, or branches”. Alfred, Lord Tennyson was so energised by reports of this monster of the deep that, in 1830, he wrote a poem in its honour, describing an ancient, giant-armed creature slumbering “Below the thunders of the upper deep; Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea.” British naturalist Henry Lee offered a more rational perspective. In Sea Monsters Unmasked (1883), he stated that kraken sightings by sailors were most likely exaggerated reports of giant squid (Architeuthis dux), described a quarter of a century earlier by the Danish biologist Japetus Steenstrup. Even after that, though, kraken and other squid-like monsters proliferated in literature. Herma…

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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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