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When US forces entered Vietnam, the nation's leaders believed they could contain communism and secure victory. Instead, they found themselves trapped in a war that drained resources, divided the count...
· 55 min 38 sec
This year has seen Donald Trump retake the US presidency, repeating his vow to ‘make America great again’. But he’s not the first to wield such a slogan, as this Long Read written by Phil Tinline expl...
· 19 min 54 sec
Emerging from crusading endeavours in the Holy Land, the Teutonic Order was one of great military orders established in the 12th century. Its influence spread far and wide, and its members negotiated...
· 52 min 54 sec
Amid the horrors of Auschwitz, a group of female musicians were forced to play for their lives. Author Anne Sebba joins Lauren Good to discuss this women's orchestra, exploring how music was used as a...
· 35 min 56 sec
John F Kennedy remains one of America’s most iconic presidents – his life and untimely death wrapped in both mythology and conspiracy. But how much of his legacy is based in reality, and how can his r...
· 42 min 15 sec
How did the world’s greatest cities become just that – great? Was it location, determination or simple serendipity? This is the question behind History’s Greatest Cities, from HistoryExtra. Join trave...
· 1 min 2 sec
She super-charged Mark Antony's rise to power, whipped up gang violence, went to war with Octavian – and may, just may, have abused Cicero's decapitated head with a hairpin. Here, in conversation with...
· 33 min 33 sec
Sir Simon Schama is one of the world's leading historians, a bestselling author and a renowned documentary maker. In his latest documentary film, The Road to Auschwitz, he tells the story of the Holoc...
· 42 min 7 sec
Fortune telling was all the rage in the 16th and 17th centuries, and practitioners would stop at nothing to tap in to the supernatural. This Long Read written by Martha McGill tells a story of Highlan...
· 19 min 1 sec
Between the 1870s and the First World War, European colonialists set their sights on the Africa, making territorial land grabs that consumed nearly the entire continent. Speaking to Ellie Cawthorne, P...
· 40 min 45 sec
What connects a notorious Chilean dictator with an SS commander who played a key role in the Holocaust? This is the question at the heart of a book by the author and lawyer Philippe Sands, which follo...
· 47 min 1 sec
Trade wars and tariffs have once again been making headlines in recent weeks, as US president Donald Trump's government adopts combative economic policies. But are such approaches really that unusual?...
· 30 min 29 sec
In the latest episode of our monthly series, Hannah Skoda and Rana Mitter discuss recent headlines about funding cuts to history departments in the UK’s universities - and we hear from Lucy Noakes, pr...
· 46 min 32 sec
It was a moment of possibilities, dislocation – and dread. This Long Read, written by Dan Todman, tells the story of the 1.5 million urban Britons evacuated to the countryside at the start of the Seco...
· 24 min 45 sec
Debates about whether museum artefacts should be returned to the cultures that made them have made headlines several times in recent years. But historian and author Justin M Jacobs explains to Matt El...
· 45 min 34 sec
Paris's Belle Époque – or 'Beautiful Era' – conjures up images of cafés, can-can dancers and sunny walks along the River Seine. But was life in the French capital in the late 19th and early 20th-centu...
· 50 min 4 sec
In 1910, music hall performer Belle Elmore went missing. Her husband Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen claimed Belle had gone to America to visit a dying relative. But before long, Crippen's stories began to u...
· 47 min 21 sec
In the 1970s, as the Troubles divided Northern Ireland, hundreds of armalite guns were sent to the IRA from across the Atlantic. Reporter Ali Watkins follows the smuggling operations of a ragtag group...
· 29 min 14 sec
Across the 370s AD, displaced Gothic tribes had flooded into the eastern Roman empire seeking refuge and settlement – but what they found instead was hardship and desperation. Such appalling ill treat...
· 38 min 52 sec
Thomas Becket is probably medieval England's most famous martyr and saint – yet the circumstances of his life are overshadowed by his infamous feud with King Henry II, and his shocking murder in Cante...
· 51 min 35 sec