Channel History Hit

In this episode, Dan chats to British naval historian and maritime artist, Richard Endsor, about seventeenth century ship building. It was the developments of this period that would enable Britain to extend it's maritime reach across the oceans, eventually encompassing territory on every continent.For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about some of the greatest speeches ever made in the House of Commons, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I was joined by Kevin Fong, who took me through one of the most extraordinary stories in the history of exploration. Apollo 13 was the seventh crewed mission on the Apollo space programme, and their third attempt to land on the moon. But after an oxygen tank in the command module ignited early on in the mission, the three astronauts got much more than they bargained for. As each of the systems in the space craft began to shut down one after another over a course of four excruciating days, it seemed impossible they would come out alive.For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This ninth episode in the special series of Histories of the Unexpected Homeschooling explores INVISIBILITY and Tudor Spies! The Unexpected History of invisibility is all about stealth technology and travelling under the radar, priest holes and hiding during WWII, Stalin's erasure of the past, being hidden from history, and of course spies, cryptography and the secret world of the Tudors. James and Sam explore the world of the Tudor spy, including the Babington Plot of 1586, and look out for recipes to make invisible ink and how to hide a secret letter inside an egg!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Emily Brand has written a brilliant book about the Byrons. Not just the great romantic, poet and adventurer, George Gordon Byron, but his parents and grandparents who are equally as deserving of our attention. I loved this opportunity to delve into 18th Century British life. There are admirals, villains, heroines and lovers all over the place. One family give us an entree into a world different to ours yet tantalisingly similar. For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about some of the greatest speeches ever made in the House of Commons, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This eighth episode in the special series of Histories of the Unexpected Homeschooling explores STENCH and Public Health in Victorian England. The Unexpected History of STENCH is all about personal hygiene and the marketing of smelling nice in 1950s USA; the holocaust and use of napalm during the Vietnam war, stinkiness in the medieval world, and of course nineteenth-century disease and public health. James and Sam explore discuss Public Health Reforms in Victorian Britain, including Edwin Chadwick's 1842 Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population, and look out for recipes to make your own stink bombs!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In September 1918 David Lloyd George, the charismatic wartime Prime Minister, visited the city of Manchester, attended a vast public gathering and then collapsed. He spent the next week and a half confined to the Manchester Town Hall in a hastily assembled private hospital ward. He needed assistance breathing. His valet said it was touch and go as to whether he would survive. He did pull through but a vast number of his fellow Brits did not. The country was in the grip of an influenza pandemic, known as Spanish Influenza. It is interesting that Lloyd George was in Manchester because it was under the care of one of the most remarkable public health officials in British history, James Niven. His rapid response the pandemic, his insistence on a public information campaign and closing of mass gatherings meant that Manchester suffered fewer deaths than other big cities like London. In this podcast I talk to Mark Honigsbaum who has written extensively about the Influenza and Niven. We talked about sick Prime M

In this episode the Histories of the Unexpected team of James Daybell and Sam Willis take on the topic of RABBITS - as an Easter Special! Now, of course, the UNEXPECTED history of loneliness is all about poaching and disputes over land; eighteenth-century England and Mary Toft who allegedly gave birth to rabbits (it was a hoax!); Aborigines and the Stolen Generation in Australia; mapping rabbit warrens in Devon; and bizarrely enough, dead cats soaked in aniseed. Intrigued? Well listen up  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This seventh episode in the special series of Histories of the Unexpected Homeschooling explores FIRE and the SPANISH ARMADA. The Unexpected History of FIRE takes us from the pre-historic invention of fire and its impact upon the world all the way to the global climate crisis and the wildfires that raged in Australia in early 2020. Fire is also all burning things: it's about Nazi burning of books, the Tudors burning Protestant martyrs; scorched earth tactics in warfare, and fireships and naval history. James and Sam explore the history of the Armada and the use of beacons to communicate during the Tudor period. Look out for Queen Elizabeth's famous Tilbury speech of 1588, and how to decode the symbolism and imagery of her Armada Portrait.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Professor Frank Snowden is currently on lockdown in Rome, experiencing at first hand life in a pandemic. For years he has written about the great waves of disease that swept across the world in the past. Now he is experiencing one. I talked to him about what pandemics have done to us. How they have changed our societies, nudged us towards the present and whether this outbreak might refocus us to give previous pandemics the attention they deserve. For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about some of the greatest speeches ever made in the House of Commons, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This sixth episode in the special series of Histories of the Unexpected Homeschooling explores DARKNESS and WWII and THE BLITZ. The Unexpected History of darkness is all about the not so 'dark' Dark Ages, the Winter of Discontent and blackouts, child labour during the Victorian period, coal mining and hidden histories. James and Sam explore discuss WWII, the Blitz, and air raids, including Morrison Shelters. Look out for instructions on how to be a historian by interviewing your grandparents about their lives - a great way to keep in touch with elderly and vulnerable people during lockdown!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Our museums are full of stuff taken, bought, stolen and gifted from foreign countries. It feels like we face a reckoning. What shall we do with it?I talked to two authors of new books that wrestle with this. Christopher Joll is a former soldier who deals specifically with the spoils of war, while Alice Proctor thinks more generally about all objects and where they are best placed and how best to interpret them. For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about some of the greatest speeches ever made in the House of Commons, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode of Histories of the Unexpected, James and Sam explore the unexpected history of BOREDOM, which is all about British imperialism, travel, the armed forces, governors, sea voyages, Elizabethan gentlewomen, controlling the working classes in post WWII Canada!Boredom is the root of all evil – the despairing refusal to be oneself. – Soren KierkegaardUnless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it, the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom. – Bertrand RussellThe cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. – Ellen Parr  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Poison, swordplay and bloodshed. Shakespeare’s characters met their ends in a plethora of gruesome ways. But how realistic were they? And did they even shock audiences who lived in a time of plague, pestilence and public executions, a time when seeing a dead or dying body on the way home from the theatre were high. I was joined by the wonderful Dr Kathryn Harkup, a chemist and author, on a tumultuous journey through the most dramatic and memorable parts of Shakespeare’s work. For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode of Histories of the Unexpected, James and Sam explore the unexpected history of SOLITUDE, which is all about monasticism, pillars, ornamental hermits (and shoes), desert islands, and the Beatles!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This fifth episode in the special series of Histories of the Unexpected Homeschooling explores SLIME and the Industrial Revolution. The Unexpected History of slime is all about the medical properties of snail slime, ectoplasm and Victorian spiritualists, the use of black slugs to lubricate hay carts in pre-Industrial society, and of course the Industrial Revolution. James and Sam explore discuss the major inventions of the period, including Stevenson's Rocket, and look out for recipes to make your own magnetic slime!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The last great battle of the Second World War was fought on the island of Okinawa. After 83 blood-soaked days, almost a quarter of a million people lost their lives. The death toll included thousands of civilians lost to mass suicide - convinced to do so by Japanese propaganda. I invited Saul David on the podcast to tell me about this shocking - often overlooked - chapter of the Second World War. A chapter which was central to Truman’s decision to use the atomic bombs in August 1945. For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This episode features military historian Douglas Gill who has extensively researched the origins of the Spanish Influenza as it emerged in 1915 and 1916 in northern France. Douglas has worked alongside leading virologist, and previous guest on Dan's podcast, John Oxford, to track the initial cases of this particularly violent strain of influenza which would go on to kill millions of people across the globe. For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode the Histories of the Unexpected team of James Daybell and Sam Willis take on the topic of LONELINESS! Inspired by the events of a global lockdown, an UNEXPECTED history of loneliness is all about widowhood, eighteenth-century shopkeepers, Queen Victoria, prisons, the Beatles, chairs, teenagers, old photographs and nostalgia!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I was thrilled to have Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir on the pod. We talked about Viking women, old Norse-Icelandic sagas, mythology and poetry. Who were these Viking women who were champions on the battlefield, did they really exist, and is there much historic evidence? Jóhanna answered all these questions drawing upon the latest archaeological evidence. It seems the lives of Viking women were far more dynamic than we might imagine. Enjoy!For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dr. Jamie Wood and Professor Niall Mackay at the University of York are mathematicians who love history. Sensible dudes. They released a paper which sent the rest of the history world into a meltdown when they tried to use the statistics of airframe losses from the Battle of Britain to test just how close Germany might have come to victory in the battle. Essentially (I think but then again I am totally innumerate) they tested what would happen if the loss ration on certain days had been replicated consistently. Anyway I wouldn't read my take on it, give it a listen and see if it makes sense to you. I loved these guys and I hope we get to work together again. For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month f