Dan Snow's History Hit

Egypt was a vast kingdom of the ancient world. Its rulers were considered gods and wielded tremendous power and wealth. Egyptian scholars, astrologists and thinkers pioneered in their fields. Lasting for millennia, the kingdom's influence on culture, economics and politics was felt across North Africa and beyond, even centuries after it was gone.This episode tells you everything you need to know about Ancient Egypt - guided by Dr. Campbell Price, Curator of Egypt and Sudan at the Manchester Museum, Dan embarks on a whistle-stop tour of this iconic kingdom.Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore.Discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW sign up now for your 14-day free trial.We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at ds.hh@historyhit.com.You can take part in our listener survey here.

Today we find ourselves in 9th-century Baghdad, the beating heart of the Islamic Abbasid Caliphate. This was a vast empire that stretched from North Africa through the Middle East, and all the way to Central Asia. At the height of the Islamic Golden Age, it hosted profound cultural and intellectual advancements that laid the foundations for our modern world.Dan is joined by Ali A. Olomi, a historian of the Middle East and Islam. Ali is one of the hosts of Echoes of History, a podcast by Ubisoft and they've just released two brand new series, Baghdad Soundwalks and Figures of Baghdad. In this episode, Ali delves into the stories of the key figures who shaped the city's golden age and appear in Figures of Baghdad.Discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW sign up now for your 14-day free trial We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at ds.hh@historyhit.com.You can take part in our listener survey here.

For over 500 years, the mysterious disappearance of two English princes has perplexed the world. Historians have long assumed that Edward V and Richard, Duke of York were murdered in 1483 by their uncle, Richard III. But Dan's guest today brings a dramatic new theory to the table.Philippa Langley played a crucial role in the discovery and exhumation of Richard's body in 2012. She has since turned her attention to the greatest mystery that surrounds his life; did he really kill his own nephews to seize the English throne? After delving into one of history's greatest cold cases, Philippa believes she has finally solved this royal mystery...Discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW sign up now for your 14-day free trial We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at ds.hh@historyhit.com.You can take part in our listener survey here.

In Dan's long career as a broadcaster, he's come across all sorts of unexplained phenomena, myths and mysteries- from searching for the Nazi Gold Train in Poland to debunking the mummy's curse in Tutankhamun's tomb and looking for answers about ball lightning. History is full of the weird and wonderful and in this episode Dan is joined by polymath, author and fellow podcaster Dan Schreiber to talk about stories of lost treasure, curious relics and Edwardian superstitions.You can read up on the things mentioned in this podcast, and more, in the History Hit Miscellany book available now online and in bookshops.Dan Schreiber is the host of the We Can Be Weirdos podcast and the author of The Theory of Everything Else.Discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW sign up now for your 14-day free trial We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at ds.hh@historyhit.com.

The permanent home of the Parthenon Marbles, also known as the 'Elgin' Marbles, has been the subject of a heated, decades-long debate. That debate was reignited this week when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cancelled a meeting with the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis who had planned to raise the issue of returning the marbles to Greece in it.Currently housed in the British Museum, Greece has been proactively campaigning for their return since the 1980s. But how did this controversy start, why did the marbles end up in London and why are they so important?In this episode, Dan finds answers and solutions from Nick Malkoutzis and Georgia Nakou, two Greek journalists and contributors to the Macropolis.gr who provide the deep history of the marbles and how the two countries might resolve this dispute.Discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW sign up now for your 14-day free trial We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at ds.hh@historyhit.com.

This episode contains references to death and sexual assault.Hades is King of the the dead and the Underworld in Ancient Greek mythology. Dive into the shadowy underworld with host Tristan Hughes and guest Prof Sarah Iles Johnson of Ohio State University. Together, they unearth Hades' origin, define the enigmatic underworld, and what it reveals about Ancient Greek perceptions of life and beyond. Plus, delve into iconic myths like Orpheus & Eurydice, Achilles and the Trojan War and the Labours of Heracles.Senior Producer: Elena GuthrieAssistant Producer: Annie ColoeEditor: Aidan LonerganScriptwriter: Andrew HulseVoice Actor: Lucy DavidsonDiscover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW sign up now for your 14-day free trialWe'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at ds.hh@historyhit.com.You can take part in our listener survey here.

The legend of Rasputin's death goes that he survived poisoning, being shot in the head before being thrown through a hole in the ice in the Neva River, where he finally died by drowning. But Rasputin biographer Douglas Smith, Dan's guest today, says that isn't what happened. He's been to Russia to study the crime scene photos and the evidence and says things happened a little differently to the way the history is told...He joins Dan to dig into the life of Grigori Rasputin, the Siberian mystique whose charisma held the Romanov Tsar and Tsarina in a vice-like grip, securing his own influence over Russia's politics and church at the turn of the 20th century.Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal PatmoreSign up to History Hit at historyhit.com/subscribe using code BLACKFRIDAYPOD at checkout, for $1/£1 per month for 4 months and you’ll get nearly £30 off our normal monthly price over your first 4 months.

From the famed poet Homer to King John of Bohemia, people without sight have always been prominent in our collective history. These figures have been heroised, demonised, and everything in between. The retelling of their lives indicates that blindness is typically seen as either an affliction to be 'fixed', or as a superpower; it has been given a mystical quality whereby a person can lose their vision, but gain wisdom.Dan is joined by Selina Mills, broadcaster and author of Life Unseen: A Story of Blindness, who explains how societies have responded throughout the ages to people who are blind.Produced by James Hickmann and Mariana Des Forges, and edited by Dougal Patmore.We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at ds.hh@historyhit.com.You can take part in our listener survey here.

Napoleon has become more than a man. His name is a concept, a way of being, a psychological term- the 'Napoleon' complex. Napoleon began working on his legacy during his exile on St Helena in the last years of his life, his journal- memoir 'The Memorial of Saint Helena' was Napoleon's own personal and political testament and served as the founding text of the cult of Napoleon and the ideology of Bonapartism that grew after his death in 1821.In the final episode of the series, Dan is joined by historian and biographer Lord Andrew Roberts to unpack the mythology of Napoleon. They delve into his final days, his lifetime achievements and failures and the commentary he gave throughout; the letters he wrote to rulers and lovers, the fiction he wrote, the political and military treaties he created and they try to answer the question- was he really a great man?Produced by Mariana Des Forges, Freddy Chick and edited by Dougal Patmore.Don’t miss out on the best offer in history! Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 for 3 months with code BLACKFRIDAYPOD and sign up now for your 14-day free trial https://historyhit/subscription/.We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at ds.hh@historyhit.com.