Half-Arsed History

This week in history we’ve got volcanic eruptions and famous statues, we’ve got the birthdays of royals, representatives, and root rats, and we’ve got a bloke catching seagulls and killing sharks in a months-long ordeal of lonely maritime survival.

In this week's episode, discover how and why the British East India Company, an immensely powerful and wealthy imperial institution, came crashing down after a slow and steady decline.

This week in history we’ve got the origin of gerrymandering, the renaming of Constantinople, we’ve got the birthdays of composers and scientists and painters, and we’ve got the time the BBC convinced half of Britain that spaghetti grew on trees.

In this week's episode, hear about the phase of conquest and expansion that transformed the British East India Company into one of the largest and most powerful imperial institutions on Earth.

This week in history we’ve got monuments both finished and unfinished, we’ve got great escapes, we’ve got the birthdays of clockmakers, filmmakers, and musicmakers, and we’ve got the time that England lost the World Cup in 1966.

In this week's episode, get across how the British East India Company transformed from a purely commercial enterprise to a sovereign entity exercising colonial authority over a growing part of the Indian subcontinent.