Dan Snow's History Hit

On the night of the 16th May, 1943, Operation Chastise commenced - 133 RAF airmen in their iconic Lancaster bombers took off from England, bound for Germany. Armed with specially designed 'bouncing bombs', the highly trained crews were tasked with destroying key installations in Germany's industrial heartland, the Ruhr Valley. It was an audacious mission of unprecedented precision, from which over...

On the night of the 16th of May, 1943, 133 RAF airmen in their iconic Lancaster bombers took off from England, and headed for Germany. Armed with specially designed 'bouncing bombs', the highly-trained crews were tasked with interrupting German industry by destroying three enormous dams in the Ruhr Valley. It was a risky mission of unprecedented precision, from which over a third of the aircrew wo...

The 16th century in Europe was an age of great Queens. But just because they were in charge, didn't always mean they were powerful or safe; it was tough being a queen in the Renaissance and. Author and Former Professor of French at The George Washington University Leah Redmond Chang joins Dan to delve into the fascinating and complicated lives of three queens: Catherine De Medici, a noblewoman in...

The legend of the Minotaur and its labyrinth has captivated us for centuries, but is there any evidence of it really existing? In this episode, Tristan visits the Ashmolean museum in Oxford to interview Dr. Andrew Shapland, the curator of a new exhibition exploring the Bronze Age settlement of Knossos in Crete - the home of the mythical King Minos, the Minotaur and the labyrinth. Together they exp...

In 1831, the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville left the troubled continent of Europe and set sail for America. Travelling in the shadow of the French Revolution, his goal was to learn about the world's largest democracy and work out how France could move forward. He would eventually publish a remarkable account of life and politics in the United States that became one of the best 19th centur...

*WARNING there are adult words and themes in this episode* How debaucherous do you have to be to be remembered as the original bad boy ? How mad, bad and dangerous to know was Lord Byron? And how much of it did he get from his family? For this episode, Kate is joined by Emily Brand, the author of ‘The Fall of the House of Byron: Scandal and Seduction in Georgian England’. From incest to murder - t...

J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth is perhaps the most captivating fantasy world ever created. His mythology and folklore continues to influence the work of writers, film-makers, musicians and artists to this day. He first conceived of the idea during the First World War, and built his world to examine the fear and courage, despair and hope that he witnessed. So how exactly did this brutal, bloody war...

The Battle of Agincourt looms large in the English historical and cultural imagination, this explainer wades through the mythology to help listeners really understand this infamous battle. From almost the moment the battle finished the myth of Agincourt was being spun. Henry V milked the victory for all its worth to secure his reign and it has continued to play a prominent role in the British psyc...

What do you get when you bring together five top historians to debate Mary, Queen of Scots on film? History with the gloves off - our second special episode of Not Just the Tudors Lates! This time, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb takes as her starting point the tragic life of the Scottish Queen and her relationship with her rival and cousin Queen Elizabeth I. Suzannah is joined once again by Dr J...

This is the first episode of a special series that we made in collaboration with Ubisoft, the developers of the Assassins's Creed franchise. In Assassins vs Templars , we immerse ourselves in the real history that inspired the first game, exploring the rise and fall of The Knights Templar and the Assassins, speaking to leading historians to uncover the real histories behind key characters in the g...

The commandos have become a byword for elite raiding and cutting-edge military operations. They were set up during the Second World War in June 1940, following a request from Winston Churchill, for special forces that could carry out raids against German-occupied Europe. As Monty Halls says, they were 'well trained men who wreaked havoc'. But to be the best you have to train the hardest and where...

As preparations for the Coronation of King Charles III get underway, you're going to see words everywhere like 'anointing,' 'enthronement,' and 'crowning.' Despite how medical they sound, they are in fact ceremonial acts steeped in centuries of British history and tradition. There'll be talk of Edward the Confessor's crown, the absence of the controversial Koh-i-noor Diamond and som...

When it was completed in 1931, the Empire State Building became the tallest building in the world. While it has long been surpassed, it is still one of the most recognised skyscrapers on the planet, synonymous with the city in which it stands. Its imposing but elegant art deco design is a tribute to the roaring ’20s from which it came. Carol Willis, author of Form Follows Finance: The Empire State...

Is it even possible to imagine what Britain would have been without seafaring? Braving the waters beyond our harbours can be traced back eight and a half thousand years - the earliest boats made crossings as soon as Britain broke away from the continent. You can trace the ages of Britain through the vessels that have been launched to and from her shores - Roman warships, Viking longships, William...

On the night of the 19th of April, 1956, the decorated navy diver Lionel Crabb went missing. A veteran of the Second World War, Crabb had been sent on a secret mission by MI6 to investigate a Soviet cruiser in Portsmouth Harbour. After pulling on his diving gear and checking his oxygen supply, Crabb slipped into the dark waters, never to be seen alive again. Was he killed by the Soviets? Was he ki...

The enormous Cullinan Diamond will be on display at Charles III Coronation, but the diamond that's missing - the Koh-i-Noor - is the one that everyone's been talking about. Its splendour captured the eyes and imaginations of rulers for centuries, from the Persian conqueror Nader Shah to Queen Victoria. But how did this symbol of Mughal power and prestige come to hold a central role in the British...

This episode contains high-speed chases, modified cars and a mission to uncover secret enemy technology. It's everything you'd find in a James Bond movie, but also on a Cold War BRIXMIS mission- one that today's guest Dave Butler was part of, gathering intelligence on Soviet firepower as Britain prepared for World War Three. During their time in East Germany, Dave and his fellow officers were give...

When we think of Vikings, we tend to picture them in the colder climates of Northern Europe, and not so much in the warmer regions of Spain and the Mediterranean beyond. However, joining Dr. Cat Jarman today is Dr. Irene García Losquiño, a researcher whose work is uncovering Viking activity on the Iberian peninsula, shedding new light on the lives they lived there beyond the raiding we know about....

Dan explains what happened in the spring of 1940 when the Soviet secret police executed over 22,000 Polish prisoners of war at three secluded sites in the Soviet Union. Sanctioned by Stalin and the most senior members of the Communist Party, this flurry of mass killings has become known collectively as the Katyn Massacre. It drove a wedge between the Allied Powers and cemented the Polish governmen...

The assassination of Chris Hani was a pivotal moment in the dismantling of South African apartheid. On the 10th of April, 1993, he was shot dead as he returned to his home in a quiet suburb of Johannesburg. Negotiations between Nelson Mandela's party and the ruling apartheid government had stalled, and the country was as close as it had ever been to civil war. The murder of Nelson Mandela's heir a...

Perhaps one of the best-known modern dictators, Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq for nearly 30 years before eventually being overthrown in 2003 by the US Coalition. Known for his authoritarian rule, the use of chemical weapons against his own people, and multiple invasions of neighbouring countries - Saddam Hussein's legacy is a dark one. But how did he become President of Iraq in 1979, and what did the...

Please note, this episode contains descriptions of racial violence that some listeners may find disturbing. In November 1781, a British slave ship carrying hundreds of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic began to run out of water. The ship was called the Zong , and her crew decided to save their own lives by throwing enslaved Africans overboard. In a sinister twist, they would later file an insu...

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the Allied Powers sent research teams into the ruins of the Third Reich to cherry-pick the best German engineers and scientists. The goal was to integrate them into their own R&D programmes and exploit Nazi technology to beat the Soviets in the arms race. Operation Paperclip saw thousands of scientists relocated to the United States, even though many of th...

Volodymyr Zelenskyy's meteoric rise to power has been packed with drama and action. His journey has taken him from a Russian-speaking, aspiring diplomat to a TV comedian and finally, one of the most recognisable politicians on the planet. Having once been firmly rooted in Russian culture, he is now the greatest symbol of defiance to a Russian invasion that has wreaked havoc in his country. But wha...

Given his incredible career, you'd perhaps expect the name of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus to be better known. Born in North Africa in 145AD, he rose to power after distinguishing himself as a military commander at a time of great instability in the Roman Empire. Finally bringing the Year of the Five Emperors to an end, Severus was in power for nearly two decades - so how did he end up perishin...