History Cafe

Rereleasing ahead of new series in New Year on The Battle of the Somme. New story to tell. Synopsis: 8pm German time the Kaiser orders champagne, halts the German advance towards Belgium, and sends a telegram of congratulations to his cousin George V at Buckingham Palace. The Liberal British Cabinet had voted to remain neutral on 31 July. Earlier on 1 August Foreign Secretary Grey met the German a...

Rerelease of this series, ahead of new series on The Battle of the Somme, 1916, to be released in the New Year. NEW story to tell. Synopsis:In 1912 a deal between War Secretary Haldane and the German chancellor Bethmann-Holweg to allow Britain to retain naval supremacy if they both remained neutral (if neither side had started the war), was rudely sabotaged. It involved lying to Cabinet that the G...

Rerelease ahead of new series on The Battle of the Somme 1 July 1916 after New Year. A new story to tell...Synopsis: How did what friendly chats between British and French generals since 1905 turn into a commitment to send a small British Expeditionary Force to France at the start of a war with Germany? A commitment that had not been agreed by Cabinet, Parliament or the Navy? Hosted on Acast. See...

Rereleasing why we got into the First World War ahead of our new series on the Battle of the Somme to be released in New Year - losses on the first day 1 July 1916 were largest in British history. We have a new story to tell. Synopsis: We look at anti-German hysteria in Britain 1906-1909. The British publishing phenomena of 1906 was The Invasion of 1910 (by Germans), serialised in the Daily Mail a...

Rereleasing ahead of our New Year series on the Battle of the Somme, and for those whose podcast platforms don't show our playlists per series. Synopsis: Britain’s main problem by 1910 was Russian expansion towards its Persian oil and India, the jewel in Britain’s crown. So why did Britain go to war to SUPPORT Russia and AGAINST Germany which was its closest European friend and trading partner? Ho...

Rereleasing series with greatest international following: Final stand-alone epSynopsis: Within days of 28 October 1962 two journalists publish the official but untruthful White House account, as instructed and edited by the President. They also call-out a political enemy for daring to consider a humiliating missile swap with the Soviets. But we show how the Kennedys had already suggested this very...

Rereleasing series with greatest international following for those whose podcast platforms don't show playlists per seriesSynopsis: 28 October 1962: by holding his nerve Kennedy defuses the crisis in just 13 days. He says it’s over although he’s unable to verify whether Khrushchev ever withdraws his missiles or not. The last missiles do indeed leave Cuba on day 48 of the crisis but for very differ...

Rereleasing our series with greatest international interest for those whose podcast platforms don't do playlists per seriesSynopsis: 22 October 1962: President Kennedy goes on prime-time TV and announces a blockade around Cuba to prevent more Soviet missiles reaching the island. But US sailors call the so-called ‘quarantine’ nothing but ‘grand theatrics.’ Not a single Soviet ship is stopped by the...

Rereleasing our series with the largest number of international fans, to help those whose podcast platforms don't provide playlists per series:Synopsis: 15 October 1962. Soviet nuclear missile sites are discovered. It’s only three weeks before the mid-term elections. Kennedy decides that to negotiate publicly with Khrushchev would be a disaster at the polls; as would ignoring them which is what hi...

Rereleasing our series with greatest international following for those whose podcast platforms don't do series playlists:Synopsis: The Cuban Missile Crisis begins not because Castro is a dangerous communist but because he is NOT. Khrushchev tells his ruling council: ‘The only way to save Cuba is to put missiles there’ - not only to prevent an American invasion, but also to keep Fidel Castro sweet....

Rereleasing our series with the greatest international following for those whose podcast platforms don't enable playlists per series. Do contact us on @historycafepod if you are enjoying our broadcasts:Synopsis: 1959: The first country the new revolutionary president of Cuba visits is the United States of America. And he’s a big hit. The students at Princeton carry him on their shoulders. Castro w...

Re-releasing our series with widest international appeal in order for those podcast platforms that don't enable series playlists. Synopsis: We have the memo to President Kennedy dated Day 2 of the crisis with his own security chiefs clarifying that 'these missiles do not significantly alter the balance of power.' So why does October 1962 develop into the closest we’ve ever come to nuclear war? Hos...

Rereleasing our most popular series for those who can't find our playlists for each series on their podcast platforms:Synopsis: Who won the Battle of Britain? For good strategic reasons Churchill claimed victory. But the Germans, who saw the eight months of the Blitz as part of the same campaign, achieved much of what they intended. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Re-releasing our most popular series for those who struggle to find it without playlist functions on their podcast platforms:Synopsis: The Battle of Britain was never as close as the popular story has it. The RAF was too well organised and supplied. But is that why the Luftwaffe switched to bombing London? Or was there another reason? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our most popular series being re-released in broadcast order for those who can't find it! Synopsis: Churchill talks up the threat of invasion, even though it looks impossible. ‘I might as well send my men straight into a sausage machine,’ writes the German Chief of Staff. But invasion preparations still go on. Who is bluffing who? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our most popular series re-released here in order, especially but not exclusively (!) for Apple podcast listeners because Apple don't do playlists:Synopsis: Britain is gripped by fear of invasion. Government leaflet 'If the Invader Comes' calls for pepper and ‘a sharp knife to kill them if necessary.’ Churchill goes on BBC and says ‘we await undismayed by the impending assault. Perhaps it will com...

Our second ever podcast. Re-released for our new audience who haven't found it yet. Each episode in the series is an enjoyable listen on its own. Synopsis: Head of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Göring, was jealous of the man who was pushing for an invasion of Britain - former British ambassador Joachim von Ribbentrop. If the Luftwaffe could bomb Britain out of the war, there'd be no need for a risky inva...

We're putting this podcast out again because it's by far our most popular and yet if you've found us recently you may never have discovered it. Synopsis: The Germans make extraordinary preparations for the immense task of invading Britain in 1940. Why bother when neither Hitler nor any senior German officer wanted to do it or thought it was possible? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...

We don't apologise for repeating this broadcast made for last year's Remembrance Day. The story is so important it's worth telling again and again. At least 50% of deaths from war in the last three centuries were civilians. In 2001 the International Red Cross calculated that in modern warfare ten civilians die for every member of the military killed in battle. In the two World Wars the vast majori...

BEFORE you light your bonfire and set off your fireworks on November 5, why not ‘spare a thought’ for Guy Fawkes, who we’re still sending up in flames, more than 400 years after the crime he’s SUPPOSED to have committed. Look for our playlist here with 7 episodes, called Blowing up the Gunpowder Plot. It's a grisly story with shady characters, state torture, spies including Shakespeare's rival Ben...

Celebrating our 60th episode of well-researched reinterpretations of history using the latest academic research but brought to you in an accessible format. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The reason we all believe Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst achieved women’s votes in Britain is because that’s the narrative created in the 20s and 30s by former suffragettes. The reality of what Emmeline and Christabel got up to post 1918 is shocking. Suffice it to say it involves racial purity and telling working women they can buy silk underwear, shapely shoes and fur hats, not by improving th...

By 1832 it was clear to both the House of Lords and the Commons that the British planters in the Caribbean were dragging the British economy into a credit crash. It looks to us very like the crash of 2008. The Jamaican Rebellion of 1831 and the vicious retaliation by the white supremacist Colonial Church Union in 1832 was the final nail in the coffin of British enslavement. The CCU showed beyond d...

When the HMS Lutine went down, 9 October 1799 off the Dutch coast, carrying a million pounds of gold and silver, it led to the collapse of the Hamburg sugar market and within a few years the banning of the slave trade. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An accessible podcast on Jon’s academic book Partisan Politics – looking for consensus in Eighteenth-Century Towns (Exeter University Press 2021). See Publications page on this website for 45% discount. It is still wrongly but commonly thought that in the 18th Century the gentry bought their way into a parliamentary seat, mainly by purchasing land, or by gaining the approval of some unrepresentati...