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History Hit

Historian Dan Snow investigates the 'how' and 'why' of history's defining moments.

From the Colosseum of Ancient Rome and the battlefields of Waterloo to the tomb of Tutankhamun, Dan journeys across the globe to share the greatest stories from the past that help us understand the present.

New episodes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

You can get in touch with us at ds.hh@historyhit.com

A podcast by History Hit, the world's best history channel and creators of award-winning podcasts The Ancients, Gone Medieval, and Betwixt the Sheets.

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.

Dan Snow's History Hit

You may have heard the many myths about the life and exploits of Marco Polo- was he really the one who brought ice cream and spaghetti from his travels on the Silk Road from the court of Kublai Khan, where he served as a diplomat? Almost as soon as he wrote his memoir, people doubted the wild stories of his travels across Europe and Asia.

His life and myth are unravelled on today's podcast with Laurence Bergreen, historian and author of 'Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu' who followed in the footsteps of Polo, travelling the old Silk Road all the way to China, to see for himself if the stories of the great Venetian merchant were true…

Produced by Mariana Des Forges, sound design and editing by Dougal Patmore.

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Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world-renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more.

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If you want to get in touch with the podcast, you can email us at ds.hh@historyhit.com, we'd love to hear from you!

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Marco Polo

Warning: this episode contains graphic details of injuries.

The brutal nature of the First World War presented frontline medical personnel with an array of horrific and debilitating wounds, inflicted on a previously unimaginable scale. From gas attacks and bayonet wounds to rifle fire and artillery barrages, day-to-day life on the frontlines posed a serious risk to life and limb. The doctors and nurses responsible for medical care rose to the challenge, and the First World War saw a dramatic transformation in the provision of frontline medicine. Many more lives would be saved than lost due to the efforts of these 'lifesavers'. Focusing on the Canadian experience, Tim Cook, author of Lifesavers and Body Snatchers, explains just how important and innovative the work of frontline medical staff was, and reveals the more sinister side of how these advances were achieved.

Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.

Surviving the Great War: Medics in the Trenches

Tudor Christmas was a time for revelry and fun. Henry VIII and his court celebrated the full 12 days of Christmas in excess, with tables ladened with roast swan, suckling pig and venison pasties, among other delights. It's believed one Christmas, the King spent the equivalent of £13 million on the celebrations. He loved to dress up and tease his wives as well as take part in festive games.

Dan travels to what was once the heart of Henry's court, Hampton Court Palace, to meet with Historic Royal Palaces chief curator Tracy Borman and Richard Fitch, of the Historic Kitchens Team, to discover how the Tudors celebrated and what of their traditions we still have today.

This is episode 2 of our 'Origins of Christmas' series. Every Wednesday in December, Dan explores the history behind our Christmas traditions—from extravagant Tudor feasts and carolling to midwinter Solstice celebrations, the bawdy entertainment of the Georgians, and the family-focused customs of the Victorians.

Produced and edited by Mariana Des Forges

Music by Epidemic Sounds & All3Media Music Library

Dan Snow's History Hit is a History Hit podcast.

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.

Henry VIII's Tudor Christmas

Dan is joined by the Defence Editor for The Economist, Shashank Joshi, to explore the origins of the brutal Syrian civil war that has left the country in ruin and with an uncertain future. They unravel the complex political and cultural history of the region to explain why we're seeing turmoil today and what sense it could give us about what might happen now that the Assad regime has fallen.

Written by Dan Snow, produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Max Carrey

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.

The Syrian Civil War: How It Started

In the long and lamentable history of human conflicts, the Cod Wars have to be among the most bizarre. And what was the catalyst for them? You guessed it - fish. These 20th-century confrontations pitted hardy British fishermen and ships of the Royal Navy against the unwavering Icelandic Coast Guard. They involved medieval inventions and tactics like ships ramming each other, and even live fire. The conflict would shake the very foundations of NATO, and threaten to upend the balance of power in the Cold War between East and West.

William Reynolds is a Lecturer in Defence Studies at King's College London and joins us to explain these bizarre confrontations that came to shape maritime law and British-Icelandic relations.

Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Max Carrey.

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.

The Cod Wars

Pantomimes, pleasure gardens, bare-knuckle boxing and political upheaval. Christmas in the 18th and early 19th centuries was a very different affair from the peaceful family celebration of the Victorian Age. Georgian Christmas was raucous and rowdy, and it was time for a bit of fun before heading back to work.

In this seasonal episode, Dan delves into the festivities of London's working classes with Footprints of London tour guide Rob Smith. From an 18th-century showman who would put two joints of beef under his arms and walk into an oven - cooking them and miraculously not himself - to Joey Grimaldi, the world's first clown, Christmas in Regency London was surprising, lewd and quite extraordinary.

You can book one of Rob's tours here: https://footprintsoflondon.com/live/guides/rob-smith/

Produced by Mariana Des Forges and Rob Smith and edited by Max Carrey Dougal Patmore.

Georgian Christmas

After the death of Chinggis Khan, the founder and first Emperor of the Mongol Empire, the land became the largest contiguous empire in history.

The Horde, the western portion of the Mongol empire, was the central node in the Eurasian commercial boom of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and was a conduit for exchanges across thousands of miles. A force in global development as important as Rome, the Horde left behind a profound legacy in Europe, Russia, Central Asia, and the Middle East, palpable to this day.

Marie Favereau, Associate Professor of History at Paris Nanterre University, joins Dan on the podcast. They discuss the Mongols as thinkers who constructed one of the most influential empires in history and how that empire continued to shape, incubate and grow the political cultures it conquered.

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.

How the Mongols Changed the World

Folktales around the fire, gooding & mumping and the terrifying Hooden Horse are just some of England's winter folk traditions from history. In this episode, Dan explores the unlikely and often dark origins of some of our Christmas traditions that can be traced back thousands of years. He's joined by folklore historian Vikki Bramshaw, to discover what midwinter legends were brought over with the Anglo-Saxon invasion, the origins of the Yule log and some of the unusual ways people passed the long nights in rural England (fortune-telling chestnuts).

He also explores the New Forest, Hampshire, with local historian Richard Reeves to find out more about how medieval people survived the cold winters in the woods.

You can discover more in Vikki's book 'New Forest Folklore, Traditions and Charms'.

This is episode 4 of our 'Origins of Christmas' series. This December, Dan explores the history behind our Christmas traditions—from extravagant Tudor feasts and carolling to midwinter Solstice celebrations, the bawdy entertainment of the Georgians, and the family-focused customs of the Victorians.

Produced by Mariana Des Forges.

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.

Folk Christmas: Yule, Solstice & Ancient English Traditions

Just as Scrooge wanders London's streets on a cold Christmas night, Dan Snow follows the ghosts of Charles Dickens' past to discover the city that inspired his greatest works. With London-born tour guide David Charnick, they slip down hidden alleyways to find the old debtor's prison that the Dickens family once called home; a place that haunted a young Charles for the rest of his life. They find the old counting houses and graveyards that inspired the creation of Ebenezer Scrooge and the locations that appear in A Christmas Carol. With David's masterful guidance and atmospheric readings, this immersive episode takes you to the fireside of a London coaching inn as the sun sets outside on a late December afternoon.

A warning: this episode contains references to historical suicides.

Dickens' extracts are read by Robyn Wilson.

Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore.

Charles Dickens' Christmas

Today we dig into the history of Istanbul, the city at the crossroads of East and West. Across thousands of years, the city has survived the rise and fall of empires, weathered sieges and Crusades, and remained a centre of world religion, trade and politics.

With us is Jonathan Harris, Professor of the History of Byzantium at Royal Holloway and author of 'Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium'. He tells us all about the key moments that transformed the Eastern Roman capital of Constantinople into the modern-day city of Istanbul.

Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.

If you want to learn more about the Byzantine Empire, you could listen to our episode on its most famous leader, Emperor Heraclius - https://shows.acast.com/dansnowshistoryhit/episodes/emperor-heraclius-rome-vs-persia.

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.

The Origins of Istanbul

With Putin's war in Ukraine raging on, the threat of a nuclear conflict feels as real as ever. But since the Iron Curtain fell, our understanding of what to do in the event of a nuclear strike has waned. In this episode, we look to the past to discover the extraordinary things that the British government have done to prepare the nation for nuclear war. What plans did they put in place, and would they have worked if the missiles had started flying? Dan is joined by Julie McDowall, an expert on the nuclear threat and author of Attack Warning Red! How Britain Prepared for Nuclear War, to shed some light on the unnerving history of nuclear preparation.

Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!

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How to Prepare for Nuclear War

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