Dan Snow's History Hit

Dan is joined by his dad, veteran broadcaster Peter Snow, to tell the incredible story of the clash between Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington on June 18, 1815. This showdown - packed with…

Tensions between Iran and Israel have escalated with a recent Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and retaliation from Iran. The two countries openly carried out attacks on each other for th…

Humans are everywhere. How did we get from the savannahs of Africa across to the most northern reaches of Alaska and Greenland, to the outbacks of Australia and the islands of the Pacific millennia a…

For thousands of years, ancient cuneiform - the script of the ancient Mesopotamians was lost to time, until being dramatically rediscovered in the 19th century by an adventurous group of unlikely Vic…

Following the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 some of its most egregious war criminals sought to escape justice by fleeing Europe, most famously to South America. The escape routes they used, establis…

The Romans built an empire that reshaped the world through brutal wars, brilliant strategy, and even the power of the pen. From the blood-soaked battlefields to the marble halls of Rome, a few toweri…

The dawn of the age of European exploration in the 16th century was absurdly dangerous. Crews on the ships of Christopher Columbus, Vasco De Gama and Ferdinand Magellan often sailed blind into unchar…

Was this the world’s first empire? To uncover the story of ancient history's most formidable powers, Dan is joined by Yale University’s Professor Eckart Frahm to explore Assyria’s military machine, i…

A dive into the history behind today's tensions. In this episode, Dan is joined by historian and journalist Andrew Whitehead to explain the historical context behind the ongoing conflict between Indi…

Genghis Khan reshaped the world with brutal force and brilliant organisation. He began life in exile and rose to be a powerful nomadic warrior who united the disparate Mongol tribes to create the lar…

Warning: this episode contains descriptions of violence against children and suicide.

The Battle of Okinawa was the final, climactic battle of the war in the Pacific. The largest naval fleet in human …

Dan tells the extraordinary tale of Captain James Cook. Born a labourer's son, he would rise to become one of history's greatest explorers. He went about as far as it was possible to go, sailing the …

Assassin's Creed: Shadows gives players the chance to visit the imperial capital of medieval Japan. But today, we're heading to a mountain lying just northeast of the capital: Mount Hiei, a sacred si…

The only British territory ever occupied by the Nazis was the Channel Islands. From 1940 to the end of the war, the Germans turned Jersey, and some of the islands around it, into an impenetrable fort…

Synonymous for somewhere far away, Timbuktu has been mythologised by the stories of old European explorers. But in fact, for centuries it was in fact a key trading post on the edge of the Sahara and …

In this episode we hear all about the Glorious Revolution, a pivotal moment in British history that saw the overthrow of King James II and the accession to the throne of William III and Mary II.

For t…

In the summer of 1683, Vienna was under siege. A vast Ottoman army surrounded the city, poised to breach the walls and clear the way for Ottoman expansion into Central Europe. Inside the city, famine…

Home to the likes of Al Capone and George 'Machine Gun' Kelly, Alcatraz was once the jewel in the American prison system. The wind-swept island fortress was the final stop for the nation's most dange…

When the Second World War finally ended 80 years ago, there was a mixed reaction in Britain. Today, we hear about these varying responses, from elation and celebration to reticence and restraint.

For …

A hero to some, and a villain to others, the seventh president of the United States was a populist firebrand who reshaped America and left a legacy that still echoes today. In this episode, Dan dives…