Dan Snow's History Hit
Lost tombs buried beneath desert sands, enchanting hieroglyphs, mysterious mummies, great rulers and kingdoms- Egypt has it all. Since antiquity, tourists have ventured to Egypt to see for themselves the great remnants of its ancient civilisation. Archaeologists have since found graffiti from Ancient Greek scholars and 18th century French explorers in the tombs of the Valley of the Kings.
But what is it about Ancient Egypt that captures us in childhood and adulthood, more so than any other period in history? Well, Dan joins Dr Campbell Price, curator of Egypt and Sudan at the Manchester Museum, to get to the bottom of it. They tell the stories of their own obsession with Egypt, which pharaohs they think are overrated and the impact mass documentary-making is having on archaeological discoveries in places like Saqqara and Luxor.
Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore.
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- Update frequency
- every 2 days
- Average duration
- 33 minutes
- Episodes
- 1438
- Years Active
- 2020 - 2025
Will This Be America's Closest Election Ever?
The 2024 US Presidential election is just around the corner, and it seems like the result is balanced on a knife's edge. As the polls continue to roll in, pundits are predicting the closest US electi…
The Secret Origins of the SAS
In 1974, a pioneer of the SAS and master of military deception, Dudley Clarke, passed away. His death went almost entirely unnoticed by the British public, despite the fact that he carried out some o…
2. Wars of the Roses: Rise of the Tudors
In the second episode of our Wars of the Roses series, Edward IV secures the English throne after his victory at the bloody Battle of Towton. But his betrayal by Warwick the 'Kingmaker' throws the ho…
1. Wars of the Roses: England Divided
This is the first episode in a two-part series on the brutal, three-decade-long civil war that tore England in two. Today, we explore the complex allegiances, rivalries, and personalities that made i…
The Origins of Halloween
Pumpkins, trick or treating and ghost stories are what we associate with Halloween, but what about turnips, fairies and a fortune-telling cake? Dan and hosts of History Hit’s After Dark podcast Antho…
The Great Napoleonic Escape
Lieutenant Charles Hare was a young British naval officer who made an extraordinarily elaborate escape from a French prisoner-of-war camp during the Napoleonic Wars... with the help of his English Te…
The Hunt for the Endurance Shipwreck
In 2022 Dan was part of the international expedition that went in search of Shackleton's lost shipwreck Endurance in the Weddell Sea in Antarctica; what they discovered on the sea floor was more extr…
Tom Crean: The Unsung Irish Hero of the Antarctic
He was one of the last men to see Antarctic Explorer Robert Scott alive and was Shackleton's right-hand man on the Endurance expedition. So why don't more people know the name Tom Crean? He was a ste…
Ernest Shackleton
Dan charts the life, successes and failures of the charismatic and chaotic Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton. In late 1914, Shackleton led 27 men on a voyage to cross the Antarctic. But what shoul…
Scotland & England's Union
The union between the nations of Great Britain goes back to 1707. On each side of the border, statesmen started to realise that a closer relationship offered solutions to problems both countries were…
Scotland's Disastrous Attempt at Empire
In the late 17th century, Scotland tried to establish a colony in Panama - and it all went horribly wrong.
In July 1698, a fleet of five ships departed from the Firth of Forth with some 1,200 people o…
Robert the Bruce, King of Scots
Robert the Bruce is best remembered as a rebel king, and for good reason. He was an unrelenting thorn in the side of any English monarch with ambitions to subdue Scotland. His heroics at the decisive…
Rise of the Medici
The House of Medici ruthlessly wielded control of Florence for nearly 300 years. Through financial and political machinations, they transformed the city into a cultural powerhouse and the epicentre o…
The British Agent Who Tried to Kill Lenin
Robert Bruce Lockhart was one of the most extraordinary and unconventional agents of the 20th century. A British diplomat, spy, and propagandist, his life was one of scandal and deception - from the …
The Creation of Modern China
On the 1st of October 1949, a huge crowd gathered in Tiananmen Square. In the shadow of Beijing's imperial Forbidden City, they listened as Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, procla…
The Iranian Embassy Siege with Ben Macintyre
On the drizzly, grey morning of 30th April 1980, six heavily armed gunmen stormed the Iranian Embassy in London. They charged through the front door and took 26 people hostage, including embassy staf…
Mansa Musa: History's Wealthiest Man?
Mansa Musa's wealth is a thing of legend. It's impossible to know exactly how much he was worth, but he himself spread rumours that gold grew like a plant within the Mali Empire. When he embarked on …
On the Frontline at Stalingrad
Dan explains the bloody Battle of Stalingrad alongside exclusive, never before heard frontline accounts from the German soldiers who were there. They shed light on the agonising final moments of the …
The Battle of Arnhem with Al Murray
Al Murray, host of WWII podcast We Have Ways of Making You Talk joins Dan to tell the story of the most catastrophic 24-hours the British military faced in the Second World War. Known as ‘Black Tuesd…
Operation Market Garden
Operation Market Garden was an ambitious Allied airborne offensive to secure a quick victory in WWII. It failed disastrously.
The plan was to capture key bridges in the Netherlands via a frank plan to…