History Cafe
True history storytelling at the History Café. Join BBC Historian Jon Rosebank & HBO, BBC & C4 script and series editor Penelope Middelboe as we give history a new take. Drop in to the History Café weekly on Wednesdays to give old stories a refreshing new brew. 90+ ever-green stand-alone episodes and building...
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- Update frequency
- every 6 days
- Average duration
- 32 minutes
- Episodes
- 294
- Years Active
- 2020 - 2025
#45 The Jilting of Princess Mary - Ep 2 Henry VIII: the king, his wife, his lover, the French
Did Henry break with Rome in order to seize power over the wealthy, ubiquitous church in England? We find that the dates don’t add up. Instead we look at why in June 1525 Henry promoted his illegitim…
00:32:23 |
Wed 24 Jul 2024
#44 Anne Boleyn did not hold out on Henry - Ep 1 Henry VIII, his wife, his lover, the French
In 2010 a document from 1527 was found in which Henry admits to the pope that he is sleeping with the woman he wishes to marry instead of, or as well as, his Spanish wife Katherine. Very little of th…
00:31:21 |
Wed 17 Jul 2024
#77 Stanley never got the joke - Ep 5 'Dr Livingstone, I presume?'
The events that followed Livingstone’s funeral are perhaps important for the light they shed on everything that Livingstone was not. Stanley, having declared that he would complete what Livingstone h…
00:40:05 |
Thu 11 Jul 2024
#76 Twelve Reckless Americans - Ep 4 'Dr Livingstone, I presume?'
Henry Morton Stanley, the New York-born journalist who was actually born in Wales, ‘finds’ Livingstone, although everyone knows he’s not lost. Stanley’s employer Gordon Bennett Jr of the daily New Yo…
00:31:18 |
Wed 03 Jul 2024
#75 The Lion and the Tartan Jacket - Ep 3 'Dr Livingstone, I presume?'
The British audience for Livingstone’s book 'Missionary Travels' can’t get enough of his ‘manly’ and ‘forcible’ style. He brings a very personal mix of far-away adventure and science to his stories. …
00:38:24 |
Wed 26 Jun 2024
#74 Smoke that Thunders - Ep 2 'Dr Livingstone, I presume?'
Livingstone was the first European to record his visit to Smoke that Thunders on the Zambezi river. 100 metres of plummeting water, across the entire kilometre of the Zambezi’s width. He promptly nam…
00:37:24 |
Wed 19 Jun 2024
#73 'Stronger than the ox he rode' - Ep 1 'Dr Livingstone, I presume?'
Exploration changed in the middle of the nineteenth century, when Henry Morton Stanley met Dr David Livingstone. We discover that Livingstone isn’t remembered for anything he achieved. A missionary a…
00:37:38 |
Thu 13 Jun 2024
#100 'My dreams were merely dreams' - Ep 4 Murder. Mystery at the North Pole
Did Robert Peary or Frederick Cook reach the North Pole first? In our 100th podcast, we weigh up what evidence remains after a ruthless campaign to destroy records and reputations. And we discover th…
00:45:04 |
Wed 05 Jun 2024
#99 Shadowlands - Ep 3 Murder. Mystery at the North Pole
A full year before US commander Robert Peary claimed he had been the first man to reach the North Pole, a younger, medical doctor, also from America, had beaten him to it. Or so he told the press. Hi…
00:36:09 |
Wed 29 May 2024
#98 'So coarse, so manly' - Ep 2 Murder. Mystery at the North Pole
Robert Peary’s backers were the wealthy railway barons and bankers of New York. It didn’t matter to them whether Peary was the first to get to the North Pole or not. What mattered to them in 1909 was…
00:44:22 |
Wed 22 May 2024
#97 'a day of undiluted hell' - Ep 1 Murder. Mystery at the North Pole
We may think the main controversy surrounding American, naval commander, Robert Peary’s claim to be the first to reach the North Pole on 6/7 May 1909 was whether he, and the other ‘invisible’ five me…
00:41:28 |
Wed 15 May 2024
#48 'Gunsmoke and Mirrors' - Ep 2 Was the Wild West wild?
What was the driving force behind the settlement of the American west? Was it the so-called ‘anarchocapitalism’ so admired by the Hoover Institution and some of the followers of President Trump? The …
00:36:56 |
Wed 08 May 2024
#47 The Law-less Frontier - Ep 1 Was the Wild West wild?
A series of land grabs and cruel clearances by the Federal government from 1781 triggered a crazy, barely-contained movement west, spearheaded by gold prospectors, cattle ranchers, homesteaders and t…
00:42:57 |
Wed 01 May 2024
#39 Newton and the Occult - Ep 2 Was Newton the last of the Magicians?
Having considered the arguments in favour of defining Sir Isaac Newton as an early 'scientist', we now consider the other side of the coin.
Newton’s best-known breakthrough – the identification of gr…
00:45:02 |
Tue 23 Apr 2024
#38 Newton the Alchemist - Ep 1 Was Newton the last of the Magicians?
The short answer to the question, ‘was Newton the last of the magicians?’ is, yes …. And also … no. Newton and alchemy turn out to be ‘a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.’ We toss a co…
00:36:30 |
Wed 17 Apr 2024
#96 Extortioners and hatchet men - Ep 5 What Wars? What Roses?
Henry VII invented the idea of the Wars of the Roses and the notion that he alone could end them. With a comparatively weak claim to the throne he found a novel way to deal with the nobility - throug…
00:29:20 |
Wed 10 Apr 2024
#95 Murder in the Tower - Ep 4 What Wars? What Roses?
One common-girl-denies-king-until-he-marries-her, two kings, three royal murders in the Tower, and the Queen's mother accused of witchcraft. Just about standard for late 15th Century England and Wale…
00:29:47 |
Wed 03 Apr 2024
#94 'Political gangsterdom' - Ep 3 What Wars? What Roses?
By the time Henry VI finally lost the last bit of England's French Empire in 1453 he could no longer go to war in France to occupy and enrich his nobility. This small, interrelated and bickering grou…
00:35:21 |
Wed 27 Mar 2024
#93 'A plague on both your houses' - Ep 2 What Wars? What Roses?
Why was the 15th century in England and Wales so violent? It certainly wasn’t York v Lancaster, white-rose v red-rose rivalry. Monarchs were useless but that’s not unique to the 15th century. So what…
00:31:26 |
Wed 20 Mar 2024
#92 'Welcome Traitor!' - Ep 1 What Wars? What Roses?
Why do we know so little about medieval history? About England and Wales in the fifteenth century? The Wars of the Roses (Lancaster v York) lasted 4 months not the traditional 85 years. Even the rose…
00:28:01 |
Wed 13 Mar 2024
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