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
#58 The Ship that sank and took the slave trade down with it - Ep 4 Slavery
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 …
00:37:03 |
Wed 05 Apr 2023
#56 The Empire Strikes Back - Ep 3 Money not Morality ended British Enslavement
We look at a map of the British Caribbean to understand why losing the British north American colonies after 1783 mattered to British enslavement. We explore how the trade winds had helped create the…
00:36:23 |
Wed 29 Mar 2023
#55 The woman behind the abolition of slavery - Ep 2 Slavery
Before we get down to the hard facts of whether or not British enslavement ended because the slave economy no longer worked, we should take a closer look at the moral campaign for its abolition. It t…
00:35:21 |
Wed 22 Mar 2023
#54 'Slavery was even worse than we thought' - Ep 1 Money not morality ended British Enslavement
We start this 5-part series by trying to give a factual outline of the experience of being transported in horrendous conditions from Africa to the British Caribbean against your will. And we open up …
00:35:51 |
Tue 14 Mar 2023
#81 Coronation and the chilling ghost of Lord Esher
The coronation of King Charles III has prompted this humorous historical look at the British coronations. Since 1902, when Edward VII and his queen were crowned, the religious ceremony itself has dra…
00:55:16 |
Wed 08 Mar 2023
#32 The curious case of inventing Scottishness
Were Scottish clan tartans nothing more than clever marketing? With an eye on the forthcoming coronation of King Charles III we re-release this wry look at the invention of tradition in Scotland – wh…
00:35:36 |
Thu 02 Mar 2023
#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…
00:44:50 |
Wed 22 Feb 2023
#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…
00:36:21 |
Wed 15 Feb 2023
#09 A quietly brilliant palace coup - Ep 3 of 2 May 1937: King, wife, Führer, lobster
We complete our exploration of the dark shadows in the background of Cecil Beaton’s sunny photograph. The laws of the time made it perfectly possible to prevent Edward VIII from marrying Wallis Simps…
00:33:10 |
Wed 08 Feb 2023
#08 I wish, myself, to talk to Hitler - Ep 2 - 2 May 1937: King, wife, Führer, lobster
As the newly appointed king, but not yet crowned, Edward VIII secretly told the Nazis he admired, that he was going ‘to concentrate the business of government in himself…. Who is king here? Baldwin o…
00:26:02 |
Wed 01 Feb 2023
#07 That Dress - Ep 1 '2 May 1937: the King, his wife, their Führer, the lobster'
If you enjoyed #BBCRadio4 drama #NazisTheRoadToPower by #JonathanMyerson you will love this series of 3 podcasts: '2 May 1937: the King, his wife, their Führer, the lobster. Cecil Beaton photographs …
00:24:19 |
Wed 25 Jan 2023
#80 Nazis: The Road to Power - conversation with author Jonathan Myerson
#80 Nazis: The Road to Power. Conversation with Jonathan Myerson, playwright and author of BBC Radio 4’s new drama series Nazis: The Road to PowerThe story of how in just 13 years, Hitler led a fring…
00:39:13 |
Wed 18 Jan 2023
#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 …
00:36:47 |
Wed 11 Jan 2023
#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…
00:42:47 |
Wed 04 Jan 2023
#79 Santa Claus and the Knickerbockers
A whole lot of nonsense has been written about the invention of the modern Christmas. It was thought up by Washington Irving or Charles Dickens or Prince Albert. We just can’t resist attaching a famo…
00:29:37 |
Fri 23 Dec 2022
#31 ‘Remember, remember, the Fifth of November’ - Ep 8 Blowing up the Gunpowder Plot
Christmas podcast coming next week. We have yet to record it!! In the meantime, here's the last in this series which began on 5 November: At the time, London gossip accused Cecil of fabricating the …
00:22:19 |
Wed 21 Dec 2022
#30 ‘A tall and desperate fellow’ - Ep 7 Blowing up the Gunpowder Plot
The night before - 4 November 1605: Guy Fawkes, a Catholic with experience as a soldier fighting for the Spanish, is found with matches and fuse powder in a storeroom under the House of Lords. He’s ‘…
00:33:19 |
Wed 14 Dec 2022
#29 The king's fear - Ep 6 Blowing up the Gunpowder plot
As his father had done, King James I's Chief Minister, Robert Cecil ,built his entrapments around a germ of genuine plotting. We uncover a small Catholic rebellion in Warwickshire in response to the …
00:32:09 |
Wed 07 Dec 2022
#28 ‘A formidable network of secret agents’ - Ep 5 Blowing up the Gunpowder Plot
We dig deeper into the animosity between the King, James I of England and VI of Scotland and his Chief Minister, Robert Cecil, whom he bullied and called names. And we see the Gunpowder plot in the c…
00:31:52 |
Thu 01 Dec 2022
#27 'Hellish miners' - Ep 4 Blowing up the Gunpowder Plot
To avoid any possible blame for the plot falling on himself or the king, Cecil procures confessions saying the seven gentlemen plotters began excavating a tunnel under the House of Lords long before …
00:33:26 |
Wed 23 Nov 2022
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