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More Episodes
“To be a boy at one of these schools was to be alternately tyrant and slave.”More gruesome even than the Battle of Hogwarts, 18th century British Public schools were hotbeds for violence and uproar, d...
· 57 min 17 sec
Eclectic traditions, obscure codes and cryptic ancient languages: the world of Harry Potter has captivated the imagination of children from all backgrounds for decades. A fantasy series inspired by a...
· 1 hr 4 min 20 sec
“Let us advance courageously, to change the backward condition of our country, and turn it into a modern and powerful socialist state!” Deng Xiaoping, a man purged by Mao and his followers twice befor...
· 58 min 38 sec
The father of sadism and a prophet of totalitarianism, the Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat and writer, an uncompromising and unashamed libertine with the eerie ability to corrupt those around...
· 58 min 17 sec
In a swirling world dominated by miniskirts, feather boas, posh photographers, youth culture, Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles, London has been transformed, and avant-garde “boutiques” have taken over are...
· 55 min 2 sec
The Sixties is one of the only moments in history when Britain could claim to be the epicentre of world fashion, and in this episode Tom and Dominic delve into this cultural boom, from the boxy, milit...
· 52 min 24 sec
“The mutual affection and harmony between the two had reached a degree never seen between a husband and wife…” The Taj Mahal, built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz...
· 48 min 52 sec
One of the greatest institutions of the ancient world, the Library of Alexandria was the embodiment of ultimate learning, and a “repository of everything”. Built within the same complex as the tomb of...
· 54 min 50 sec
“A cloud of black, acrid smoke hung over the area. It was a scene from a warzone, a battlefield - it was a scene from the end of the world…” New York in the 1970s was a city decimated by economic stag...
· 54 min 6 sec
"Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.” Arguably the most celebrated speech of the 20th century, Martin Luther King Jr.’s address in front of the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963 was a defin...
· 54 min 5 sec
Warning! This one isn’t for the faint-hearted... A naked, torch-carrying man, who would walk backwards around a funeral pyre, with his fingers covering his anus. The armed woman who worked a loom made...
· 55 min 38 sec
“There’s a lot of severed heads at this villa!” The great TV sensation of the summer returns on The Rest Is History, as Tom and Dominic are once again joined by Tom’s daughter Katy, to navigate an inc...
· 1 hr 3 min 6 sec
A woman of immense influence on medieval Christendom, Catherine of Siena was one of the first female Doctors of the Church, who married Christ in her own bedroom. Living through a time of great anxiet...
· 51 min 39 sec
Mount Vesuvius' eruption in the autumn of AD79 remains one of the deadliest and best-known in history. The plume of super-heated volcanic gases spewed skyward formed a cloud 21 miles high, with the vo...
· 46 min 10 sec
Charles de Gaulle was a war hero in the First World War, and, having refused to accept his government’s armistice with Nazi Germany, became the voice of the French Resistance during the Second World W...
· 41 min 48 sec
May 1968 saw underlying tensions reach a climax in France, resulting in a period of civil unrest coloured by rioting, general strikes, and the occupation of universities and factories. Join Tom and Do...
· 46 min 23 sec
A city which played a fundamental role in the Dutch Golden Age and in the birth of the Dutch monarchy, Amsterdam has also stood in the avant-garde of European liberalism since the Second World War. Jo...
· 55 min 34 sec
A city built on water, Amsterdam has often set the tone of European modernity. It first gained prominence as a miraculous centre for pilgrimage, and then stood out for its relationship with the Reform...
· 41 min 11 sec
With the French and Spanish siding with George Washington’s revolutionaries, the game is up for the British, and it seems time for them to cut their losses. Following the surrender of General Cornwall...
· 1 hr 53 sec
“O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth!” The U.S. Congress votes for independence on the 2nd of July 1776, and George Washington reads the Decl...
· 51 min 8 sec