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“Last night three cargos of tea were emptied into the sea. This morning a man of war sails. This is the most magnificent movement of all. There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effor...
· 1 hr 34 sec
“America, late the strength, now the foe to Britain, dismembered, torn, I fear forever lost to England, whence she sprung.”The American Revolution came about due to growing tensions between the Americ...
· 1 hr 45 sec
“Who drinks the water I shall give him, will have a spring inside him welling up for eternal life.” A deeply mysterious object which doesn’t appear in the Bible, was the Holy Grail really the chalice...
· 57 min 22 sec
The most important object in the universe, but also a somewhat invisible presence in the Bible, the Ark of the Covenant has fuelled stories for millennia, whether as a weapon of mass destruction, an e...
· 1 hr 47 sec
Following the use of the atomic bomb in Japan and the end of the Second World War, Oppenheimer pushes for an international approach to nuclear power. This attitude towards nuclear secrets, alongside h...
· 56 min 9 sec
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” This was J. Robert Oppenheimer’s reaction to the first atomic bomb test in July 1945, marking the beginning of the nuclear age. Oppenheimer, an Americ...
· 58 min 8 sec
It’s 1895, and with the libel case brought against the Marquess of Queensbury having collapsed, Oscar Wilde is now arrested and charged with committing acts of “gross indecency”. With former lovers, h...
· 48 min 41 sec
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” As his most popular work, "The Importance of Being Earnest", hints at, Oscar Wilde’s life was a complicated one. Perhaps the most famous gay martyr in hist...
· 53 min 35 sec
A mysterious death on the Nile, an unconventional love affair, a Roman-Greek hero turned God - the story of Hadrian and Antinous is full of intrigue. Join Tom and Dominic as they delve into the world...
· 52 min 2 sec
The Easter Rising began in Dublin's General Post Office on Easter Monday, 24th April 1916, with Patrick Pearse’s dramatic proclamation of the Irish Republic. Led by republicans opposed to British rule...
· 1 hr 4 min 21 sec
The year is 1912. The bitter arguments about Home Rule for Ireland are reaching boiling point. But with Ulster in uproar, the Tories encouraging mutiny and thousands of rifles pouring into Ireland, is...
· 1 hr 5 min 26 sec
At the start of the 19th century, the kingdoms of Britain and Ireland were officially 'united' with the Acts of Union. Historian Paul Rouse continues our sweep through the Anglo-Irish relationship, in...
· 54 min 23 sec
“In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms.” The proclamation of t...
· 58 min 45 sec
A grubby, secretive cabal of devil worshippers that run the world, or a fraternity of like-minded individuals who enjoy eccentric rituals? Freemasonry, originating in the Middle Ages, played a signifi...
· 1 hr 3 min 22 sec
What did "demos" really mean to the Athenians? Why were women such a crucial part of Athenian democracy? And who was the Tom Wamsgams of Athens? Join Tom and Dominic as they explore whether Athenian d...
· 58 min 22 sec
It's 1649 and a new republic has been declared, the Commonwealth of England. It's an age of 17th century republicanism, difficult policies in Ireland, and a serious PR problem... writer and historian...
· 58 min 41 sec
In 1885, H. Rider Haggard’s brother offered him a wager: five shillings if he could write a book half as good as Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island”.By the end of the year, Haggard had penned a...
· 1 hr 1 min 32 sec
It’s 1647, and in New England, where puritan settlers live in fear of God’s wrath and a hostile indigenous population, there are rumours coming from Boston, and up the Connecticut valley, that witches...
· 58 min 6 sec
Born on the Western edge of an empire that stretched all the way to India, Herodotus was a Greek historian of the 5th century BC. His major work The Histories, a long and detailed account of the Greco...
· 56 min 45 sec
What was the most calamitous coronation of all time? Which ceremony does Tom think is the most boring topic he's ever discussed on the podcast? How will Charles III's big day compare to that of his an...
· 56 min 23 sec