HistoryExtra podcast

How can you do justice to the story of 1,300 years of English history? Through verse, according to cultural historian Catherine Clarke – whose latest book is A History of England in 25 Poems. She take...

Mount Rushmore is one of the most iconic images in US history – but its story is far more complex and controversial than that of a simple sculpture. In this episode, historian Matthew Davis joins Elin...

She led “a life that really, in many ways, shouldn't have been possible”. So says historian Paul Gillingham of Juana Inés de la Cruz. This 17th-century polymath and nun challenged a host of social con...

While the crusades raged across the Holy Land in the southern Levant, the kingdoms of central and northern Europe were engaged in their own battle to extend Christendom. Speaking to James Osborne, Ale...

Politicians invoke it, activists wield it, and legal thinkers debate what it can offer the modern world. But what does Magna Carta really mean today? In this fourth and final episode of HistoryExtra's...

Slavery in the Islamic world has a diverse and controversial history. Speaking to Emily Briffett, historian and journalist Justin Marozzi explores some of the stories at the heart of his latest book C...

National icons aren’t born – they’re engineered. But how were historical figures such as Joan of Arc and Isabella of Castile transformed into political symbols, their real lives lost beneath centuries...

Widely remembered as the ultimate American inventor, Edison’s greatest talent may have been for self-promotion. In this episode, historian Iwan Morus speaks to Elinor Evans about how Edison built a br...

Captured in Libya, imprisoned in Italy, and twice an escapee: historian Malcolm Gaskill's great-uncle Ralph's experiences of the Second World War were certainly dramatic. Yet he left behind little mor...

As King John was poised to press his seal into the wax of a document whose impact would reverberate for centuries, did he understand the ramifications it would have? And what were the chances he would...