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Here’s where you’ll find all our past newsletters by series.
Feel free to browse, read and download to your heart’s content.
Murder, Mystery at the North Pole
- Episode 01 -
Murder, Mystery at the North Pole
Coming Soon
- Episode 02 -
Murder, Mystery at the North Pole
Coming Soon
- Episode 03 -
Murder, Mystery at the North Pole
Coming Soon
- Episode 04 -
Murder, Mystery at the North Pole
Coming Soon
What Wars? What Roses?
- Episode 01 -
‘Welcome Traitor!’
The Wars of the Roses (Lancaster v York) lasted 4 months not the traditional 85 years. Even the roses were (mostly) inventions…
- Episode 02 -
‘A plague on both your houses’
So what was it that defined this period? It has everything to do with the plague…
- Episode 03 -
‘Political gangsterdom’
From 1453, with the loss of the French Empire, English nobility resorted to ‘political gangsterdom’…
- Episode 04 -
Murder in the Tower
One common-girl-denies-king-until-he-marries-her, two kings, three royal murders in the Tower…
- Episode 05 -
What Wars?
What Roses?
Coming Soon
2 May 1937: the king, his wife, their Führer, the lobster
- Episode 01 -
That Dress!
Choose the right moment and they say you can explain the whole of history.
- Episode 02 -
'I wish, myself, to talk to Hitler.'
Was it understandable to be pro Hitler in May 1937?
- Episode 03 -
A quietly brilliant palace coup
Was a Spanish Dominican friar behind the burnings under Philip and Mary?
Nazis: the road to power
- Episode 01 -
Nazis: the road to power
Conversation with author Jonathan Myerson on the challenges of dramatising 8-part series…
Henry VIII: the king, his wife, the lover, the French
- Episode 01 -
Henry VIII: the pope, Katherine, Anne and Florence
After years of negotiation and confrontation, Pope Clement VII…
- Episode 02 -
Anne Boleyn did not hold out on Henry
In 2010 a document from 1527 was found in which Henry admits to the pope that he is sleeping with…
- Episode 03 -
The jilting of Princess Mary
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.
- Episode 04 -
Missions impossible
1527: The pope is a prisoner of the marauding Spanish in Rome and yet Henry sends his man Knight on a madcap mission to ask Pope…
- Episode 05 -
Like an episode of the Borgias
31 May 1529: Faced with France and Spain doing a deal and leaving England in the lurch…
- Episode 06 -
No more ménage à trois
In a dynamite French document from August 1530, still overlooked by historians, the King of France offers to send troops to England…
- Episode 07 -
Marrying Anne Boleyn, best of a bad job
The Ambassadors painting by Hans Holbein reveals the French horror at Henry’s decision in January 1533…
- Episode 08 -
Anne Boleyn
Most of what we think we know about Anne Boleyn turns out to be later invention, with no historical basis. We argue that she was…
Money not Morality ended British enslavement
- Episode 01 -
Slavery was even worse than we thought
We start this 5-part series by trying to give a factual outline of the experience of being transported…
- Episode 02 -
The woman behind the abolition of slavery
Before we get down to the hard facts of whether or not British Enslavement ended because…
- Episode 03 -
The Empire Strikes Back
We look at a map of the British Caribbean to understand why losing the British north American colonies after 1783 mattered to British enslavement.
- Episode 04 -
The Ship that sank and took the slave trade down with it
When the HMS Lutine went down, 9 October 1799 off the Dutch coast, carrying a million pounds of gold…
- Episode 05 -
The crimes of the Rector George Wilson Bridges
By 1832 it was clear to both the House of Lords and the Commons that the British planters in…
Nightmare in the Trenches
- Episode 01 -
They just pretended to shoot
The worst day in the history of the British army.
- Episode 02 -
They refused to take orders
Too many men refused to take orders.
- Episode 03 -
The generals never studied how to attack trenches
The British Army wanted to throw men against machines.
- Episode 04 -
They had the wrong guns
On 14 May 1915 the London Times newspaper ran a story.
- Episode 05 -
Haig’s war crime on the Somme
The French learned how to attack German trenches.
- Episode 06 -
The British who cheated on the Somme
A breakthrough the British Army has done its best to forget.
- Episode 07 -
The King, the lies and the whitewash
The grandly named 'Battle of Bazentin Ridge' for which Haig tried to take the credit.
The secret history of the Suffragettes
- Episode 01 -
Getting the vote in 1918 - the secret strategy
Mrs Pankhurst claims she won women the vote through ‘marvellous leadership.’
- Episode 02 -
Most women didn’t want the vote
We go back to the great number of unsung women and men who made great strides towards women’s…
- Episode 03 -
The Pankhursts didn’t want the poor to get the vote
The WSPU – the Pankhurst Suffragettes - begin in the Manchester Labour Party…
- Episode 04 -
Hunger strikes and force feeding
The militant strategy of the WSPU – the Pankhurst Suffragettes - is delivering them headlines.
- Episode 05 -
The violence the Suffragettes wouldn’t admit to
From 1912 the WSPU – the Pankhurst Suffragettes…
- Episode 06 -
The violence backfired
November 1912 sees the first defeat for women’s votes since 1891. The government has been struggling with law and order after…
- Episode 07 -
The Suffragettes did not win the vote
Suddenly, after 1913 votes for women looks inevitable. Not through the chaotic, dying…
- Episode 08 -
After 1918: the secrets are out
The reason we all believe Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst achieved women’s votes in Britain is…
Was the Wild West wild?
- Episode 01 -
The law-less frontier
A series of land grabs and cruel clearances by the Federal government from 1781 triggered a crazy, barely-contained…
- Episode 02 -
‘Gunsmoke and Mirrors’
What was the driving force behind the settlement of the American west? Was it the so-called ‘anarchocapitalism’ so admired…
Bloody Mary Tudor?
- Episode 01 -
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Bloody Queen Mary? We owe it to the victims to get the story right.
- Episode 02 -
Who exactly was a heretic?
Mary I became queen because she was catholic, not in spite of it.
- Episode 03 -
More interested in pirates than heretics
Was a Spanish Dominican friar behind the burnings under Philip and Mary?
- Episode 04 -
Most who were burned were not Protestants
Why did Mary’s pregnancy prompt the pursuit of heretics, early in 1555?
- Episode 05 -
It was mainly the poor who burned
A striking parallel between the burnings for heresy and the later burnings…
Coronation and the chilling ghost of Lord Esher
- Episode 01 -
Coronation and the chilling ghost of Lord Esher
When it comes to the Royals, the British love to talk about…
Dr Livingstone, I presume?
- Episode 01 -
Stronger than the ox he rode
Exploration changed in the middle of the nineteenth century…
- Episode 02 -
Smoke that Thunders
Livingstone was the first European to record his visit to Smoke that Thunders on the Zambezi river…
- Episode 03 -
The Lion and the Tartan Jacket
His account of being mauled by a lion – shaken like ‘a terrier dog does a rat’ and how the tartan …
- Episode 04 -
Twelve reckless Americans
It was time for the Americans to take over the exploration of Africa. The British had bogged themselves down with ‘too many theodolites..
- Episode 05 -
Stanley never got the joke
The events that followed Livingstone’s funeral are perhaps important for the light they shed on everything that Livingstone was not.
Santa Claus and the Knickerbockers
- Episode -
Santa Claus and the Knickerbockers 2022
A whole lot of nonsense has been written about the invention of the modern Christmas.
- Episode -
Santa Claus and the Knickerbockers 2023
More Christmas trivia from the same podcast and other sources for 2023.
Christmas 1914
- Episode 01 -
First World War Christmas
Christmas 1914: truce along two thirds of the British line. Football matches, drinking tea and whisky, sharing cigars and, best of all…
The curious case of inventing Scottishness
- Episode -
The curious case of inventing Scottishness
In 1983 Professor Hugh Trevor Roper claimed that Scottishness had been invented.
Blowing up the Gunpowder Plot
- Episode 01 -
‘There is no state trial so totally devoid of reality’
We look at the story the government published as The King’s Book, more than 500 witness statements…
- Episode 02 -
‘Here lieth the Toad’
We take a look at James I’s shadowy chief minister Robert Cecil who manages to implicate most of his Catholic enemies in the plot.
- Episode 03 -
Why blow up Parliament anyway?
The parliament of 1604 refuses to grant the king money. They’re still paying for the effects…
- Episode 04 -
‘Hellish miners’
To avoid any possible blame for the plot falling on himself or the king, Cecil procures confessions saying the seven gentlemen plotters…
- Episodes 05 to 08 -
‘A formidable network of secret agents’/ The king’s fear/ ‘A tall and desperate fellow’/ Remember, remember…
Spanish Civil War
- Episode 01 -
Is there a new story to tell?
Jon in search of the Spanish Civil War (part 1)…
- Episode 02 -
In search of a new story to tell
Jon in search of the Spanish Civil War (part 2)…
- Episode 03 -
Raising Spain’s dead
In the wake of Francisco Franco’s death in 1975…
- Episode 04 -
Tales from near the Alhambra
As you enter the village in the mountains near where we have a family home…
- Episode 05 -
Innocent Victims on both sides
There are parallels everywhere one looks at the moment
- Episode 06 -
Spanish Civil War
Coming Soon
Why did Kennedy cause the Cuba Missile Crisis?
- Episode 01 -
‘These missiles do not significantly alter the balance of power’
We have the memo to President Kennedy dated Day 2…
- Episode 02 -
Fidel Castro was not a communist
1959: The first country the new revolutionary president of Cuba visits is the United States…
- Episode 03 -
‘The only way to save Cuba’
The Cuban Missile Crisis begins not because Castro is a dangerous communist but because he is NOT. Khrushchev tells his ruling council…
- Episode 04 -
Russian roulette
15 October 1962: Soviet nuclear missile sites are discovered. It’s only three weeks before the mid-term elections.
- Episode 05 -
‘Eyeball to eyeball’
22 October 1962: President Kennedy goes on prime-time TV and announces a blockade around Cuba to prevent more…
- Episode 06 -
‘The Fourteenth Day’
28 October 1962: by holding his nerve Kennedy defuses the crisis in just 13 days. He says it’s over although he’s unable to verify…
- Episode 07 -
The men behind the myth
Within days of 28 October 1962 two journalists publish the official but untruthful White House account, as instructed and edited by…
Who really won the Battle of Britain?
- Episode 01 -
Waterworld Flotilla
The Germans make extraordinary preparations for the immense task of invading Britain in 1940.
- Episode 02 -
A battle for air superiority?
Was the Battle of Britain a fight for Luftwaffe air superiority in order to enable an invasion?
- Episode 03 -
‘Always carry pepper to throw in their eyes’
Britain is gripped by fear of invasion. Government leaflet 'If the Invader Comes' calls for pepper…
- Episode 04 -
More than a double bluff
Churchill talks up the threat of invasion, even though it looks impossible.
- Episode 05 -
Forcing Britain ‘to her knees’
The Battle of Britain was never as close as the popular story has it. The RAF was too well organised…
- Episode 06 -
London fires were visible from France
Who won the Battle of Britain? For good strategic reasons Churchill claimed victory.
Trading with the Nazis
- Episode 01 -
‘The whole world belonged to the Americans’
It’s a quote from Carl Siemens, chair of Siemens the German electronics business, in 1929…
- Episode 02 -
Enrich your enemy, impoverish your allies
The US had a paradoxical strategy to ensure repayment of its WW1 loans…
- Episode 03 -
Dollars and Dictatorship
The Americans insisted on extracting every cent from war-torn Britain and France in the aftermath of World War I…
- Episode 04 -
Nazi sterilisation, the American Way
Now we get to the nub of why, when Germany occupied Austria, Czechoslovakia and then…
- Episode 05 -
'Hell-bent to supplant our democratic government'
In 1936 the US Ambassador in Berlin, William Dodd, wrote to President Roosevelt warning of…
- Episode 06 -
Kill Nazism with kindness?
A perfect storm created the conditions for the Nazi’s march to war. The naïve belief that you could kill Nazism with kindness…
- Episode 07 -
‘It haunts me’
Horrified by the implications of aiding German rearmament, particularly after Kristallnacht, 10 November 1938…
- Episode 08 -
Britain’s Nazi Allies
In 1935 the Etonians in the British Cabinet and Foreign Office refused to unite with USSR vs the Nazis. They also supported Franco…
- Episode 09 -
British appeasement, a sinister game?
In 1937 Neville Chamberlain, believed he single-handedly could ensure world peace...
- Episode 10 -
Death Camp tattoos were IBM numbers
During the war US and British bankers continued to send cash to Germany, while…
Sex, Hollywood and Fashion
- Episode 01 -
Sex, Hollywood and fashion
Why did fashion become so much more conservative in the 1930s? We look at the puritanical Hays Motion Picture Production Code…
‘1066 and All That’ - really serious nonsense
- Episode 01 -
‘1066 and All That’
See Jon’s article ‘GN Clark and the Oxford School of Modern History: Hidden origins of 1066 And All That’…
World War One: how much was it Britain’s fault?
- Episode 01 -
The elephant in the room
Britain’s main problem by 1910 was Russian expansion towards its Persian oil and India, the jewel in Britain’s crown.
- Episode 02 -
‘Spies of the Kaiser’
We look at anti-German hysteria in Britain 1906-1909. The British publishing phenomena of 1906 was The Invasion of 1910…
- Episode 03 -
Bicycling holidays along the French-Belgian borders
How did what friendly chats between British and French generals since 1905 turn into…
- Episode 04 -
Hanging on Russia’s apron strings
In 1912 a deal between War Secretary Haldane and the German chancellor Bethmann-Holweg to…
- Episode 05 -
8PM 1 August 1914 war in Belgium and France is off
8pm German time the Kaiser orders champagne, halts the German advance towards Belgium…
- Episode 06 -
The bullying of Edward Grey
A right-wing anti-German contingent call their campaign for war, the weekend of 31 July…
- Episode 07 -
The last million men?
One day after Britain goes to war - ‘at sea’ - on 4 August 1914 the first War Council unceremoniously throws out the army’s secret plan…
From mayor to meat market: getting elected in the 18th C.
- Episode 01 -
From mayor to meat market
It is still wrongly but commonly thought that in the 18th Century the gentry bought their way into a parliamentary seat…
Isaac Newton: the last of the magicians?
- Episode 01 -
Newton the alchemist
The short answer to the question, ‘was Newton the last of the magicians?’ is, yes …. And also … no…
- Episode 02 -
Newton and the Occult
Having considered the arguments in favour of defining Sir Isaac Newton as an early 'scientist', we now consider the other side of the coin.