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Dan Snow's HISTORY HIT

History Hit

History! The most exciting and important things that have ever happened on the planet! Featuring reports from the weird and wonderful places around the world where history has been made and...

Episodes

20 of 1,557 episodes

John Dudley: Tudor England's Wicked Duke

Henry VIII is dead and England has replaced him with a boy king. But the one really pulling the strings of power behind the young and inexpe...

43:07Oct 8, 2026

The Yakuza

They projected themselves as fearless protectors bound by a code of chivalry, yet in their wake they left trails of bloody street duels and...

49:02Oct 5, 2026

The Cuban Missile Crisis Explained

The nuclear close calls, rogue commanders, silent standoffs and split-second decisions that nearly resulted in nuclear armageddon… In this e...

58:18Oct 1, 2026

Britain's Deadliest Arctic Expedition

In 1913, a celebrity explorer led an ambitious expedition into the frozen Arctic - and straight into disaster. From the ensuing catastrophe...

50:10Sep 28, 2026

The 'Scandalous' Life of Marie Antoinette

They called her a treasonous nymphomaniac who bankrupted France for diamonds and cake. The revolutionaries didn't just execute Marie Antoine...

53:51Sep 24, 2026

The Rise and Fall of the Ming Dynasty

At its height, Ming China was one of the most powerful states on Earth. Its cities bustled with merchants and scholars, its goods travelled...

55:56Sep 21, 2026

Knights vs Ottomans: The Great Siege of Malta

The fate of the Mediterranean hung in the balance during this bloody battle between the Knights of St John and the armies of Suleyman the Ma...

28:47Sep 17, 2026

The KGB Double Agent Who Stopped Armageddon with Ben McIntyre

This is an extraordinary story of espionage, betrayal and an unlikely friendship between spies on opposite sides - and of a man who risked h...

41:29Sep 14, 2026

The Battle of Stamford Bridge Explained

Dan explains how England’s last great Viking invasion met its brutal end. At Stamford Bridge in September 1066, King Harold Godwinson’s army...

31:50Sep 10, 2026

The Battle of New York Explained

Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Hudson, the East River - today, these are the very heart and soul of New York City. But in 1776, they were the batt...

1:42:06Sep 7, 2026

The Rise & Fall of Babylon

Babylon has a PR problem, and it's 2,600 years in the making. The Bible remembers it as the ultimate city of sin, the place that crushed Jer...

48:32Sep 3, 2026

Templar's Tunnels, HMS Victory and Troy: History's Best Historical Sites with Dan Jones

The two great Dans of history - Dan Snow and Dan Jones - team up to explore the stories behind some of the world's best historical sites. Da...

32:38Aug 31, 2026

The Brutal History of The First Warplanes

Flying aces, flaming wreckage and deadly dogfights in the skies defined the First World War’s brutal air war. From fragile reconnaissance pl...

50:55Aug 27, 2026

Medieval Krakow

In the Middle Ages, Krakow was one of Central Europe’s greatest cities: a thriving crossroads of kings, merchants and legends, crowned by a...

1:02:45Aug 24, 2026

Was Henry VIII England's Most Evil King?

This is the turbulent reign of that infamous Tudor monarch, Henry VIII. His spectacularly complicated love life, break with Rome, political...

48:47Aug 20, 2026

The Making of Osama bin Laden

A deep dive into the rise and fall of Osama bin Laden, from his affluent childhood in Saudi Arabia to his assassination during the biggest m...

1:07:02Aug 17, 2026

Marco Polo and The Court of the Great Kublai Khan

No throne on Earth came close to rivalling it. The court of Kublai Khan stood at the centre of an empire that threw every other power of its...

36:48Aug 13, 2026

The Naval Revolution: Triumph and Disaster

A deafening impact, a shattered destroyer, and a legacy that completely revolutionised warfare at sea. When HMS Tiger sank beneath the waves...

36:58Aug 10, 2026

The Fall of the Ancient Maya

What happens when a civilisation at its peak begins to fail? Historians have long been fascinated by the Maya Collapse in the 9th century: w...

54:33Aug 6, 2026

The Rise of the Ancient Maya

For more than 3,000 years, the Maya built one of the Ancient world's greatest civilisations. They raised towering pyramids in the rainforest...

57:31Aug 3, 2026