Top History Podcasts

Join Don Wildman twice a week for your hit of American history, as he explores the past to help us understand the United States of today.

We’ll hear how codebreakers uncovered secret Japanese plans for the Battle of Midway, visit Chief Powhatan as he prepares for war with the British, see Walt Disney accuse his former colleagues of being communists, and uncover the dark history that lies beneath Central Park.  

From pre-colonial America to independence, slavery to civil rights, the gold rush to the space race, join Don as he speaks to leading experts to delve into America’s past.

New episodes every Monday and Thursday.

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Retired Navy SEAL, Jocko Willink and Director, Echo Charles discuss discipline and leadership in business, war, relationships and everyday life.

The comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Greg Jenner brings together the best names in comedy and history to learn and laugh about the past.

The April 1999 massacre at Columbine High School hurtled the United States into an era of mass shootings. Now, a quarter century later, the horrors of that day have become an almost regular facet of American life, and gun violence a record-smashing epidemic. Clad in both camouflage and Kevlar, 21st-century America is a bastion of freedom where workplaces require active shooter protocols, schools run lockdown drills, and the Second Amendment has become a religion unto itself.

Guns are a uniquely American problem, but the U.S. wasn’t always like this. LONG SHADOW: IN GUNS WE TRUST explores the story of the people — some names you'll know, some you won't — who changed the way America relates to guns, for better or worse. This season, host Garrett Graff, in collaboration with The Trace, chronicles how firearms moved from being an ordinary part of the background of rural life to a menacing element of modern American life.

Crackling with rich archival tape and riveting eyewitness and expert interviews, this narrative podcast examines threads of history that are vitally relevant to our current political climate. In LONG SHADOW’s first season, Graff, a Pulitzer-finalist and a best-selling author and historian, examined the lingering questions of 9/11, the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Season two chronicled how bloody tragedies at the hands of federal agents led to the rise of American far-right extremism and ultimately the January 6 insurrection. Season three will help listeners understand how simply carrying firearms has become its own act of defiance, and how a very specific, carefully manufactured fear has driven explosive demand for guns across America. How did we get here? Subscribe and listen to LONG SHADOW to find out.

LONG SHADOW: IN GUNS WE TRUST is produced by Long Lead and Campside Media in collaboration with The Trace, and is distributed by PRX.

Author Dana Schwartz explores the stories of some of history’s most fascinating royals: the tyrants and the tragic, the murderers and the murdered, and everyone in between. Because when you’re wearing a crown, mistakes often mean blood.

Helena Bonham Carter shines light on extraordinary stories from World War Two.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks about everything from the Aztecs to witches, Velázquez to Shakespeare, Mughal India to the Mayflower. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.

Each episode Suzannah is joined by historians and experts to reveal incredible stories about one of the most fascinating periods in history.