Dan Snow's History Hit - TopPodcast.com

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The Prime Minister Hospitalised: Lloyd George's Influenza Apr 10, 2020

Show notes

In September 1918 David Lloyd George, the charismatic wartime Prime Minister, visited the city of Manchester, attended a vast public gathering and then collapsed. He spent the next week and a half confined to the Manchester Town Hall in a hastily assembled private hospital ward. He needed assistance breathing. His valet said it was touch and go as to whether he would survive. He did pull through but a vast number of his fellow Brits did not. The country was in the grip of an influenza pandemic, known as Spanish Influenza. It is interesting that Lloyd George was in Manchester because it was under the care of one of the most remarkable public health officials in British history, James Niven. His rapid response the pandemic, his insistence on a public information campaign and closing of mass gatherings meant that Manchester suffered fewer deaths than other big cities like London.

In this podcast I talk to Mark Honigsbaum who has written extensively about the Influenza and Niven. We talked about sick Prime Ministers and social distancing. Please check out Mark's podcast Going Viral for more on this and the historical resonances of the present crisis.

For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.

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How Pandemics Made the Modern World Apr 09, 2020

Show notes

Professor Frank Snowden is currently on lockdown in Rome, experiencing at first hand life in a pandemic. For years he has written about the great waves of disease that swept across the world in the past. Now he is experiencing one. I talked to him about what pandemics have done to us. How they have changed our societies, nudged us towards the present and whether this outbreak might refocus us to give previous pandemics the attention they deserve.

For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about some of the greatest speeches ever made in the House of Commons, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/$1.

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Loot? Spoils? Artefacts? What to Do with Our Museums Apr 08, 2020

Show notes

Our museums are full of stuff taken, bought, stolen and gifted from foreign countries. It feels like we face a reckoning. What shall we do with it?

I talked to two authors of new books that wrestle with this. Christopher Joll is a former soldier who deals specifically with the spoils of war, while Alice Proctor thinks more generally about all objects and where they are best placed and how best to interpret them.

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Death by Shakespeare Apr 06, 2020

Show notes

Poison, swordplay and bloodshed. Shakespeare’s characters met their ends in a plethora of gruesome ways. But how realistic were they? And did they even shock audiences who lived in a time of plague, pestilence and public executions, a time when seeing a dead or dying body on the way home from the theatre were high. I was joined by the wonderful Dr Kathryn Harkup, a chemist and author, on a tumultuous journey through the most dramatic and memorable parts of Shakespeare’s work.

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The Battle of Okinawa Apr 03, 2020

Show notes

The last great battle of the Second World War was fought on the island of Okinawa. After 83 blood-soaked days, almost a quarter of a million people lost their lives. The death toll included thousands of civilians lost to mass suicide - convinced to do so by Japanese propaganda. I invited Saul David on the podcast to tell me about this shocking - often overlooked - chapter of the Second World War. A chapter which was central to Truman’s decision to use the atomic bombs in August 1945.

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Origins of the Spanish Flu Apr 02, 2020

Show notes

This episode features military historian Douglas Gill who has extensively researched the origins of the Spanish Influenza as it emerged in 1915 and 1916 in northern France. Douglas has worked alongside leading virologist, and previous guest on Dan's podcast, John Oxford, to track the initial cases of this particularly violent strain of influenza which would go on to kill millions of people across the globe.

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Valkyrie: The Warrior Women of the Viking World Apr 01, 2020

Show notes

I was thrilled to have Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir on the pod. We talked about Viking women, old Norse-Icelandic sagas, mythology and poetry. Who were these Viking women who were champions on the battlefield, did they really exist, and is there much historic evidence? Jóhanna answered all these questions drawing upon the latest archaeological evidence. It seems the lives of Viking women were far more dynamic than we might imagine. Enjoy!

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Battle of Britain 'What Ifs' Mar 30, 2020

Show notes

Dr. Jamie Wood and Professor Niall Mackay at the University of York are mathematicians who love history. Sensible dudes. They released a paper which sent the rest of the history world into a meltdown when they tried to use the statistics of airframe losses from the Battle of Britain to test just how close Germany might have come to victory in the battle. Essentially (I think but then again I am totally innumerate) they tested what would happen if the loss ration on certain days had been replicated consistently. Anyway I wouldn't read my take on it, give it a listen and see if it makes sense to you. I loved these guys and I hope we get to work together again.

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A Strange Bit of History Mar 29, 2020

Show notes

We were delighted to have comedy royalty on the podcast. Omid Djalili talked to me about one of his earliest stage creations, first performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1993. Over the next four years it was performed 109 times in 10 different countries. The backdrop of this epic storytelling piece was the tumultuous expectation for a Promised One in Persia in 1844. The claims made by a young merchant of Shiraz - who became known as the Bab - caused a revolution, and laid the foundations for the Baha'i Faith - which numbers some seven million followers around the world today. Omid, who grew up in an Iranian Baha'i family, gave a fascinating insight into his relationship with history, comedy and family. Enjoy.

For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV Use code 'pod1' for a month free and the first month for just £/€/$1.

For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How AI is Safeguarding Maritime Heritage Mar 26, 2020

Show notes

There are more historic artefacts on our ocean floor than there are in every museum in the world put together. Over thousands of years ships carrying every conceivable cargo have sunk in the rivers and oceans of the world. Protecting them is an enormous challenge.

Thankfully there are heroes out there who are taking on that challenge. In this episode I was lucky enough to talk to maritime archaeologist Jessica Berry, CEO of MAST (Maritime Archaeological Sea Trust) and her colleague Nick Wise. Nick is CEO of OceanMind. OceanMind is a not for profit which specialises in using the latest technology, unleashing the full potential of the latest AI from Microsoft.

Together their two organisations have now set up the Maritime Observatory. This will protect underwater heritage from illegal looting - people going down, and ripping off bits of wrecks. So what Microsoft AI, and OceanMind's technology, allows MAST to keep an eye on ships behaving suspiciously on the surface in areas of important maritime wreck and heritage sites.

All this means that wrecks can be looked after, war graves can be respected, in just the same way we should be looking after our vital fisheries and our maritime protected areas.

To learn more go to Microsoft.com/ai

For ad free versions of our entire podcast archive and hundreds of hours of history documentaries, interviews and films, including our new in depth documentary about the bombing war featuring James Holland and other historians, please signup to www.HistoryHit.TV We have got a special offer on at the moment- use code 'pod3' for a month free and the first THREE months for just £/€/$1 per month.

For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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