History Extra podcast

Francesca Peacock explores the life of Margaret Cavendish, a remarkable – and often scandalous – 17th-century writer

Jonathan Sumption joins us to discuss the dramatic final stages and momentous legacy of the Hundred Years’ War

Philip Freeman answers listener questions on the dramatic battles between Rome and Carthage – two of the ancient world’s great powers

Christopher Harding revisits the catastrophic earthquake that levelled much of Tokyo 100 years ago

How were 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests linked to the mid-century struggle for racial equality? Dr Adriane Lentz-Smith and Dr Kennetta Hammond Perry consider the tangled legacy of Civil Rights

Gerald Posner shares his experiences of tracking down fugitive Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele in the decades after the Second World War

Charlotte Lydia Riley argues that 20th-century Britain was shaped by an imperial mindset, even as its empire began to disintegrate

Mark Pegg explores why Christianity came to dominate in Europe as the Roman empire disintegrated

Nicholas Morton answers listener questions on the nomadic conquerors who changed the course of world history

From grimy back alleys to debtors’ prisons, Lee Jackson guides listeners through some of the atmospheric London locations associated with Charles Dickens