Chalke Valley History Hit

Charlie Higson and Ben McIntyre talk about getting recruited, not getting recruited, and how to be a spy. Recorded at the Chalke Valley History Festival 2017. Producer: Natt TapleyAudio: Pete Dennis See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ex-Chancellor George Osborne talks about history, politics & Brexit. Recorded live at the Chalke Valley History Festival 2017. For more history interviews and documentaries, subscribe to HistoryHit.TV.Producer: Natt TapleyAudio: Pete Dennis See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dr Suzannah Lipscomb talks about witch-burning, witch-hanging, and the truth behind the received wisdom about witchcraft. Recorded at the Chalke Valley History Festival 2017. For more exclusive history interviews & documentaries, subscribe to HistoryHit.TV.Producer: Natt TapleyAudio: Pete Dennis See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Adam Rutherford talks about eugenics, race, and the history of genetics. Recorded LIVE at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017. To buy tickets to this year's festival, visit the website.Producer: Natt TapleyAudio: Pete Dennis See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Henry talks about Maxwell Knight, MI5's greatest spy-master. For more exclusive history interviews and documentaries, subscribe to HistoryHit.TVRecorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.Producer: Natt TapleyAudio: Pete Dennis See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ben Kane, author of historical fiction, speaks at the Chalke Valley History Festival, 2017. For more interviews and documentaries, subscribe to HistoryHit.TV.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.Producer: Natt TapleyAudio: Pete Dennis See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Julius Norwich talks with wit and deep knowledge about the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th. For more exclusive history documentaries and interviews subscribe to HistoryHit.TV.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.Producer: Natt TapleyAudio: Pete Dennis See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Join David Owen at the Chalke Valley History Festival. For more exclusive interviews & documentaries, subscribe to HistoryHit.TV.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.Producer: Natt TapleyAudio: Pete Dennis See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jenni Murray tells the history of Britain through the lives of 21 extraordinary women: queens, artists, writers, scientists, activists. For more exclusive interviews and documentaries, subscribe to HistoryHIt.TV.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.Producer: Natt TapleyAudio: Pete Dennis See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Gunter Halm, youngest memebr of the Afrika Korps to be awarded the Knight's Cross for bravery, speaking at Chalke Valley History Festival in summer 2017.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hear the experiences of Huge Broch, Luftwaffe ace on the Eastern front during the Second World War, at the Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.Producer: Natt TapleyAudio edit: Pete Dennis See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Karl Leuffert was a German paratrooper, who served in Normandy and beyond. Here he talks to Al Murray about his experiences during the Second World War. For more exclusive history interviews and documentaries, subscribe to HistoryHit.TV. To subscribe click here.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.Producer: Natt TapleyTheme Tune: Pete Dennis See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Matt Frei is an award-winning broadcaster and author. He was the BBC’s Washington correspondent 2002 -2011 and anchored the BBC World News America Bulletin. From 2011 he reported for Channel 4 News from the Americas on everything from business and culture to US foreign policy and its view of the world. He is currently Europe Editor and Presenter at Channel 4 News. His most recent book is Only In America.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Bettany Hughes is an award-winning historian, author and broadcaster. Her previous books – Helen Of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore And The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and The Search For The Good Life – were published to great critical acclaim and worldwide success. She is a Research Fellow of King’s College London, a Tutor at Cambridge University’s Institute for Continuing Education and a Visiting Professor of History at the New College of the Humanities and has been honoured with numerous awards including the prestigious Norton Medlicott Medal for History. She has made a number of documentaries on history, culture and philosophy for the BBC, Channel 4, PBS, National Geographic, Discovery and The History Channel, including ‘Byzantium Unearthed’ and a recent series for Radio 4 ‘Ancient Ways’ where she tracked the old Roman Road, the Via Egnatia, from Albania to Istanbul.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Professor Catherine Merridale is an award-winning writer and historian, known for her acclaimed and pioneering books on Russian history. Her latest book, Lenin on the Train, is out now. She is also the author of Red Fortress: The Secret Heart of Russia’s History, which won the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize and the Wolfson History Prize in 2014. Her work has been translated into more than sixteen languages, and previous books have been shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and have also won the Royal Society of Literature’s Heinemann Prize. She also broadcasts about Russian politics, culture and current affairs. She is a Fellow of the British Academy.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In a formal Act of Submission to Queen Victoria in 1849, the ten-year-old Maharajah of Punjab presented the British East India Company with an object of immense value: the celebrated Koh-i Noor diamond. Internationally acclaimed historians Anita Anand and William Dalrymple challenge the accepted version of the history of this jewel to tell a tale of greed, murder and colonialism.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Katrin Himmler is a German author and political scientist. Her great-uncle was Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, and one of the principle architects of the Holocaust. Katrin has confronted her family legacy with a book, Die Brüder Himmler, translated into English as ‘The Himmler Brothers. A German Family History’. She has also edited, together with the historian Michael Wildt, private letters from Himmler that had been only recently discovered in Israel. The Private Heinrich Himmler: Letters of a Mass Murderer was published in the UK last year. In conversation with James Holland, she discusses Himmler, his brothers, and reveal the burden of this Nazi family legacy.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the early days of World War II, London became the base of operations for the exiled leaders of occupied Europe. In their struggles against the mightiest military force in history, Britain become known as 'Last Hope Island’. In this episode, acclaimed historian Lynne Olson discusses her book and describes how the British and their European guests joined forces to restore order to a broken continent.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Lyn Macdonald remains revered as the great chronicler of the human experience of the Western Front and has recorded interviews with more veterans of the First World War than any other. In this talk she will return to the subject of her first book, the Battle of Passchendaele, fought a hundred years ago in 1917, bringing rare insights and perspectives to this bloody, muddy and brutal battle.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Al Murray brought his immense knowledge to bear in defence of Field Marshal Montgomery of Alamein, discussing the life, career, great victories and controversies of Britain’s most famous wartime general.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sarah Gristwood has written bestselling biographies of Arbella Stuart, and Elizabeth and Leicester. Blood Sisters was a dramatic portrait of the women whose dynastic ambitions and rivalries fuelled the Wars of the Roses and her latest book is Game of Queens: the Women Who Made Sixteenth-Century Europe.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We live in troubling times and with people comparing the Age of Trump with some of the most disturbing periods in history, an understanding of the past has never been more relevant. In this closing festival talk, Dan Snow brought his deep passion for the subject and wide-ranging knowledge together in a polemic on the importance of history and why we should all study the extraordinary story of our past.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Britain’s favourite gardener, renowned writer and television presenter, Monty Don talks about the evolving history of British gardens from 1600 to the present day and in particular how technology, sometimes of an unexpected kind, has influenced and shaped our landscapes and back gardens and how we use them.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Andrew Marr is one of our most popular and respected political journalists.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

James looks at one of the most iconic moments in Britain’s history. He examines the background to the German attack on the West in May 1940, challenging many of our deeply held perceptions, and explains why the British evacuation of Dunkirk was, and remains, such a significant event.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2017.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Günter Halm was an anti-tank gunner who served in North Africa under Rommel and later in Normandy, and received his Knight’s Cross for destroying nine British tanks at Alamein in July 1942. He was awarded his medal by Field Marshal Rommel in person.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The fifteenth century saw the crown change hands seven times as the great Plantagenet families fought to the death for power, majesty and the right to rule. Dan Jones breathes life into some of the greatest heroes and villains in English history, who tore themselves apart and enabled the Tudors to snatch the throne.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

James Heneage is a founder of the Chalke Valley History Festival and was founder of the Ottakar’s chain of bookshops which was sold to Waterstones in 2006. He is a former Chairman of the Cheltenham Literary Festival and a Booker Prize judge.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Michael Wood tells the incredible story of King Alfred’s Battle for Wessex. After defeat at Chippenham, Alfred’s kingdom was reduced to a postage stamp of marshland in Somerset, yet he survived and built his army again, leading them to victory at Ethandun. It is unquestionably one of the great moments in English history.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

20 Tsars and Tsarinas, some touched by genius, some by madness, but all inspired by holy autocracy and imperial ambition are the subject of Simon Sebag Montefiore's gripping talk in this episode. He dips into the secret world of imperial power, murder and revolution to tell the story of the triumph and tragedy of an Empire that still defines Russia today.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Melvyn Bragg paints a colourful portrait of the 1381 violent uprising, the biggest armed rebellion against Church and State in English history.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this talk, best-selling author Robert Harris turns to one of the key scandals in French history, the Dreyfus Affair. Discussing this infamous miscarriage of justice that rocked France in the years before the first world war, he brings new insights to this world of secret service dealings, cover-ups and betrayal…Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this talk, best-selling author of Wild Swans, Jung Chang gave a panoramic depiction of the birth of modern china and an intimate portrait of the most important woman in Chinese history. One of the emperor’s concubines, she launched a palace coup to become the Empress Dowager Cixi, the absolute ruler of a third of the world’s population who overcame huge obstacles to bring a medieval empire into the modern age.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We had the privilege of having a complete 7-man crew who made up the different roles on a Lancaster bomber during the Second World War at Chalke Valley History Festival in 2015. George ‘Johnnie’ Johnson, Jo Lancaster, Frank Tilley, Hal Gardner, John de Hoop, Dave Fellowes, Steve Bethell were in discussion with Paul Beaver.It was the chance to hear what it was like to fly over Nazi-occupied Europe, whether pilot, bomb- aimer, navigator, flight engineer, tail-gunner, radio operator or mid-upper gunner – and from men whose combined experience amounted to over 150 operations.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Martin Brown is a published author, illustrator, and a translator of children’s books. His illustrations for the wildly successful series of Horrible Histories has made him a household name.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dr. Anna Keay is the Director of the Landmark Trust. The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth is out now.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sam Willis is a maritime historian, archaeologist, and broadcaster. He is the author of a number of books on maritime and naval history, including the Hearts of Oak trilogy and the Fighting Ships series. He has appeared in and presented numerous TV series, including Shipwrecks and Castles for BBC4 and Operation Grand Canyon for BBC2. He is a Visiting Fellow in Maritime and Naval History at the University of Plymouth, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ian Hislop returned to the Festival to talk about ‘The Satirical Magazine and the History of Private Eye’. He discusses the importance of satire, both in the past and present, and the story behind Private Eye, from its beginnings to its ongoing role in ensuring the absurdities and pomposity in life continue to be exposed.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The great scientist Alexander von Humboldt was one of the most famous men in Europe. He inspired princes and presidents, scientists and explorers with his spectacular adventures and discoveries. Rivers, mountain ranges, towns, a penguin and more are named after him and his ideas remain important today. Andrea Wulf not only won the 2015 Costa Prize, she is also an absolutely superb speaker.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Damian Lewis is an English actor and producer. He is known for portraying U.S. Marine Sergeant Nicholas Brody in the Showtime series Homeland (which earned him a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award), and U.S. Army Major Richard Winters in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, which also earned him a Golden Globe nomination. His performance as Henry VIII in Wolf Hall earned him his third Primetime Emmy nomination and fourth Golden Globe nomination. Lewis currently stars as hedge fund manager Bobby "Axe" Axelrod in the Showtime series Billions.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the great tradition of story-telling, Tom Holland continues his annual recounting of the Greek Myths. This year, he turns to the tale of Jason and the Argonauts, an epic story of honour, adventure, dangerous women and a golden fleece. Told with wit, verve and passion, this magical tale of the first group of super-heroes will be a treat for all, whether young or old.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Having attended the commemorations in France for the 100th Anniversary of the start of the Somme as part of the BBC’s coverage, Dan Snow hurried back to the Chalke Valley to give his own thoughts and perspectives – not only on the battle itself, but also its enduring legacy and his own reflections on what he has witnessed in France two days earlier.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Squadron Leader Geoffrey Wellum DFC is a British Battle of Britain fighter pilot and author. Aged eighteen, he signed up on a short-service commission with the Royal Air Force in August 1939. He saw extensive action during the Battle of Britain and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) in 1941 in recognition of gallantry displayed in flying operations against the enemy. On 11 August 1942, Wellum led eight Spitfires launched from the carrier HMS Furious to reinforce the fighter complement at Luqa airfield on Malta. He wrote a widely acclaimed book about his experiences during World War II, entitled First Light: The Story of the Boy Who Became a Man in the War-Torn Skies Above Britain.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk.Subscribe, rate and review on iTunes. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

No American statesman has been as revered and as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Hailed as the ‘indispensable man,’ he also attracted immense hostility. In this talk, renowned historian, Professor Niall Ferguson revealed an extraordinary panorama of Kissinger the man: from his Jewish upbringing in Germany to his rise as one of America’s most influential politicians and grand strategists.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk.Subscribe, rate and review on iTunes. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dr Peter Frankopan @PeterFrankopan is a historian at Oxford University, where he is Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford and Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research. The Silk Roads was named The Daily Telegraph’s History Book of the Year 2015. it has topped the Sunday Times Non-Fiction charts, remaining in the Top 10 for seven months, as well as being #1 in China, India, Ireland and many other countries around the world. Peter has been described in The New Statesman as ‘the history rock star du jour’, we agree.Recorded at Chalke Valley History Festival 2016.www.cvhf.org.uk.Subscribe, rate and review on iTunes. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Welcome to Chalke Valley History Hit.  We plan to raid the archives of the renowned Chalke Valley History Festival to bring you talks and discussions from some of the best historians working in the english language. Featuring talks ranging from pre-history right through to modern culture. Presented by James Holland @James1940. Series Producer: Dan Morelle @DanMorelle www.cvhf.org.uk. Subscribe, rate and review on iTunes. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.