Historical Oracle Podcast

In this special guest episode, we chat to Mallory James - a historian of the 19th Century, specialising in etiquette. We discuss everything from paying calls, leaving cards, greeting people and dressing appropriately. Enjoy!

In this, our third special guest edition, we talk to Hannah Pringle, a historian of witchcraft and folklore. We talk the infamous Pendle Witch Trials, how people were accused and what happened to those found guilty...

In this special guest episode, we speak with historian Nick Kevern about how the East German secret police - the Stasi - infiltrated the beautiful game. We talk Dynamo Berlin's 10 league wins in a row, the strange case of Lutz Eigendoff, and how the Stasi filled a stadium with informants during Dynamo's match against Hamburg. You won't want to miss this.

In this, the first special guest episode of The Historical Oracle Guide To...Podcast, I am joined by Royal Navy historian Will Manthorp. We discuss life for a sailor at the time, followed by an intricate look at the voyage of the Dolphin and the Swallow as they circumnavigate the globe. Enjoy!

Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890), was an English explorer, scholar, poet, translator, and diplomat and played a part in discovering the source of the River Nile. He is also credited with introducing the West to the Kama Sutra.

Airey Neave, British spy turned politician, was killed with Irish republicans with a car bomb in 1979. This is the story...

In the latest edition of The Historical Oracle Guide To... podcast, Ben takes you through the story of Jack the Ripper, and his infamous murders in the East End of London in 1888.

Did you know that the Jules Rimet World Cup trophy was stolen in 1966? Do you know who found it? Find out all here...

Did you know the Nazi army was heavily reliant on drugs to get them through battle? Listen to the full story here or on any good podcast app...

Your daily dose of History. 24 March. The true history behind The Great Escape.

Peaky Blinders has captivated audiences across the globe... but who were the Brummie criminals? The gangsters on whom the show is based were an urban youth gang located in Birmingham in the late 19th century. Here's the lowdown on them.

Nothing can eclipse the 2005 fight for the Ashes as simply the grandest sporting occasion of recent times. Affectionatley, it is still known as the greatest Test series of all time. No contest was ever so unreadable and so suffocatingly tense for so long. It offered everything; five dazzling matches, no-quarter-asked-or-given combat but heartwarming sportsmanship, great performers at their peak, outrageous denouements Test after Test and, if you were an Englishman, the right and only result.

Almost 50 years ago, five men broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex in Washington DC in a botched operation that would spark a chain of events that two years later would see Richard Nixon resign as the 37th president of the United States. The Watergate scandal is widely considered to be the biggest in political history anywhere in the world. Here is the story.

On the 16th of August 1819 the huge open area around what's now St Peter's Square, Manchester, played host to an outrage against over 60,000 peaceful pro-democracy and anti-poverty protesters; an event which became known as The Peterloo Massacre. An estimated 18 people, including four women and a child, died from sabre cuts and trampling. Nearly 700 men, women and children received extremely serious injuries. All in the name of liberty and freedom from poverty. The Massacre occurred during a period of immense political tension and mass protests. Fewer than 2% of the population had the vote, and hunger was rife with the disastrous corn laws making bread unaffordable.

In this episode, we interview Royal Navy and D-Day veteran Eric Gelder. He takes us through his experiences of the Second World War which included serving on the fleet minesweeper HMS Rifleman during D-day before spending the rest of the war in the Far East.

He was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. During the Second World War, he worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre that produced Ultra intelligence. For a time he led Hut 8, the section which was responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. Here he devised a number of techniques for speeding the breaking of German ciphers, including improvements to the pre-war Polish bombe method, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine. Turing played a pivotal role in cracking intercepted coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis in many crucial engagements, including the Battle of the Atlantic, and in so doing helped win the war. Counterfactual history is difficult with respect to the effect Ultra intelligence had on the length of the war, but at the upper end it has been estimated that this work shortened the war in Europe by more than two years and saved over fourteen million lives.

In this podcast, Historical Oracle discusses 13 of the most remarkable moments from the history of the Academy Awards (The Oscars).

Listen to the story of how American Football came into being and how the sporting phenomenon that is the Superbowl started.

It was a turning point in the Second World War. As the Allies prepared to invade Sicily in 1943, they wanted to dupe the Germans into thinking that their attack would be aimed elsewhere. To carry out the deception, a plan was concocted in which a body was dumped in the sea, to be discovered by Axis forces, carrying fake 'secret documents' suggesting the invasion would be staged in Greece, 500 miles away. Incredibly, the trick worked and the diversion of German troops to Greece has been credited by historians with playing a major part in the success of the Sicily invasion. The episode was later immortalised in the 1956 film The Man Who Never Was. Listen to the full story here.

In this special three-part series, Historical Oracle takes you through the History of Britain's relationship with the EU from the end of the Second World War until Brexit. Part 2 focuses on Britain's accession to the EU in 1972 under Edward Heath, the 1975 EU Referendum and Thatcher's uneasy relationship with the Union.

In this special three-part series, Historical Oracle takes you through the History of Britain's relationship with the EU from the end of the Second World War until Brexit. Part 1 focuses on the end of the Second World War when Winston Churchill called for a 'United States of Europe' up until Britain is about to apply for the third time to join the Common Market.

From a murder with missing body to the development of finger-printing techniques, we cover five crimes that have changed the process of law enforcement in Britain.

The Fifties began in austerity. King George VI was on the throne, Clement Attlee was Prime Minister, Harry Truman was in the White House, the world was scared of the atom bomb. The decade ended with Queen Elizabeth in Buckingham Palace, General Eisenhower as American President, the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan telling people they’d never had it so good. They were pivotal years. Post-war Britain, hard up and shivering, gradually shifted into a different, more prosperous, less rigid and reverential society.

From a misguided act of chivalry on an Essex field to the rescheduling of a television programme during a general election, sometimes it’s a small moment that changes the course of history. Here we discuss 6 seemingly inconsequential decisions that changed British History...

The Troubles refers to a violent thirty-year conflict framed by a civil rights march in Londonderry on 5 October 1968 and the the Good Friday Agreement on 10 April 1998. At the heart of the conflict lay the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. The goal of the unionist and overwhelmingly Protestant majority was to remain part of the United Kingdom. The goal of the nationalist and republican, almost exclusively Catholic, minority was to become part of the Republic of Ireland. This was a territorial conflict, not a religious one. At its heart lay two mutually exclusive visions of national identity and national belonging. The principal difference between 1968 and 1998 is that the people and organisations pursuing these rival futures eventually resolved to do so through peaceful and democratic means. This ascendancy of politics over violence was not easily achieved. During the Troubles, the scale of the killings perpetrated by all sides - republican and loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces - eventually exceeded 3,600. As many as 50,000 people were physically maimed or injured, with countless others psychologically damaged by the conflict, a legacy that continues to shape the post-1998 period.

The Troubles refers to a violent thirty-year conflict framed by a civil rights march in Londonderry on 5 October 1968 and the the Good Friday Agreement on 10 April 1998. At the heart of the conflict lay the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. The goal of the unionist and overwhelmingly Protestant majority was to remain part of the United Kingdom. The goal of the nationalist and republican, almost exclusively Catholic, minority was to become part of the Republic of Ireland. This was a territorial conflict, not a religious one. At its heart lay two mutually exclusive visions of national identity and national belonging. The principal difference between 1968 and 1998 is that the people and organisations pursuing these rival futures eventually resolved to do so through peaceful and democratic means. This ascendancy of politics over violence was not easily achieved. During the Troubles, the scale of the killings perpetrated by all sides - republican and loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces - eventually exceeded 3,600. As many as 50,000 people were physically maimed or injured, with countless others psychologically damaged by the conflict, a legacy that continues to shape the post-1998 period.

The Kray twins were East End born and bred. They became the dominant criminal family in the area during the 1950s and 1960s running a gang known as “The Firm”. Their story remains popular because they combined gangland activities with the kind of glamorous life that we associate with entertainment stars. Like many gangland mobsters, the Krays’ focus was on other criminals rather than the general public, although they ran protection and extortion rackets as well. Ronnie was eventually convicted for the murder of George Cornell; Reggie went down for the murder of Jack “The Hat” McVitie.

When William the Conqueror built a mighty stone tower at the centre of his London fortress in the 1070s, defeated Londoners must have looked on in awe. Now nearly 1000 years later, the Tower still has the capacity to fascinate and horrify. As the most secure castle in the land, the Tower guarded royal possessions and even the royal family in times of war and rebellion. But for 500 years monarchs also used the Tower as a surprisingly luxurious palace. Throughout history, the Tower has also been a visible symbol of awe and fear. Kings and queens imprisoned their rivals and enemies within its walls. The stories of prisoners, rich and poor, still haunt the Tower. Here is part 2 in the story of the Tower of London.

When William the Conqueror built a mighty stone tower at the centre of his London fortress in the 1070s, defeated Londoners must have looked on in awe. Now nearly 1000 years later, the Tower still has the capacity to fascinate and horrify. As the most secure castle in the land, the Tower guarded royal possessions and even the royal family in times of war and rebellion. But for 500 years monarchs also used the Tower as a surprisingly luxurious palace. Throughout history, the Tower has also been a visible symbol of awe and fear. Kings and queens imprisoned their rivals and enemies within its walls. The stories of prisoners, rich and poor, still haunt the Tower. Here is part 1 in the story of the Tower of London.

One sport which seems to have some sort of major controversy or scandal almost every year is Formula 1. With such intense pressure on drivers and teams, both on and off the track, it likely doesn’t surprise many that this sport sees a fair share of tabloid topping stories. The following list looks at 15 of the biggest scandals and controversies to hit Formula 1 over the years. From drivers behaving badly to sex scandals, racism and espionage cases, Formula 1 has had its share of storylines which could fuel a series of Hollywood films. For some, it’s all part of the color and intrigue of the world of Formula 1 racing. For others, these events are a huge distraction which taint the sport and take away from pure race-track experience. In any event, they are part of the sport’s history, interwoven with the great drivers and constructors who battle it out year after year on tracks across the world.

Who really was the 'Newgate monster'? Who was the person that actually organised the Great Train Robbery? Could Jack the Ripper have actually been a woman? What happened to the two princes that were help captive in the Tower of London? These are just some of the biggest mysteries from British History.

On 2 April 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a remote UK colony in the South Atlantic. The move led to a brief, but bitter war. Argentina's military junta hoped to restore its support at a time of economic crisis, by reclaiming sovereignty of the islands. It said it had inherited them from Spain in the 1800s and they were close to South America. The UK, which had ruled the islands for 150 years, quickly chose to fight. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said the 1,800 Falklanders were "of British tradition and stock". A task force was sent to reclaim the islands, 8,000 miles away. In the fighting that followed, 655 Argentine and 255 British servicemen lost their lives, as did three Falkland Islanders.

It is almost a century since Colonel Percy Fawcett lost contact with the world. One of Britain’s greatest explorers, Fawcett’s life is defined by a near-lifelong obsession – that an unknown, ancient civilisation lay lost in the Amazon: “the Lost City of Z”. But in 1925, he vanished, along with eldest son Jack, 22, taking any trace of Z with them. It is his story that is said to have been the inspiration behind the character Indiana Jones.

When it comes to discussing the biggest cheating scandals in world sport, Lance Armstrong's doping normally makes it on the list. However, since beginning in 1903, the Tour de France has had its fair share of strange cheating. Here is the story of some of the biggest.

Professor Stephen Hawking was a British scientist and was famed for his work with black holes and relativity, and several popular science books including A Brief History of Time. At the age of 22 Prof Hawking was given only a few years to live after being diagnosed with a rare form of motor neurone disease. The illness left him in a wheelchair and largely unable to speak except through a voice synthesiser. Prof Hawking was the first to set out a theory of cosmology as a union of relativity and quantum mechanics. He also discovered that black holes leak energy and fade to nothing - a phenomenon that would later become known as Hawking radiation. Through his work with mathematician Sir Roger Penrose he demonstrated that Einstein's general theory of relativity implies space and time would have a beginning in the Big Bang and an end in black holes. The scientist gained popularity outside the academic world and appeared in several TV shows including The Simpsons, Red Dwarf and The Big Bang Theory.

Margaret Thatcher's political career has been one of the most remarkable of modern times. Born in October 1925 at Grantham, a small market town in eastern England, she rose to become the first (and for two decades the only) woman to lead a major Western democracy. She won three successive General Elections and served as British Prime Minister for more than eleven years (1979-90), a record unmatched in the twentieth century. During her term of office she reshaped almost every aspect of British politics, reviving the economy, reforming outdated institutions, and reinvigorating the nation's foreign policy. She challenged and did much to overturn the psychology of decline which had become rooted in Britain since the Second World War, pursuing national recovery with striking energy and determination. In the process, Margaret Thatcher became one of the founders, with Ronald Reagan, of a school of conservative conviction politics, which has had a powerful and enduring impact on politics in Britain and the United States and earned her a higher international profile than any British politician since Winston Churchill. By successfully shifting British economic and foreign policy to the right, her governments helped to encourage wider international trends which broadened and deepened during the 1980s and 1990s, as the end of the Cold War, the spread of democracy, and the growth of free markets strengthened political and economic freedom in every continent. Margaret Thatcher became one of the world's most influential and respected political leaders, as well as one of the most controversial, dynamic, and plain-spoken, a reference point for friends and enemies alike.

After World War II drew to a close in the mid-20th century, a new conflict began. Known as the Cold War, this battle pitted the world’s two great powers–the democratic, capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union–against each other. Beginning in the late 1950s, space would become another dramatic arena for this competition, as each side sought to prove the superiority of its technology, its military firepower and–by extension–its political-economic system.

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection made us rethink our place in the world. The idea that humans shared a common ancestor with apes was a challenge to the foundations of western civilisation. Darwin kept silent for 20 years before going public and was only half joking when he described writing his book 'On the Origin of Species' as 'like confessing a murder'. This is the story of one man’s struggle with the most radical idea of all time.

Not many people know the name Max Woosnam - but the man from Liverpool won tennis gold and silver medals at the 1920 Olympics, was a Wimbledon doubles champion, hit a century at Lords and played football for Manchester City and Chelsea. He is arguably Britain's greatest sportsman.

On 28 March 1942, British forces launched one of the most daring operations of the Second World War. Now known as “The Greatest Raid of All”, Operation Chariot was an attack on the docks at St Nazaire in German-occupied France. It was a feat of cunning and daring that helped to shape the war at sea.

London used to be filled with coffeehouses where residents of all kinds who meet and debate the latest politics and literature. Listen here to a forgotten piece of London's history.

In Oxford, England, 25-year-old medical student Roger Bannister cracks track and field’s most notorious barrier, a barrier that people at the time thought impossible: the four-minute mile. Bannister, who was running for the Amateur Athletic Association against his alma mater, Oxford University, won the mile race with a time of 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds.

For any maritime nation, investment in long distance trade, outposts and settlements overseas made navigation, including the ability to determine a ship’s longitude, increasingly important. As nations including Spain, the Netherlands and France, sought to dominate the world’s oceans, each offered rewards for solving the longitude problem. But it was in Britain that the approach paid off as a result of the 1714 Longitude Act.

The London Underground is a system of electric trains which are in London, United Kingdom. It is the oldest underground railway in the world. It started running in 1863 as the Metropolitan Railway. After the opening the system was copied in many other cities, for example New York and Madrid.

The Berlin Wall was built by the communist government of East Berlin in 1961. The wall separated East Berlin and West Berlin. It was built in order to prevent people from fleeing East Berlin. In many ways it was the perfect symbol of the "Iron Curtain" that separated the democratic western countries and the communist countries of Eastern Europe throughout the Cold War.

The Battle of the Somme started on July 1st 1916. It lasted until November 1916. For many people, the Battle of the Somme was the battle that symbolised the horrors of warfare in First World War; this one battle had a marked effect on overall casualty figures and seemed to epitomise the futility of trench warfare.

Pub signs are collectively a unique record of Britain's history -- religious, industrious and scandalous. Many are also beautifully-crafted works of art on public view. There's a world of stories hanging over your head. Here's a potted history of some of Britain's most famous pub names...

London – the largest and most influential city in the country – provided a grand backdrop for some of the most famous executions in history. With large crowds often gathering to watch these gruesome spectacles, the state used these events to publicly wield its power and to ultimately dissuade others from taking their first steps into less than salubrious careers. Here is a history of some of the city's most infamous execution sites...

The Irish Civil War followed the War of Independence and the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and lasted from June 1922 to May 1923. It was the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty that triggered the war – the Provisional Government supported the Treaty whilst the anti-treaty faction believed the Treaty was a betrayal of the Irish Republic.

After nearly 700 years of being controlled by Britain, Ireland, in the early 20th-century, decided it was ready to rule itself. In this lesson, we'll check out the Irish War of Independence and see how Ireland managed to separate itself from the UK. This episode looks at the war with the British, the IRA, the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the war in the North.

Great Fire of London, (September 2–5, 1666), the worst fire in London’s history. It destroyed a large part of the City of London, including most of the civic buildings, old St. Paul’s Cathedral, 87 parish churches, and about 13,000 houses. On Sunday, September 2, 1666, the fire began accidentally in the house of the king’s baker in Pudding Lane near London Bridge. A violent east wind encouraged the flames, which raged during the whole of Monday and part of Tuesday. On Wednesday the fire slackened; on Thursday it was extinguished, but on the evening of that day the flames again burst forth at The Temple. Some houses were at once blown up by gunpowder, and thus the fire was finally mastered. Many interesting details of the fire are given in Samuel Pepys’s Diary. The river swarmed with vessels filled with persons carrying away as many of their goods as they were able to save. Some fled to the hills of Hampstead and Highgate, but Moorfields was the chief refuge of the houseless Londoners. This is the story of Day 3.