Trapped History

Picture a woman of the French Resistance, printing underground papers in her cellar, making bombs at her kitchen table, cycling across her country with codes hidden in her knitting. And then spin the globe 6,000 miles and find yourself in Vietnam.Because this is what Madame Xuan Phuong did. As a teenager, Phuong fought in the jungles and mountains of Vietnam for her country's independence against the Japanese. And then the French. And finally the Americans.We are delighted and honoured to be joined by a very special guest to tell Xuan's story – Madame Phuong herself. A legend in her homeland, named on the BBC's 100 Women 2024 list and a recipient of the Legion d'Honneur, her fascinating story helps us see the Vietnam War through Vietnamese eyes.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy

In today's Hall of Fame, Fiona Keating nominates a queer, Jewish poet and novelist who slipped through the cracks nearly 140 years ago. But late last year, Cambridge University proudly announced that they had acquired the Amy Levy Archive and the hope is that "one of Victorian literature's most enigmatic figures" will finally get the recognition she deserves.Amy's life may have been short and tragic – but it was also full to the brim. She knew W. B. Yeats, Eleanor Marx and Oscar Wilde (it was he who said Amy had a 'touch of genius') as well as a host of the literati both in England and France. She wrote short stories, essays and articles, and in her lifetime published two poetry collections and two novels (more would follow after her death). She was also one of the first generation of women to study at Cambridge.Being Jewish and queer in an era of buttoned-up Victorian jingoism was hard enough but Amy also struggled with her mental health. Her final novel was met with scathing reviews and at the age of 27, Amy killed herself by suicide. Wilde wrote her obituary, hinting at the darkness which sat at the heart of her life, but we are also left with the last poignant words in her diary: "Alone at home all day."This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy

As we head into spring, Trapped History takes a brisk wintery walk through the streets of London's Docklands to seek out the Limehouse Chinatown of the 1880s.Jack the Ripper is striking fear into the heart of the East End, the Bryant & May matchgirls are on strike and the magnificent Ching Hook is knocking them dead at the Sebright Music Hall. And Pearl Fitzgerald, a young woman with a Chinese mother and an Irish father, is trying to secure her inheritance.But Pearl isn't real. She is a fiction, the main character in novelist Fiona Keating's bodice-ripping Smoke & Silk. Everything else, though, is true – and so Fiona is taking us and you on a journey through Pearl's world to re-discover London's first Chinatown. Here you will find laundries and opium, poverty and anger – but above all else a small Chinese community, hanging on by its fingernails in the onslaught of the tabloid ‘yellow peril' scare.It's bracing, it's exciting and it might help change your mind about Sherlock Holmes.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy

Here's a great Hall of Fame nominee from Christina Wade – and it's another oldie. In 1275, Gillian Pykard told the sheriff's bailiffs in Exeter precisely what they could do with their rules. She was a brewer and knew what her customers wanted.It's a small story but it's a slice of life which shows us so much about a world which seems so foreign to us in the 21st century. But if there's one thing we've learned from history, it's that people and people – and they don't take kindly to being told what to do! Enjoy this medieval rebel's tale.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy

With a name and a story Dickens would have killed for, Peg Plunkett owned Dublin in the 1780s. Surviving a horrific childhood, she escaped to the big city and swiped right and left to her heart's content until she blew everything up with her incendiary memoirs.Award-winning Filthy Queens author, Christina Wade, plunges us into the life of an 18th century courtesan – a world in which Peg is a modern day Samuel Pepys, with views on men, marriage, chastity and responsibility which seem so fresh and yet alien to her times. This is a rip-roaring, rumbustious tale – so buckle in and check your pockets!This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy

Sathnam Sanghera blows the doors off the Hall of Fame today alongside his nominee, the Pirate Queen of Ireland, Grainne – or Grace – O'Malley.Born in County Mayo when Henry VIII was on the throne of England, Grainne would command a fleet of ships, raid neighbouring clans, revenge the deaths of her loved ones and take on the English army. She would even meet with Queen Elizabeth to – in the best Jack Sparrow tradition – 'parley' with her opponent.Grainne was pretty special and is a worthy addition to the Trapped History Hall of Fame – and its new protector too!This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy

Mahatma Gandhi is a worldwide hero. Nehru led India through turmoil. But who in the West knows of Subhas Chandra Bose? Well, perhaps we should learn more about him because he is the man of the moment in Modi's 21st century India.Empireland's Sathnam Sanghera joins us today to try to understand someone who lived and died by the maxim ‘my enemy's enemy is my friend'. We find out what that actually meant in the 1940s and how we can navigate the ethical and moral quagmire which led Bose into the arms of the Nazis. This is an important episode, summed up by Sathnam's own maxim: ‘it's complicated'.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy

After demolishing and rebuilding Halls of Fame through the ages, our guest Habib Hajallie has chosen his own nominee for the Trapped History Hall of Fame: the great Bill Richmond, an African-American born into slavery who by the early 19th century had become Britain's first Black sports star. Bill was the terror of the boxing ring, winning 17 of 19 matches, fighting the All England Champion, declining a title shot, and being a member of the sports first governing body.More than that, Bill trained figures like Byron and Hazlitt, performed in front of European royalty and was an usher at George IV's coronation.His was an astonishing life and Bill is a worthy entrant to the Hall of Fame.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy

We're proud of our own Hall of Fame here at Trapped History, but what are they and where did the idea come from?As we celebrate our three-year anniversary, join Oswin, Carla and MK for a very special episode in the company of award-winning British artist Habib Hajallie. His very own artwork, A British Hall of Fame, speaks to the past, present and future as we grapple with how we honour and remember people. This episode is literally packed with dozens of hidden heroes – and villains – and asks the question, what is fame and why do we feel a need to recognise it?

This holiday season, we've got a meditative and, we hope, nourishing bonus for you – as Michaela Strachan remembers taking part in the BBC series "Pilgrimage".She is also remembering her friends and family and on the hike through the Welsh hills, she was walking hand-in-hand with grief. But the healing power of nature is truly something to behold. This is an emotional but also a fulfilling journey.Have a peaceful and restorative festive break.

Michaela Strachan's nominee for the Trapped History Hall of Fame is one of the most selfless people we have heard of – Jill Robinson, who has dedicated her life to saving bears from the cruelty of the bear bile industry in China and across Asia.It is a story rooted in horror but also in love. And Jill's life bears witness to our capacity for both. If you feel moved by her story, please visit Animals Asia to see how you can support Jill in her fight to save bears from this torment: https://www.animalsasia.org/support-us/

We have a wonderful season opener for you – as wildlife TV legend Michaela Strachan joins Trapped History to help us tell the tale of the woman who fought for nature. Her name was a bit of a mouthful – Ethel Haythornthwaite – but we know her as the defender of Britain's National Parks and the Green Belt. She even has nearly 100 hills named after her (don't worry, they're ‘Ethels' not ‘Haythornthwaites'!).It's a delightful episode, full of passion, joy and hope as Michaela shares her love of nature, walking and conservation. She even persuades Oswin to pull on his boots . . .

We're delighted – chuffed even – to welcome you to Season 6. Trapped History is out of nappies and toddling all over the place (we're three years old this Christmas), clutching two international awards and a host of fabulous guests as we go!So here's a quick taster of some of the stories you're going to be hearing over the next few months. Sit back, relax and set your reminders: the first episode drops on Monday 15th December.Hope to see you there!

It's not a new episode I'm afraid, but we really need your votes! We're chuffed, delighted, over the moon – pick your favourite – to announce that Trapped History is a finalist in three international podcast awards. And we can shoot for the stars and try to get another award – the Listener's Choice – in two of them: America's Signal Award and Europe's Lovie Awards.So please please please head over to vote.signalaward.com and vote.lovieawards.com, search for 'trapped history' and then just press a few buttons. Bingo. We're up against the big boys here so every vote counts – and every vote is a vote for your history, the history we are proud of presenting at Trapped History.Thank you and keep on listening. Season 6 following in a couple of months . . .

Join us for Helen Lewis' nominee for the Trapped History Hall of Fame: Constance Bulwer-Lytton, daughter of a Viceroy, sister to an Earl – but one of the bravest suffragettes of them all.She was imprisoned four times for campaigning for the vote, carved "V" for votes on her breast, went on hunger strike and was force-fed by prison guards.Hers was a bright short life – and it is one captured beautifully by Helen here.

We are delighted to be joined today by Helen Lewis, whose new book rips apart the stories we like to tell ourselves about ‘them' – the heroic geniuses we idolise and adore.This is one of the reasons we created Trapped History in the first place – because we don't need more stories about Leonardo, Churchill or Elon. And if anyone can take down ‘The Great Men of History' it's going to be Helen! So strap in as we rip through the centuries and the rulebook of what makes someone ‘special', what constitutes ‘importance' and why we might just be able to live without these geniuses.

Jet's nomination for the Trapped History Hall of Fame is an oldie – 850 years old, to be precise. A Renaissance Woman centuries before the Renaissance, a queen of music, philosophy, science and medicine, the Mother of Everything: we give you Hildegard von Bingen. Throw in poetry, mysticism and sainthood and you have perhaps the greatest genius of the medieval world. Kings, emperors and popes certainly thought so as they sought our her teachings on the weightiest matters of their age.So tune in to find out why a Gladiator thinks an Abbess should be in the Hall of Fame . . .

There's a photo – you can google it – which when you see it, you'll laugh, you'll double-take, you'll think ‘whaaaat?'. It's of a young woman, she's small, five foot nothing and she's in a gym. But it's what she's carrying that makes you stare. Because balanced on her shoulders is none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger.Her name is Lisa Lyon and she is a legend. The first female bodybuilding world champion, the inspiration for the Marvel superhero Elektra and the muse for the mould-breaking photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. So tune in for a very special episode as Carla and Oswin are joined by none other than Jet from Gladiators, Diane Jetstrong, to celebrate a woman who shook the worlds of art, gender and health.

Tune in for a riveting Hall of Fame as Joshua Levine nominates Mick Gurmin, a member of the SAS before the SAS even existed.Warned by the debonair master of deception Dudley Clark that "any carelessness or indiscretion on your part may well upset carefully arranged and important plans and have far-reaching consequences" Mick and a fellow soldier carried out their mission with perfection.Find out what it was, what it meant and what Mick did with it.

In this Trapped History Special, Oswin and historian Joshua Levine discuss truth, myth and storytelling in front of an invited audience at an event hosted by Saboteur, a London-based brand agency.In a wide-ranging conversation which covers everything from Trump and Putin to Downton and Dunkirk, we grapple with the fundamentals of what we mean when we talk about history. Josh gives us some fascinating insights into how history is turned into entertainment from his time as a historical consultant on blockbuster movies, while Oswin gives you his best (or actually his worst) Churchill impression! With extraordinary and sometimes shocking tales about the SAS, 911 and America's longstanding desire for Canada, this is a great summertime listen which will set you up nicely for the rest of the season.

Tune in to hear the historian Gwen Strauss' nominee for the Trapped History Hall of Fame. She is someone we have truly never heard of but she is perhaps one of the bravest people we should know about.Please be upstanding for Odette Pilpoul, the Parisian soul of the French Resistance who took it upon herself to document and save evidence of atrocities when she survived a series of concentration camps.

It's October 1940 and you are walking down a dusty lane when someone slips a scrap of paper into your hand. You hold it tightly in your palm, waiting until you're round a corner and away from prying eyes. When you manage to find that moment and open the folded paper square, you read: “Milena from Prague requests a meeting.”You are Margarete Buber-Neumann and you are a prisoner in Ravensbruck concentration camp. The note in your hand is from Milena Jesenska, who has just arrived in the camp. It is a note which heralds the beginnings of hope, of friendship – of love – in the midst of death. Join Oswin and Carla as the historian Gwen Strauss tells the life-affirming and heart-breaking tale of Grete and Milena as they try to find a reason to live.

Please put your hands together for Sarah-Jane Morris' Hall of Fame nominee, the singer Mary Margaret O'Hara. Michael Stipe, Tom Waits, Rickie Lee Jones and Everything But The Girl love and admire her but Sarah-Jane thinks we should too. And I think she's right!

A decade before Dylan, there was Connie Converse – arguably the very first singer-songwriter with inner-city tales of loss and longing. But have you heard of her? Have you heard her music? And why isn't her name sung from the rooftops?Oswin and Carla are joined today by the singer Sarah-Jane Morris to help us understand the joy and sorrow of Connie's short life, the pressures on women in the music industry then and now and how luck, time and place can conspire to sweep people's stories away.

Nihal Arthanayake's nomination for the Trapped History Hall of Fame is a great one. The lost, forgotten and overlooked Sri Lankan architect Minnette de Silva. She was the first Asian woman elected to the Royal Institute of British Architects and a friend of Le Corbusier and Picasso. But she's been overshadowed by those men and by other Asian male architects.So tune in to hear her story and why she means so much to Nihal.

How do you hear the testimony of someone who has been terrorised and tortured? How do you listen as a perpetrator defends their crimes? How can two peoples who have hated and killed each other learn to live in peace?These are the questions Helen Bamber asked herself when she travelled to Belsen at the end of the Second World War and bore witness to survivor memories. She would spend her whole life working with victims of genocide, torture and human trafficking and her questions are as vital today as they were 80 years ago. Tune in for a riveting discussion as the broadcaster and author Nihal Arthanayake joins Oswin, Carla and MK for our season opener on why we need to have these conversations, why listening is as important as talking and why connection is our only hope for the future.

Our new season kicks off proper next week with an enthralling episode where the broadcaster Nihal Arthanayake helps us tell the story of the woman who listened – the great Helen Bamber. And we'll be taking you all the way through the summer till it starts getting cold again – introducing you to the tragic tale of the first singer-songwriter alongside the Communards' Sarah-Jane Morris, the first female bodybuilding world champion with Jet from Gladiators, a story of love among the ruins of the concentration camps with the historian Gwen Strauss and the rollicking tale of genius and self-deception with the author Helen Lewis.But to whet your appetite . . . we are absolutely delighted to give you this wonderful taster from the brilliant Astrid & Chinny, the brains behind the award-winning It's A Continent Podcast. Which uncovers key moments in African history, one nation at a time. It is bite-sized history, it is accessible history and it is history which will deepen and broaden all of our understanding. So I strongly recommend seeking them out on apple, spotify, wherever you listen to stuff, right after you've listened to this episode.Which we particularly want to share because Astrid and Chinny got there before us! I really think that this person is someone we should all know about and carry his name in our hearts. He is Patrice Lumumba, and he was a distinguished Pan-African politician who served as the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo after the country gained independence. Patrice was well-connected but as he became more politically active and vocal, calling for an end to Belgium's rule and advocating for his country's independence, he became a target of both the Belgian and American governments. To such a point that we need to give you a trigger warning: there is a graphic depiction of death at the 29 minute mark.In the meantime, sit back, enjoy the ride and make sure you're back here from 1st July for the rest of Trapped History's summer season.

A heads-up for Season 5 of Trapped History which drops from 1st July. Carla can't wait and neither can we, so head over to trappedhistory.com and subscribe!

We've spent so long asking our guests who they'd like to see in the Trapped History Hall of Fame, that for our 30th episode we thought we'd do something a bit different.And so Carla, MK and Oswin have each brought along someone they'd like to see honoured. Tune in for a whistle-stop tour through the lives of a First World War heroine, a couple who fought for freedom in South Africa and a union leader who was a conscientious objector.Three different stories, four hidden and forgotten people, but we hope you will agree, they led some of the fullest and most compelling lives you will hear of.We want to hear your own nominations for the Hall of Fame, so be inspired and head over to trappedhistory.com to send us your own nominees.

Here's a taster of Season 4, starting with Mishal Husain's Broken Threads before moving on to Mishka Sinha on Untold Lives, Kim Wager on Making Sense of Murder, Chris French on the Amazing Randi, Clare Mulley on Agent Zo and finally, Martin Burton AKA Zippo the Clown on the Animal King. Enjoy!

Roll up, roll up for the Season Four closer — as we take a trip to the circus!At Trapped History, we look at lives and stories which have been forgotten or ignored, and there is one community in Britain which is still shrouded in mystery even in the 21st century: that of the circus people. So who better to lift the curtain than the King of the Ring himself, Zippo the Clown — or just plain Martin Burton to us.Not only does Martin shine a light on the lure of the circus but he also joins us on a journey back in time, when America was in thrall to the greatest showman of all — Frank Bostock, the Animal King from Darlington. Frank's is an astonishing story and an amazing life, which tells us so much about the glory years at the turn of the 20th century when technology, travel and theatre collided to create the magical potion of 'Spectacle'.

Join Oswin and Carla for this moving Hall of Fame from historian Clare Mulley as she remembers wartime nurses, Dorothy Field and Mollie Evershed. They are the only women among over 22,000 men to be remembered on the Normandy Memorial in Bayeux.It is a story of courage and selflessness. Prepare to have your heart broken.

She is one of the most important women of the Second World War — a fighter, a secret agent, a government envoy and a commando. But have we heard of her? Can we sing her name? If not, you've come to the right place.Tune in to hear the astounding story of Elżbieta Zawacka, AKA Agent Zo. It's a tale which takes us from Warsaw and Berlin to Paris and London, a tale of hope and fear, of courage and terror. Above all else, it is the tale of a young woman who won't take no for an answer when the call comes.Oswin and Carla are joined today by the historian Clare Mulley, whose excellent new book tells the legend that is Zo. It is a wonderful story and a wonderful life. We're honoured to be able to help tell it.

Tune in to a fascinating Hall of Fame as Professor Chris French nominates Ellizabeth Loftus, a psychologist famed for her work on false, recovered and repressed memory.It's not just Elizabeth's life story here — Chris fills us in on the theory of false memory (remember getting lost in a supermarket?) and the controversies around recovered and repressed childhood memories which she researched and challenged.It makes for a powerful nomination and we believe this longer format justifies Elizabeth's inclusion in the Hall of Fame.

We might have heard of Amelia Earhart or even Amy Johnson, but who remembers Richarda Morrow-Tait, the first woman to fly around the world?Well, someone does because on 19th August this year, a blue plaque was unveiled at Cambridge Airport to mark the 75th anniversary of her truly momentous achievement.We featured Dikki in our first ever season and we couldn't pass up the chance to celebrate her once more. So Oswin travelled to Cambridge to see the blue plaque, catch up with old friends and meet some of Dikki's family to try to find out more about the woman behind the record.This all-new ‘director's cut' of our original episode tells Dikki's story alongside the incomparable Polly Vacher, herself a record-breaker. But we've also got new interviews with Polly as well as with Amanda Harrison, another female pilot inspired by her forebears, and we get to hear from Dikki's relatives about what drove her.It's a fascinating story so please join us for this wonderful repeat.

Welcome back after our mid-season break! And what a return – with (drum roll) the mysteries, magic and mayhem of The Amazing Randi. He had everything a conjuror should have – the baffling genius, the cape, the beard, the mortal enemies – but more than anything, he had a mission: to uncover and expose cheats and frauds.Join Carla and Oswin as Goldsmith's Professor Chris French takes us on a rollercoaster journey of psychics and charlatans, secrecy and snake-oil salesmen – and above all else, of doubt and belief. Hold onto your hats – there might be a rabbit in it . . .

Every episode, we ask our guest to nominate someone for the Trapped History Hall of Fame. Usually, it's someone we've never heard of but really should have. But sometimes, just sometimes, it's someone we think we know all about. In the historian Kim Wagner's nominee, prepare to find out something new about someone you thought you knew.

It's October 1961. The Beatles are in Hamburg, JFK in the White House, Yuri Gagarin has just shot into space. And a state-sponsored killing spree is going down on the streets of a capital city. But this isn't Rio, Washington or Johannesburg. This isn't Moscow or Port-au-Prince or Saigon. This is Paris, the City of LIght, and by the month's end, over 200 north Africans will have been murdered by the city police.Rewind a further 60 years and the same thing is playing out in the hills and forests of the Philippines, as the Moro resistance is being wiped out by the American army in the infamous Bud Dajo massacre.Does history teach us anything? Looking around the world today, can we say that we have learnt from the past? This is a tough and harrowing episode of Trapped History, but it is an important one too.So join Oswin and Carla as we try to make sense of atrocity in the company of one of the great historians of our times, Kim Wagner.

In this special bonus episode of the Trapped History podcast, historian Kim Wagner talks statues with Oswin, Carla and MK. How do we critically and sensitively challenge outdated readings of the past? How do we write history again for the modern age? And is there a 'right' way of doing this? We think you'll be surprised by our conclusions.Listen out for the full episode later this week.

Join Oswin and Carla as we go back – way back – to a time before podcasts and instagram, before radio and photographs. Join us as we journey back to the 18th century and meet the people who made monarchy work.And they're not the people you might expect to meet. At a time when Britain's kings and queens barely spoke the language, please let us introduce you to Mehmet and Mustapha, two Turkish men who ran the life of George I. And what about Abdullah, who brought a caracal from India all the way to the King's Menagerie at the Tower of London? Or Bridget Holmes, Frances Talbot and Grace Tosier – without whom, life would have been just a bit less tolerable for the Stuart and Georgian rulers.So tune in to Dr Mishka Sinha, co-curator of Kensington Palace's wonderful exhibition 'Untold Lives', as we lift the curtain and peer into the machinery of monarchy.

With its long tufted ears – sometimes mistaken for horns – the caracal is a precious animal. So precious in fact, that one particular animal was gifted to George II in 1759.Ahead of next week's episode, Mishka Sinha, curator of the Untold Lives exhibition at Kensington Palace, gives Oswin and Carla an exclusive insight into the powers behind the throne. So listen to this special bonus all about that very cat – confusingly named 'The Shah Goest' – and its keeper, Abdullah. And find out how the seemingly simple act of 'gifting' can have deep and far-reaching meanings.

We ask all our guests to nominate someone for the Trapped History Hall of Fame. Someone we've not heard of but should have.In this Season Four opener, please meet Mishal Husain's nominee: Fatima Jinnah, known as Madr-e-Millat or 'Mother of the Nation', a woman who broke the rules and the barriers as Pakistan emerged from the chaos of Partition. She became the conscience of Pakistan, who as opposition leader and presidential candidate, constantly reminded people about the founding principles of the new nation.It's a great introduction to our new season.

In an exclusive bonus, Mishal Husain tells us about the chance discovery of her grandfather Shahid's passport.It may seem a small, insignificant thing, a old irrelevant document from another age. But Shahid's passport tells us so much more – about the past but also about the present and perhaps even the future. Because it declared this man born in Lucknow who had lived all his life in British India to be a 'British Subject By Birth'. So when he travelled to England in the 1930s, it was not as a tourist. Not as a foreigner. Not as an immigrant. But as a British man.This was also the route taken by so many from the Caribbean in the 1940s and 1950s. They were coming 'home' as part of the so-called Windrush Generation and had no more need to prove their status than someone who lived in Tunbridge Wells or Greenock.It's a fascinating listen – and if you've not had the chance to hear the full episode, head over to trappedhistory.com for more.

Mishal Husain joins Oswin and Carla for a truly special Season 4 opener, telling the tale of her family's journey through the stormy waters of Indian and Pakistani independence. It's a story of joy and freedom, but also one of fear, loss and terror.Shahid, Tahirah, Mumtaz and Mary live through Empire, world war, independence and partition. They meet the people who will shape their future, men like Mountbatten and Jinnah - but they also find themselves unable to meet the people who really matter to them, the friends and family they grew up with but who end up on the other side of an embattled border.It is a truly powerful episode, reminding us that we all have 'history' big and small within our grasp, within our family.

With Jeremy Corbyn announcing that he's standing as an independent in the upcoming general election, we thought we should revisit his time in the Trapped History studio.This all-new ‘director's cut' contains golden nuggets on the French and American Revolutions and on Charlotte's campaigning for animal rights. It's a real treat! On top of that, the former leader of the Labour Party was really excited to be part of this episode – Charlotte is one of his all-time greats – and he tells us a thing or two about finding and losing tribes, how injustice can move people to great deeds, and how we all need a Charlotte to inspire us.It's a fascinating story so please join us for this wonderful repeat.

Guitars, light shows, psychedelia . . . Any idea who might unexpectedly be making their way into the Hall of Fame?Tune in to hear Martin Gutmann's nominee. We guarantee you'll have heard of them before but not necessarily for Martin's reasons. It's a truly fascinating listen which might change the way you think about bands, friends and music.

He's the greatest explorer the world has ever known – the first to navigate the fabled North-West Passage, the first to reach the South Pole, the first to the impossible North. But how much do we really know about Roald Amundsen?More precisely, how much do we want to know? Surely, the tangled heroics of Scott of the Antarctic and of Ernest Shackleton make for more exciting reading than the careful, boring tales of Amundsen? They faced crises with fortitude, didn't they – while he simply, well, succeeded?That is, perhaps, the point. So join Oswin and Carla on our enthralling season finale as we dissect 'The Hero's Journey' and the 'Action Fallacy' in the company of Professor Martin Gutmann – and find out why we all deserve to know more about Amundsen and his unseen leadership.

Didn't think we'd need to introduce you to Winston Churchill on Trapped History, but if you want to understand the hidden traits of leadership, he's actually quite important. Though not necessarily for the reasons you might think . . .Tune in to hear Professor Martin Gutmann discuss the ‘Action Fallacy' in this exclusive bonus episode. It's not just about Churchill but it's key to understanding not only how we so often get leadership all wrong but also the enduring significance of this week's subject – the greatest explorer the world has ever known: Roald Amundsen.

The Hero's Journey is an ancient human phenomenon. We see it, hear it, read it in stories all the way from the Odyssey to Harry Potter. It is a gripping tale of triumph over adversity, of crisis and fulfillment.But sometimes we need more than heroes. Tune in to hear Professor Martin Gutmann challenge the way the Hero's Journey has been used to teach people about leadership. In this exclusive extract from our latest episode, Martin compares the heroics of Ernest Shackleton, Robert Scott and Roald Amundsen and reaches some unexpected conclusions.It's a fascinating taster for the full episode, dropping on 22nd February 2024.

We ask all our guests to nominate someone for the Trapped History Hall of Fame. Someone we've not heard of but should have.Most of our nominees are long gone – but Dee Jarrett-Macauley follows in the footsteps of Pete Paphides and nominates someone who is well and truly alive and kicking: the great publisher and writer Margaret Busby, whose Daughters Of Africa anthologies changed the way poetry was published in Britain.

Poet, playwright, publisher. Campaigner, broadcaster, journalist. Six people in one, but if we've heard of Una Marson, it's usually because of her brief shining moment during the Second World War when she became the voice and face of the Caribbean through her pioneering work at the BBC.Tune in to hear about the six lives of Una Marson as Oswin and Carla are joined by her biographer and Orwell Prize winner, Dee Jarrett-Macauley. It's a tale of a young woman who came to represent a whole region, a whole continent even – and who sometimes found that burden too heavy to shake off.It's an inspirational story, it's a sad one too. But it's a story of our times – when the personal and the political become one.