Down the Rabbit Hole: What are the Best Websites and Platforms for Learning History?

Greetings Historians,

Do you want to fast-track your way to exciting and unexpected History? These sources of articles, podcasts and websites should be in the toolkit of any historian or person interested in History.

There’s nothing better than a stemming cup of coffee or Whittard’s Hot Chocolate and listening to a History podcast. The Rest is History is a brilliant podcast hosted by renowned historians, Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland (brother of military historian, James Holland who writes on the Second World War). The podcast explores a range of topics from Hitler’s Third Reich, the Tudors through to the travels of Columbus and the neoliberal project of Ronald Reagan. The series tracks the chronology of historical topics with Q&A between Sandbrook and Holland. 

History Today is a free and brilliant introduction to History, but nothing beats BBC HistoryExtra magazine – whether you want to read the website online and listen to its luscious podcasts to ordering magazine subscriptions, this source is the New York Cheesecake of History magazines:

• Did you know the Daily Mail was sympathetic to Hitler’s Third Reich?

• How did economic ruin and military defeat create the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917?

• Did Elizabeth Tudor have an affair with Thomas Seymour?

• Was Charles I a Catholic or misunderstood?

• Did you know Zyklon-B was discovered as a poisonous gas by mistake?

• How did Winston Churchill become Prime Minister in 1940 and not Lord Halifax?

• You will be amazed to know that Tsar Alexander III was so big he could bend forks into knots at the dinner table and barge through doors without using the handle.

• Did you know that Henry VIII had 6 sons in his lifetime?

• Why was Elizabeth I terrified of marriage and childbirth?

• Did you know that there were 64,000 industrial sites in the USSR by 1941 after rapid industrialisation?

• How was Oliver Cromwell’s childhood troubled?

The annual subscription fee of £70 for access to BBC HistoryExtra’s website, articles and podcasts is well worth the treasure trove it returns,

Pax Britannica podcasts is a bountiful source of information on the British Empire, but includes many podcasts of known and less known knowledge on the Stuarts and the English Civil Wars, 1642-1651:

• Did you know that on his deathbed, James I of England, 1603-1625 warned his son and heir, Charles I not to fight with Parliament? A lesson well learnt, we do not think.

• Did you know that Charles I married his wife in absentia and never had an affair during his marriage?

• Did you know that Charles I’s wife, Henrietta Maria bombarded Charles I with military advice during the English Civil Wars?

• How did the Scottish Kirk (Church) become increasingly Protestant and Presbyterian from Elizabeth I to the First and Second Bishops’ Wars, 1639-1640?

• Why was Charles I’s relationship with Parliament so tense?

The History of the Second World War podcasts is a well-rounded overview of the interwar years of 1919-1939 and the Second World War. It encompasses a rich tapestry of the US of A, Britain, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Communist Russia, alongside others.

BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time presented by Melvyn Bragg and a host of historians and writers is the equivalent to hearing David Attenborough on Frozen Planet. Bragg has that kind of voice about him. It outlines the key questions of a range of historical eras and topics, with in-depth Q & A and surprising revelations. 

Be Happy, be a Historian! 

List of Sources: 

1. The Rest is History: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-rest-is-history/id1537788786 
2. HistoryToday: https://www.historytoday.com/
3. BBC HistoryExtra: https://www.historyextra.com/
4. Pax Britannica: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/pax-britannica-a-history-of-the-british-empire/id1451859986
5. The History of the Second World War: https://www.historyofthesecondworldwar.com/
6. BBC Radio 4's 'In Our Time': https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01dh5yg/episodes/downloads