HistoryExtra podcast series celebrates 150 episodes

Immediate Media Co’s HistoryExtra podcast reached a landmark 150 episodes of its most popular series - Everything You Wanted To Know About… this week (w/c 1 May), with the launch of the episode Everything You Wanted To Know About… the Goths.

The Everything You Wanted to Know About… series is a weekend strand, accompanying the regular weekday interviews on the HistoryExtra podcast, and features historians and archaeologists tackling big historical topics with the twist that the questions submitted by listeners. It started in March 2020 with historian Marc Morris answering listener questions on the Normans.

Dr Dave Musgrove, content director of IM History Group, publishers of the HistoryExtra Podcast which celebrated 200 million downloads in December 2022, said: “We discovered when we started the HistoryExtra Podcast in 2007 that history and podcasting were made for each other, historians are natural storytellers, and there are endlessly fascinating and relevant topics to cover. Fifteen years on, the now globally successful HistoryExtra Podcastcontinues to help people pursue their passion for the past, and our Everything You Wanted To Know About… series is the perfect starting point for all history fans, whatever their level of prior knowledge.”

According to the publisher, the top 15 most-downloaded episodes of the Everything You Wanted To Know About… are as follows:

1. Nazi Germany: everything you wanted to know - Richard J Evans responds to listener queries and popular search enquiries about the Third Reich, from its initial origins and popular support, to whether people living under the regime knew about the atrocities taking place at concentration camps
2. Canadian history: everything you wanted to know - Donald Wright answers listener questions on the history of Canada, from the country’s indigenous population to the story behind the maple leaf flag and the reasons why Canada didn’t join the American Revolution.
3. The Enlightenment: everything you wanted to know - Ritchie Robertson responds to listener questions on the intellectual and philosophical movement that swept Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries
4. Pompeii: everything you wanted to know - Sophie Hay answers listener questions on the Roman city that was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in AD 79.
5. The Vietnam War: everything you wanted to know - Mark Atwood Lawrence responds to readers’ questions about the United States’ failure to stem the advance of communism in Vietnam.
6. Egyptian pharaohs: everything you wanted to know - Joyce Tyldesley answers your top search queries on ancient Egypt’s royal rulers, from a pharaoh’s day-to-day dress to what it was like living a life of absolute power.
7. The Ottoman empire: everything you wanted to know - Eugene Rogan answers listener questions on one of history’s most powerful and long-lasting empires, from their domination of vast swathes of land to their sack on Constantinople in 1453 and their foundering after the First World War.
8. Apartheid: everything you wanted to know - Wayne Dooling answers listener questions on South Africa’s Apartheid regime, including the everyday experience of racial segregation, internal and international resistance, and the regime’s legacy on the country today.
9. The Irish famine: everything you wanted to know - Christine Kinealy answers listener questions on the causes and consequences of the devastating famine that struck Ireland in the mid-19th century.
10. Greek myths: everything you wanted to know - Classicist Natalie Haynes tackles listener questions on Greek myths, from ancient origins to modern reinterpretations.
11. The Borgias: everything you wanted to know - Professor Jill Burke tackles listener questions on the Borgias, the Renaissance family associated with rumours of depravity and immorality.
12. The Titanic: everything you wanted to know - Tim Maltin answers listener questions about the sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912, from the rumours that the band played as the ship sank to busting myths about how the liner could have stayed afloat.
13. Hadrian’s Wall: everything you wanted to know - To celebrate the 1900th anniversary of the building of Hadrian’s Wall, Rob Collins answers listener questions on Britain’s most famous Roman fortification.
14. The Boer War: everything you wanted to know - Saul Dubow responds to listener questions on Victorian Britain’s bitter imperial conflict with two southern African republics.
15. Medieval Wales: everything you wanted to know - Matthew Stevens tackles listener questions on the history of the Welsh regions during the Middle Ages, from the Norman invasion and Edward I’s conquest to the Welsh roots of the Tudor dynasty

You can listen to all episodes of Everything You Wanted To Know About… on the HistoryExtra podcast here.