Journey Through Time
Forgotten stories from history and how they shaped the way we live today. Hear about the ordinary people from history and the extraordinary impact they’ve had on the present. Hosted by historians David Olusoga and Sarah Churchwell, Journey Through Time will show how everyday actions have the most remarkable unintended consequences that ripple through time. From the first woman to run for President to the unknown story of how the world came to the brink of nuclear war in 1983, this podcast is for everyone, not just history lovers. To hear more Goalhanger podcasts, go to www.goalhanger.com To find out more about Find My Past visit: https://www.findmypast.co.uk/journey-through-time
Episodes
July 23, 2025 • 46 mins
What caused London to go up in flames on 2nd September, 1666? How did a fire that started in a bakery grow to engulf so much of the city? Who was Samuel Pepys, the great diarist who documented the fire?
Join David Olusoga and Sarah Churchwell as they relive the first day of The Great Fire of London.
Email: journeythroughtime@goalhanger.com
X: @ThroughTimePod
Blue Sky: @ThroughTimePod
Instagram: @ThroughTimePod
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July 20, 2025 • 62 mins
How role did WWII enigma hero Alan Turing play in the early development of AI? Why are games so important to the history of AI? Did 2001: A Space Odyssey influence the design of the iPad?
Sarah Churchwell and David Olusoga are joined by Steven Johnson, author and co-founder of Notebook LM, to discuss all this and more.
Email: journeythroughtime@goalhanger.com
X: @ThroughTimePod
Blue Sky: @ThroughTimePod
Instagram: @Throu...
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July 16, 2025 • 49 mins
What death and destruction did the people of England wake up to after the 1703 storm? How did people make sense of this biblical devastation? Why do we remember The Great Fire of London and not The Great Storm?
Join David Olusoga and Sarah Churchwell as they delve into the aftermath of the Great Storm.
Email: journeythroughtime@goalhanger.com
X: @ThroughTimePod
Blue Sky: @ThroughTimePod
Instagram: @ThroughTimePod
Assi...
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July 9, 2025 • 51 mins
How did a storm in November 1703 turn into one of the deadliest natural disasters in England’s history? Why is Daniel Defoe, ‘father of the British novel’ and author of Robinson Crusoe, at the centre of this story? With 10,000 people dead, why has this storm been forgotten?
Join Sarah Churchwell and David Olusoga as they tell the story of the Great Storm of 1703.
To find out more about Find My Past visit: https://www.findmy...
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July 2, 2025 • 54 mins
Why did the audience of Macbeth begin hurling theatre seats and food then cobble stones and bricks? What caused the militia, drafted in by New York’s mayor, to fire on the crowd? How did this riot change theatre and Shakespeare forever?
Join David Olusoga and Sarah Churchwell as the Astor Place Riots unfold, leaving many innocent New Yorkers dead.
To find out more about Find My Past visit: https://www.findmypast.co.uk/journ...
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June 25, 2025 • 50 mins
How did a fight about Shakespeare descend into America’s bloodiest riot during peace time? Why were tensions so high in New York City in May 1849? Who were Edwin Forrest and William McCready, the actors whose personal rivalry was at the centre of all this?
Join Sarah Churchwell and David Olusoga as they explore the lead up to the Astor Place riots, the deadliest use of military force against civilians since the American Revolu...
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June 18, 2025 • 60 mins
What piratical crimes did ‘good girl’ Anne Bonny and ‘bad girl’ Mary Reed commit on the high seas? Who were the bounty hunters chasing Calico Jack’s crew? How did the swash buckling, gender bending pair finally get captured and find themselves languishing in a Jamaican jail?
Join David Olusoga and Sarah Churchwell as they dive into all this and more in the story of the notorious female pirates.
To find out more about Find M...
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June 11, 2025 • 61 mins
How did ‘good girl’ Anne Bonny and ‘bad girl’ Mary Reed end up sailing with Pirates of the Caribbean? Who was ‘Calico Jack’ Rackham, the infamous Pirate Captain and ladies man? Did our notorious female pirates have a scandalous love affair with each other?
To find out more about Find My Past visit: https://www.findmypast.co.uk/journey-through-time
Email: journeythroughtime@goalhanger.com
X: @ThroughTimePod
Blue Sky: @Thr...
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June 4, 2025 • 59 mins
Eleanor Rathbone was instrumental to the implementation of child benefit and the welfare state, why have we forgotten her? Who were the two million “superfluous women” recorded in the 1921 census? How did Eleanor campaign for over three decades for caregiving to be recognised as “real work”?
Joining David Olusoga and Sarah Churchwell as they explore the fascinating story of the campaigner and politician Eleanor Rathbone.
S...
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May 28, 2025 • 63 mins
17 murders in, what finally brought serial killers Burke and Hare to justice? How did the notorious partners in crime turn against each other? Which of the pair met a grisly end and who got off totally scot-free?
Join Sarah Churchwell and David Olusoga as they retell the capture and gruesome fate of Burke and Hare.
To find out more about Find My Past visit: https://www.findmypast.co.uk/journey-through-time
Email: journey...
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May 21, 2025 • 57 mins
How did Burke and Hare get into the lucrative business of murder? Why was there such a demand for fresh corpses in 1820s Edinburgh? What gruesome methods did the pair use to kill their victims?
Join David Olusoga and Sarah Churchwell as they delve into the gothic story of Burke and Hare, the mass murderers who scandalised the nation.
To find out more about Find My Past visit: https://www.findmypast.co.uk/journey-through-tim...
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May 14, 2025 • 53 mins
Why did a military training exercise seem like an imminent threat of nuclear attack? Despite being minutes away from launching Nuclear missiles, what made the Soviets back down? Why does no one know how close we came to total annihilation?
Join Sarah Churchwell and David Olusoga on Journey Through Time as they discuss the days where we narrowly escaped full scale nuclear war.
To find out more about Find My Past visit: http...
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May 7, 2025 • 63 mins
Why was the world so close to the brink of nuclear war in November 1983?
What tactics were the Americans employing to play high stakes mind games with the Soviets?
And, what made the Soviets so exceptionally paranoid?
Join David Olusoga and Sarah Churchwell on Journey Through Time as they discuss how a routine military training exercise in November 1983 nearly had cataclysmic effects.
To find out more about Find My P...
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April 30, 2025 • 60 mins
Why did Iva Toguri get branded America’s first female traitor, despite there being no evidence to convict her?
How did her case become important to President Harry Truman’s re-election campaign?
And, after decades, how did Iva and her supporters finally clear her name?
Join Sarah Churchwell and David Olusoga on Journey Through Time as they delve into the sad story behind the scandalous myth of Tokyo Rose.
To find out...
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April 23, 2025 • 52 mins
How did Tokyo Rose, a woman who never existed, become one of WWII’s most well known Japanese figures?
Who was Iva Toguri, the American citizen caught up in the myth?
How did sensationalist journalists weaponise the story of Tokyo Rose to create a vicious narrative about post war Japan?
To find out more about Find My Past visit: https://www.findmypast.co.uk/journey-through-time
Email: journeythroughtime@goalhanger.com
X: @Th...
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April 16, 2025 • 57 mins
Paranoid predictions of crime fill the newspapers - so how will the well-to-do react to the incoming crowds of the working-class?
From Harrods to the Eiffel Tower, what iconic attractions do we have The Great Exhibition to thank for?
Did this 'Peace Festival' unite a nation or expose the deep-seated class divisions of Victorian society?
Join Sarah Churchwell and David Olusoga on Journey Through Time as they delve into the surp...
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April 9, 2025 • 49 mins
The Great Exhibition is to open in May 1851 and millions of people will descend on the capital to marvel at exhibitions of culture and industry. Victorian engineering and determination will transform one million square feet of glass into the Crystal Palace in London’s Hyde Park in just five months, ready to house the wares of the world.
However, this celebration of progress also exposed the stark inequalities of Victorian society...
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April 2, 2025 • 67 mins
From the trading floor of Wall Street to the campaign trail, Victoria Woodhull was a force to be reckoned with. Sadly, her scandalous presidential campaign ends in disaster, and she spends election night in a cell. She’s been arrested for trying to expose the hypocrisy of one of America's most revered figures, the preacher Henry Ward Beecher, and his secret affair.
Victoria Woodhull’s explosive confrontation with societal hypocri...
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March 27, 2025 • 62 mins
The American public is outraged by the announcement of a woman running for president. The year is 1872 and the candidate is Victoria Woodhull.
Victoria Woodhull’s fascinating life started in a rural frontier town in Ohio. By age twelve she had become her family’s main breadwinner, working as a travelling spiritual medium and faith healer. Her eccentric yet poor beginnings provided no clues that she would end up the first woman to...
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March 20, 2025 • 48 mins
New York harbour erupts with an explosion as Black Tom island is ripped apart. The shock waves ripple out around Manhattan and New Jersey, shattering windows miles away and even registering on the Richter scale. However, despite the widespread destruction, the attack was downplayed as an accident by the US authorities and it was only years later that the truth of the event came to light.
Despite its absence from public knowledge,...
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