Short History Of...
History is full of the extraordinary. Each week, we'll transport you back in time to witness history's most incredible moments and remarkable people. New episodes Mondays, or a week early for Noiser+ subscribers. With Noiser+ you'll also get ad-free listening and exclusive content on shows across the Noiser podcast network. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started or head to noiser.com/subscriptions For advertising enquiries, email info@adelicious.fm
Episodes
August 3, 2025 • 54 mins
The last Queen of France before the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette is best known today for her extravagant lifestyle and controversial legacy. Initially admired for her grace and charm, as revolutionary fervour gripped her adopted homeland, she became a symbol of royal excess, and a lightning rod for public resentment.
But did she truly deserve her reputation of vain indifference? To what extent did misogyny and xenophobia...
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July 27, 2025 • 56 mins
The Stone Age is the foundational period of human history, stretching from roughly 3 million to 5,000 years ago, and accounting for over 99% of humanity’s time on earth. It’s the era when modern humans evolved and migrated out of Africa to populate the globe, developed language and the ability to make tools, and learned to farm crops and domesticate animals.
But what do we really know about the way our Stone Age relatives lived...
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July 20, 2025 • 55 mins
Through his voyages in the eighteenth century, Captain Cook’s work as an explorer contributed to startling advances in scientific knowledge, and mapped swathes of unplotted territory in both hemispheres.
To many, he was regarded as one of the greatest explorers in human history, while for others, his achievements were overshadowed by the violence and oppression that accompanied his voyages.
So, how did a farm-worker’s son r...
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July 13, 2025 • 56 mins
Over 400 years ago, a bold commercial venture was established to allow an ambitious group of English merchants to send ships halfway around the world in search of spices, skills, and profit. It was known as The East India Company.
Over the next 250 years, the Company grew into one of the most powerful and controversial enterprises in history. At its height, it had the powers of a sovereign state - fighting wars, extracting wealt...
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July 6, 2025 • 55 mins
The Shroud of Turin is a length of linen, believed by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. Its most famous feature is the blurry imprint of a man’s face, which resembles the pictures of Jesus that have passed down to us over the centuries.
Revered by millions, the Shroud is the most scientifically studied object in the world, but why does its recorded history only reach back to the 1350s? Where did it go in the int...
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June 29, 2025 • 58 mins
Arthur Conan Doyle, a doctor, war volunteer, campaigner for justice, politician, and believer in the spirit world, created one of literature’s most famous characters. In his lifetime, he wrote ghost stories, political pamphlets, historical novels, and fantastical adventures.
But how did a young medical student from Edinburgh end up transforming crime fiction forever? What drove him to kill off - and then resurrect - the characte...
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June 25, 2025 • 64 mins
This is a taster episode of the Fidel Castro story. To hear episodes 2-10, head over to Real Dictators and hit follow.
Fidel Castro - a revolutionary turned strongman dictator, beloved by his supporters and loathed by his enemies. The bête noire of the United States who pushed the world to the brink of annihilation. The ultimate political survivor who evaded hundreds of barely believable assassination attempts. We scroll back to ...
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June 22, 2025 • 56 mins
The influenza pandemic of 1918-20 infected about one-third of the world’s population at the time, killing at least 50 million people. Occurring during the First World War, what became known as the Spanish Flu spread rapidly as soldiers moved across continents. It overwhelmed hospitals, led to mass graves, and disrupted societies worldwide.
But what made the disease so deadly? Was it really Spanish? And what lessons had been lear...
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June 15, 2025 • 61 mins
The Manhattan Project was the codename for the US government’s top secret programme to develop the first atomic bomb. At the height of World War Two, America’s top scientists - such as Dr Robert Oppenheimer - raced against Nazi Germany to harness the power of nuclear fission, and ultimately end the war.
But what is the story of the other scientists, soldiers and civilians who brought about the birth of the A-bomb? What role did ...
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June 8, 2025 • 58 mins
In the third century BC, China was a land fractured by war - a patchwork of rival kingdoms struggling for dominance. Out of this chaos rose a single, extraordinary figure who would reshape the course of history: Chin Shrr Hwong, the First Emperor of China.
His achievements were monumental, but his reign was marked by ruthlessness, so how did this teenage king rise to power? What drove him to undertake colossal projects like the ...
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June 1, 2025 • 53 mins
Anne Frank is one of the world’s most famous writers, yet she didn’t live long enough to see her work published. At the age of thirteen, Anne was a normal teenager, who poured her heart into a diary. But what made her diary different, was that she created within its pages a snapshot of the darkest events of World War Two, detailing the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands that forced her family to hide in a secret annex.
But what ...
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May 25, 2025 • 58 mins
Alfred Hitchcock was one of the most celebrated film directors of all time. In a career that spanned six decades, he produced more than 50 films, including Britain’s first successful talking picture. His countless awards and accolades earned him a reputation as the ‘Master of Suspense’, but how did an introverted working class boy come to dominate Hollywood? What was the truth behind the rumours of obsessive ruthless behaviour? And...
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May 20, 2025 • 42 mins
In a long life, spanning the late 19th and early 20th century, Antoni Gaudi created some of history’s best-loved architecture. From his early lamppost designs, through to his great unfinished masterpiece, his unmistakable works are world renowned, inimitable, and iconic to this day.
But how did a man who began life as a sickly child become one of history’s best loved architects? What drove him to reject marriage and dedicate his...
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May 18, 2025 • 61 mins
Throughout their centuries-long dynasty, the Romanovs oversaw the transformation of Russia from a fragmented medieval state, into a vast empire. Despite their power though, the period of the Romanovs was plagued by violence, assassinations, and the heavy hand of autocratic rule. Then, in 1917, the course of Russian history took an irreversible turn, and the fate of the Romanovs was changed forever.
So what do we know of the liv...
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May 11, 2025 • 63 mins
The Anglo-Saxon period, also known as the ‘Dark Ages’ stretched from the withdrawal of Roman forces in 410 AD to the conquest of England by William of Normandy in 1066. The period is remembered by the legends that emerged from it, such as the tales of Beowulf and King Arthur, but it was also a time populated by very real historical figures: Alfred the Great, King Cnut, and Harold Godwinson.
So who were these people who came to th...
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May 4, 2025 • 55 mins
Victory in Europe Day brought the curtain down on a horrific conflict that decimated a continent and upended the world. But the price of victory over fascism was impossibly high. Many millions had been killed, and vast areas of Europe had been all but destroyed. VE Day signalled the end of Nazi Germany, and yet the war on the Pacific Front was still raging, and Stalin was already tightening his grip on what would become the Eastern...
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April 27, 2025 • 58 mins
For more than two centuries, between the late 1400s and early 1700s, a terror of witches gripped Europe. From Scotland to Spain, thousands of people were accused, tortured and executed. But as the hysteria faded in Europe, it crossed the Atlantic. In 1692, in New England, it took hold of a small Puritan settlement in Massachusetts - Salem. The events that followed resulted in the most infamous witch hunt in history.
But how did th...
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April 20, 2025 • 56 mins
Measuring 240 feet long from paw to tail, and around the height of a six-story building, the Great Sphinx is one of Egypt’s most spectacular, and mysterious, monuments. Believed to have been built over four millennia ago, much of its story has been lost to history, and the rest is shrouded in myth.
So what do we know about who built it? What caused such an impressive structure to be forgotten for centuries? And how is it being pro...
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April 13, 2025 • 61 mins
PT Barnum may be better known as the loose subject of the movie The Greatest Showman, but his life was so much more than that work of fiction. A master of entertainment, an entrepreneur, and a genius of publicity, he built a career on feeding public curiosity with his grand illusions.
But his legacy is complicated, as many of his attractions reflect a world where sensationalism outweighed morality. His methods, viewed through a m...
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April 8, 2025 • 51 mins
This is a taster episode of a brand-new podcast from the Noiser podcast network. Join host Paul McGann as he explores life and death on the most famous ship in history.
You’ll be right there on board - setting sail from Southampton, chugging across the Atlantic, striking the iceberg and sinking into the icy depths. We’ll hear the harrowing tales of the victims and the testimonies of the lucky survivors. And Paul explores his own f...
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