Game of Thrones is, as you've definitely worked out by now, based heavily on the history of the Wars of the Roses. Famous for high levels of internecine violence and bloody warfare, Game of Thrones is deeply rooted in historical parallels. However, as Dan Jones (not Snow) explains to Dan (not Jon) Snow, George R. R. Martin didn't just draw inspiration from the Wars of the Roses, but from all manner of historical circumstances and people.

From mass murders in castles in Edinburgh, to mercenary companies, to Cixi, the Chinese Dowager Empress, Martin drew inspiration from all periods of history, and both Dans walk us through the many comparisons and similarities.

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Producer: Peter Curry

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Dan talks to Adam Zamoyski, a historian who has recently written a new biography of Napoleon. Discover more history interviews and documentaries at History Hit TV.

Producer: Natt Tapley

Audio: Peter Curry

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Stephen Fry talks to Dan about the study of history, deadly sins, Blackadder, eddas, W. H. Auden, Philip Guedalla, Dorothy Parker, the internet, online trolls, R. W. Ketton Cremer and Felbrigg Hall, with a couple of minor detours along the way. Fry tackles the big questions, the small questions, and frequently just muses on his answers to the aforementioned questions. Enjoy this tour de Fry.

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Producer: Peter Curry

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We revisit Dan's interview with Peter Snow to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, and learn more about this conflict which changed the face of Europe.

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Original 2015 Producer: Dan Morelle

Producer: Peter Curry

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Professor Frank McDonough has just written a monumental history of the Third Reich. He is a world leading expert on the domestic side of Hitler's Germany. In this podcast Dan asks Frank why and how Hitler was able to establish and sustain his rule within Germany.

On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed the German Chancellor of a coalition government by President Hindenburg. Within a few months he had installed a dictatorship, jailing and killing his leftwing opponents, terrorising the rest of the population and driving Jews out of public life.

He embarked on a crash programme on militaristic Keynesianism, reviving the economy and achieving full employment through massive public works, vast armaments spending and the cancellations of foreign debts. After the grim years of the Great Depression, Germany seemed to have been reborn as a brutal and determined European power.

Over the course of the years from 1933 to 1939, Hitler won over most of the population to his vision of a renewed Reich. In these years of domestic triumph, cunning manoeuvres, pitting neighbouring powers against each other and biding his time, we see Hitler preparing for the moment that would realise his ambition. But what drove Hitler's success was also to be the fatal flaw of his regime: a relentless belief in war as the motor of greatness, a dream of vast conquests in Eastern Europe and an astonishingly fanatical racism.

Frank's book 'The Hitler Years' charts the rise and fall of the Third Reich under Hitler's hand.

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David Andress delves into the French Revolution, explaining its causes, its outcomes, and how we should look at its historical legacy.

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No man knew Adolf Hitler as intimately as his trusted physician, Theodoor Morell. As part of Hitler's inner social circle, he assisted the leader in virtually everything for the entire war years. His unconventional treatments were famed in Germany, and Hitler so trusted the 'miracle' prescriptions that trains were stopped to allow the doctor to deliver injections with a steady hand. I was joined by Professor Frank McDonough, an internationally acclaimed expert on the Third Reich, who revealed the concoction of drugs which electrified and maimed the erratic mind of Fuhrer.

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Roger Moorhouse discusses the Polish campaign of 1939 comprehensively, separating the myths from reality and outlining the abject horrors that the Poles suffered under the twin occupation of the Nazis and the Soviets.

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Producer: Peter Curry

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Everyone is Thomas Cromwell obsessed at the moment. The man who rose to be the most powerful member of Henry VIII's court, his Lord Privy Seal, Principal Secretary and Chancellor. He was a driving force behind the English Reformation and constitutional changes that emphasised the centrality of Parliament, but his current mighty reputation depends on the fictional trilogy of the genius novelist Hilary Mantel. On this podcast I talk to another genius, Tracy Borman, historian and curator of Historic Royal Palaces, a biographer of Cromwell about the reality behind the literary legend. 

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In the 5th century BC the world's first super power, the Persian Empire, went to war against a ragtag collection of cities and statelets on its western frontier. It was the start of the Persian War. Thankfully for us this war was recorded in some detail by the world's first historian. Herodotus. Despite previous millenia of history in the ancient Near East, this historical record means that the Persian Wars feels recognisably modern. The attitudes and decisions of commanders are discernable. The course of the battles, traceable.

William Shepherd has written an engaging new account of the war. He took some time to sit down with Dan and explore the course of the war and why it still matters.

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Martin Kemp, an emeritus professor at the University of Oxford, is one of the foremost experts on Leonardo Da Vinci. He has recently worked on a translation and collation of the Codex Leicester and he talks Dan through Leonardo's most interesting and prescient ideas.

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Producer: Peter Curry

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Dan picks up from where he and Professor Ali Ansari left off as they discuss the history of Iran in the 20th century. Ali Ansari breaks down the White Revolution, the Islamic Revolution and why western negotiators have struggled to agree terms about Iran's nuclear program in recent years.

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Producer: Peter Curry

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Dan Jones tells the story of The Crusades from their 11th century origins to their relevance today.

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Mike Loades is a world leading expert on archery. He has shot traditional bows from Japan to Wales. His knowledge on the English and Welsh longbowmen at Agincourt is unparalleled.

In this podcast he explains why and how the battle was fought. He explains how the terrain, the mud, the longbow and the gritty battlefield leadership of English king Henry V was responsible for a crushing English victory. But he also explains that while the battle was a shattering defeat for France, its longterm consequences were limited.

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Dan made a stupid comment on twitter. Irish history twitter melted down. So we did a pod on why. 

100 years ago the Irish War of Independence was being fought in Ireland as the UK government sought to keep Ireland within the Union while the Irish independence fighters seized control of much of the countryside. 

Dan and Finn Dwyer, host of the Irish History Podcast, had a good chat about the war and why, under no circumstances at all, must you never ever refer to it as a civil war. 

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The Vikings have never lost their appeal to scholars and enthusiasts. Now Wayne Bartlett has written a great new survey of the Viking World from Newfoundland to Central Asia. Dan got him on the podcast to ask him the central questions of the Viking Age. What does Viking even mean? Why did they explode onto the world stage when they do? Are the myths true? What is their legacy?

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In this podcast I was joined by Margaret MacMillan, professor at St Antony's College, Oxford University and author of 'Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War'. We discussed the effects WWI had on the world, and how Europe began to rebuild in the years that followed.

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Tom Holland schools Dan on how Christianity dominates western values and ideas, even today among those who aspire to secularism. He shows about how many of our moral codes and ideas are Christian in origin, and how the changing status of the West in global politics could see a fundamental change in global values.

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Producer: Peter Curry

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King George V played a critical role in Britain's war effort during World War One, from the outbreak of war in 1914, until the King's Pilgrimage in May 1922, to visit cemeteries and memorials being constructed by the Imperial War Graves Commission. Alexandra Churchill has combed the Royal Archives to fully understand George's role in the war, including his frequent disputes with David Lloyd George. So bitter was this relationship, Lloyd George at one point attempted to place control of the British army under French commanders.

Famously, King George V had to change his family surname from Saxe-Coburg to Windsor during the war, but Alexandra Churchill also tells Dan about the names that were suggested, including one that suggested George's family were bastards.

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Producer: Peter Curry

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Dr Mike Martin famously critiqued the Ministry of Defence in 2014, who tried to prevent the publication of his book. The book was based on a series of conversations Martin had with the Afghan locals, as one of the few within the military who could speak pushtu. Dan talks to him about his problems with the way that the military is run, and how the conflict in Afghanistan may change in years to come.

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Producer: Natt Tapley

Audio: Peter Curry

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