Dan Snow's History Hit History Hit

In Dan's long career as a broadcaster, he's come across all sorts of unexplained phenomena, myths and mysteries- from searching for the Nazi Gold Train in Poland to debunking the mummy's curse in Tutankhamun's tomb and looking for answers about ball lightning. History is full of the weird and wonderful and in this episode Dan is joined by polymath, author and fellow podcaster Dan Schreiber to talk about stories of lost treasure, curious relics and Edwardian superstitions.
You can read up on the things mentioned in this podcast, and more, in the History Hit Miscellany book available now online and in bookshops.
Dan Schreiber is the host of the We Can Be Weirdos podcast and the author of The Theory of Everything Else.
Discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW sign up now for your 14-day free trial 
We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at ds.hh@historyhit.com.

The permanent home of the Parthenon Marbles, also known as the 'Elgin' Marbles, has been the subject of a heated, decades-long debate. That debate was reignited this week when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cancelled a meeting with the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis who had planned to raise the issue of returning the marbles to Greece in it.
Currently housed in the British Museum, Greece has been proactively campaigning for their return since the 1980s. But how did this controversy start, why did the marbles end up in London and why are they so important?
In this episode, Dan finds answers and solutions from Nick Malkoutzis and Georgia Nakou, two Greek journalists and contributors to the Macropolis.gr who provide the deep history of the marbles and how the two countries might resolve this dispute.
Discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW sign up now for your 14-day free trial 
We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at ds.hh@historyhit.com.

This episode contains references to death and sexual assault.
Hades is King of the the dead and the Underworld in Ancient Greek mythology. 
Dive into the shadowy underworld with host Tristan Hughes and guest Prof Sarah Iles Johnson of Ohio State University. Together, they unearth Hades' origin, define the enigmatic underworld, and what it reveals about Ancient Greek perceptions of life and beyond. Plus, delve into iconic myths like Orpheus & Eurydice, Achilles and the Trojan War and the Labours of Heracles.
Senior Producer: Elena Guthrie
Assistant Producer: Annie Coloe
Editor: Aidan Lonergan
Scriptwriter: Andrew Hulse
Voice Actor: Lucy Davidson
Discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW sign up now for your 14-day free trialWe'd love to hear from you!
You can email the podcast at ds.hh@historyhit.com.
You can take part in our listener survey here.

The legend of Rasputin's death goes that he survived poisoning, being shot in the head before being thrown through a hole in the ice in the Neva River, where he finally died by drowning. But Rasputin biographer Douglas Smith, Dan's guest today, says that isn't what happened. He's been to Russia to study the crime scene photos and the evidence and says things happened a little differently to the way the history is told...
He joins Dan to dig into the life of Grigori Rasputin, the Siberian mystique whose charisma held the Romanov Tsar and Tsarina in a vice-like grip, securing his own influence over Russia's politics and church at the turn of the 20th century.
Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore
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From the famed poet Homer to King John of Bohemia, people without sight have always been prominent in our collective history. These figures have been heroised, demonised, and everything in between. The retelling of their lives indicates that blindness is typically seen as either an affliction to be 'fixed', or as a superpower; it has been given a mystical quality whereby a person can lose their vision, but gain wisdom.

Dan is joined by Selina Mills, broadcaster and author of Life Unseen: A Story of Blindness, who explains how societies have responded throughout the ages to people who are blind.

Produced by James Hickmann and Mariana Des Forges, and edited by Dougal Patmore.

Napoleon has become more than a man. His name is a concept, a way of being, a psychological term- the 'Napoleon' complex. Napoleon began working on his legacy during his exile on St Helena in the last years of his life, his journal- memoir 'The Memorial of Saint Helena' was Napoleon's own personal and political testament and served as the founding text of the cult of Napoleon and the ideology of Bonapartism that grew after his death in 1821.
In the final episode of the series, Dan is joined by historian and biographer Lord Andrew Roberts to unpack the mythology of Napoleon. They delve into his final days, his lifetime achievements and failures and the commentary he gave throughout; the letters he wrote to rulers and lovers, the fiction he wrote, the political and military treaties he created and they try to answer the question- was he really a great man?
Produced by Mariana Des Forges, Freddy Chick and edited by Dougal Patmore.
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We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at ds.hh@historyhit.com.