537 episodes

Historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook are interrogating the past, and attempting to de-tangle the present.


They question the nature of Greatness, why the West no longer has civil wars and whether Richard Nixon was more like Caligula or Claudius. 
 

They're distilling the entirety of human history, or, as much as they can fit into about fifty minutes.


Join The Rest Is History Club (www.restishistorypod.com) for ad-free listening to the full archive, weekly bonus episodes, live streamed shows and access to an exclusive chatroom community.


Here are some of our favourite episodes to get you started:


WATERGATE/NIXON apple.co/3JrVl5h

ALEXANDER THE GREAT apple.co/3Q4FaNk

HARDCORE HISTORY'S DAN CARLIN apple.co/3vqkGa3

PUTIN & RUSSIA apple.co/3zMtLfX

The Rest Is History The Rest is History Club

    • History
    • 4.7 • 266 Ratings

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Requires subscription and macOS 11.4 or higher

Historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook are interrogating the past, and attempting to de-tangle the present.


They question the nature of Greatness, why the West no longer has civil wars and whether Richard Nixon was more like Caligula or Claudius. 
 

They're distilling the entirety of human history, or, as much as they can fit into about fifty minutes.


Join The Rest Is History Club (www.restishistorypod.com) for ad-free listening to the full archive, weekly bonus episodes, live streamed shows and access to an exclusive chatroom community.


Here are some of our favourite episodes to get you started:


WATERGATE/NIXON apple.co/3JrVl5h

ALEXANDER THE GREAT apple.co/3Q4FaNk

HARDCORE HISTORY'S DAN CARLIN apple.co/3vqkGa3

PUTIN & RUSSIA apple.co/3zMtLfX

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Requires subscription and macOS 11.4 or higher

    JFK: The Mystery is Solved (Part 7)

    JFK: The Mystery is Solved (Part 7)

    In this landmark edition of The Rest is History, Dominic and Tom reveal the astonishing solution to the mystery that has fascinated so many people for the last sixty years. In thrillingly definitive detail, they explain just who killed President Kennedy and why he did it. 

    Step by step, they trace his journey to the killing ground, and delve into the psychology of a murderer. They unmask his fellow conspirators, and explain just how his crime reflects the chilling political secrets of American life in the 1950s and 1960s. And they discuss how the conspiracy echoes through the pages of American history, and continues to influence American politics to this day.

    Join Dominic and Tom for this unforgettable journey into the dark heart of American history - an episode that will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about the Kennedy assassination.



    *Dominic’s book The Fall of the Aztecs is available now from bookshops across the UK - the perfect Christmas present!*


    Twitter: 
    @TheRestHistory
    @holland_tom
    @dcsandbrook
    Producer: Theo Young-Smith
    Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    JFK: A Conspiracy Unmasked (Part 6)

    JFK: A Conspiracy Unmasked (Part 6)

    “We can’t accept very comfortably that two nobodies, two nothings - Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby - were able to change the course of world history.”

    The murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, JFK’s apparent assassin, by the night club owner Jack Ruby on 24th November 1963 changed everything. Right from the start, rumours had circulated that Oswald had not been acting alone, building on the deep anxieties of American society in the 1950s and 1960s. Some blamed Communist states such as Cuba or the Soviet Union; others anti-Castro exiles, or the Ku Klux Klan. As the years passed, the CIA and FBI came under suspicion. Did Lyndon Johnson know more about the conspiracy than he pretended? Just what was Richard Nixon doing on that fateful day? And how did Frank Sinatra’s drummer fit in?

    Join Tom and Dominic as they explore the background to the Kennedy conspiracy theories, from umbrella men to grassy knolls, discussing the wider context and investigating every last clue in their tireless search for the truth.




    *Dominic’s book The Fall of the Aztecs is available now from bookshops across the UK - the perfect Christmas present!*


    Twitter: 
    @TheRestHistory
    @holland_tom
    @dcsandbrook
    Producer: Theo Young-Smith
    Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    RIHC: The New Julius Caesar, Henry Kissinger, and Power in American Politics

    RIHC: The New Julius Caesar, Henry Kissinger, and Power in American Politics

    What if Joe Kennedy Jr. had survived and become President instead of JFK? Why haven’t more American Presidents been assassinated in processions or cavalcades? What was the electoral balance between the Democrats and the Republicans in 1960's America? Can great nations achieve power peaceably, or must there always be violence and oppression? What happened to Lee Harvey Oswald’s daughter?

    Join Tom and Dominic in this week’s bonus episode, as they explore these significant historical questions.





    *Dominic’s book The Fall of the Aztecs is available now from bookshops across the UK - the perfect Christmas present!*


    Twitter:

    @TheRestHistory

    @holland_tom

    @dcsandbrook

    Producer: Theo Young-Smith

    Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor

    JFK: The Second Assassin Strikes (Part 5)

    JFK: The Second Assassin Strikes (Part 5)

    “Jack, you son of a bitch, don’t do it!”

    Just hours after President Kennedy’s assassination, in the full glare of the world’s media, the Dallas police are confident they have solved the case. They have found the murder weapon, and are poised to charge their chief suspect, a strange loner called Lee Harvey Oswald. But as they prepare to move him to the county jail, one local businessman has other ideas. As they are leading Oswald into the station garage, an eccentric nightclub owner Jack Ruby steps forward. And as he aims his pistol at Oswald’s chest, the course of American history is about to take another dizzying turn …

    Join Dominic and Tom as they trace the footsteps of two erratic nobodies, Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby, in the days before Kennedy’s assassination, leading up to the critical moment on 24th November when the two men finally came face to face, changing both of their lives and the course of the investigation forever…



    *Dominic’s book The Fall of the Aztecs is available now from bookshops across the UK - the perfect Christmas present!*

    Twitter: 
    @TheRestHistory
    @holland_tom
    @dcsandbrook
    Producer: Theo Young-Smith
    Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    • 42 min
    JFK: Hunt for a Killer (Part 4)

    JFK: Hunt for a Killer (Part 4)

    It’s 12:31pm on Friday 22nd November 1963, and in Dallas, Texas, President John F. Kennedy lies slumped against his screaming wife, half of his head cradled in her hands and his blood spattered across her elegant pink suit and the seats of their car. 

    Just moments earlier, three shots had rung out from the direction of the Texas Book Depository. Or had they? Who had fired the shots? A single gunman - or more? Just who was the oddly detached, vacant-looking man whom left the building minutes later? Why did he murder a Dallas policeman shortly after the shooting? Was he really Kennedy’s killer, or a red herring, planted by a wider conspiracy? And was he working for the Cubans, the Communists - or the CIA?

    Join Tom and Dominic as they plunge into the extraordinary drama of 22 November 1963, from the national shock after the president’s assassination to the thrilling hunt to track down his assassin.



    *Dominic’s book The Fall of the Aztecs is available now from bookshops across the UK - the perfect Christmas present!*

    Twitter: 
    @TheRestHistory
    @holland_tom
    @dcsandbrook
    Producer: Theo Young-Smith
    Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    • 47 min
    JFK: Death in Dallas (Part 3)

    JFK: Death in Dallas (Part 3)

    “It wouldn't be very difficult to kill the president of the United States, you just have to be in a high building with a high powered rifle, telescopic sight and there's nothing anyone could do about it….”

    On the morning of Friday, 22nd November 1963, John F. Kennedy awoke with just hours to live. Ahead was a flight to Love Field, Dallas; then a motorcade into the heart of the city’s business district. But as the president and his glamorous wife, Jacqueline, settled back in their limousine for the journey towards destiny, they had no idea of the horror to come …
     
    By 12:22pm the motorcade had reached Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, passing the nondescript Texas Book Depository and slowing for the unexpectedly large and enthusiastic crowds gathered to greet the President. At 12:25 bystanders spotted the figure of a man on the sixth floor of the Book Depository, staring strangely away from the motorcade. Then, at exactly 12.30 pm, the first shot rang out around the square….

    Join Dominic and Tom as they break down the events of the day of the assassination of President Kennedy moment by moment, from the night before the murder to its traumatic aftermath, poring over the evidence in order to solve this supremely fascinating historical mystery. 



    *Dominic’s book The Fall of the Aztecs is available now from bookshops across the UK - the perfect Christmas present!*

    Twitter: 
    @TheRestHistory
    @holland_tom
    @dcsandbrook
    Producer: Theo Young-Smith
    Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    • 45 min

Customer Reviews

4.7 out of 5
266 Ratings

266 Ratings

Such-a-fan ,

Absolutely LOVE this podcast

I love clocking out and just listening to you both, history is such a passion of mine and you cover such a great array of subjects. I recommend you to everyone, never stop!

“Anyone can make history, only a great man can write it” - Oscar Wilde …. Or in your case speak it. 10/10

tutuwai ,

Wrong rank lads?

Wasn’t Cook a lieutenant when he first set off on the Endeavour?

Hamish 60 ,

Not to be missed

Do your brain a favour and tune into fascinating discussions on the past and sometimes the present.

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