The Rest Is History
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709 episodes
709 episodes
547. The French Revolution: The Execution of the King (Part 4)
The second revolution that engulfed France over the course of 1792 reached its climax in December, with an astonishing, world-changing spectacle, which held all the eyes of Europe spellbound: Louis Capet, formerly King Louis XVI of France,…
546. The French Revolution: The Monarchy Falls (Part 3)
“From this place and from this day forth commences a new era in the world’s history, and you can all say you were present at its birth!”By September 1792, the Prussians, under the leadership of the formidable Duke of Brunswick, were closin…
545. The French Revolution: The First Feminist (Part 2)
In the summer and Autumn of 1792 - with the Prussians bearing down on Paris, the streets thronged with the stirring swell of the Marseillaise, but also the rotting bodies of those brutally killed during the September Massacres - the French…
544. The French Revolution: The September Massacres (Part 1)
‘Still more traitors, still more treason…"It is 1792 and France has been at war since April; it is not going well. In Paris, the Tuileries Palace has been stormed, and the royal family imprisoned. Meanwhile, tensions are rising between the…
543. Death in the Amazon: Aguirre, the Wrath of God
“Anyone who even thinks of abandoning this mission will be cut up into a thousand pieces…I am the wrath of God!”At the height of the age of exploration, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, one story in particular gripped the imag…
542. Elizabeth I’s Sorcerer: Angels and Demons in Renaissance Europe
In Tudor England, during the reign of Elizabeth I, there lived in the very heart of her court a magician, alchemist and polymath, bent upon conversing with the angels of heaven and other supernatural beings. His name was John Dee, and he w…
541. Heart of Darkness: Fear and Loathing in the Congo
“The horror! The horror!”Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ - the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's ‘Apocalypse Now’ - is one of the most celebrated literary works of all time, though now increasingly contentious. Based on Conrad’s o…
540. Horror in the Congo: A Conspiracy Unmasked (Part 3)
Exposing the dark pit of human suffering, cruelty and corruption that had long been secretly festering in King Leopold’s Congo, would reveal one of the greatest abuses of human rights in all history, and instigate a human rights campaign t…
539. Horror in the Congo: The Crimes of Empire (Part 2)
“A secret society of murderers with a king for a ringleader”.In 1885 King Leopold of Belgium; an awkward, ruthless, selfish man, was recognised as the sovereign of the Congo. Long determined to carve out his very own private colonial domai…
538. Horror in the Congo: The Nightmare Begins (Part 1)
The story of King Leopold of Belgium’s brutal regime in the Congo Free State, during the late 19th century, is one of the darkest and most important in global history. It is a story of horror - the murky depths of the human soul pushed to …