The Rest Is History
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742 episodes
742 episodes
481. The French Revolution: The Women's March on Versailles (Part 7)
By the summer of 1789 the different sections of the Revolution were at loggerheads, and the recently created National Assembly riven in two. Both factions, the radicals on the left and the more moderate revolutionaries on the right, upheld…
480. The French Revolution: The Rights of Man (Part 6)
“Liberté, égalité, fraternité!”Alongside violence, the French Revolution is a story of principles and values. It is the ultimate intersection of brutality and Enlightenment idealism, as epitomised by the Fall of the Bastille. So too the cr…
479. The French Revolution: The Storming of the Bastille (Part 5)
“It was violence that made the revolution revolutionary”.The storming of the Bastille is viewed by many across the world as a moment of celebration, when the French people were liberated from the shackles of tyranny and royal despotism. Ye…
478. The French Revolution: Showdown in Versailles (Part 4)
In the summer of 1788, a monstrous storm swept across France, wiping out the crucial wheat harvest. With the nation already in the throes of political and financial calamity, this meteorological disaster - followed by an apocalyptic drough…
477. The French Revolution: The Violence Begins (Part 3)
With seismic antecedents such as the Glorious Revolution in England and the American War of Independence, what was it about the French Revolution that saw it become arguably the most important episode in all early modern political history?…
476. The French Revolution: The Diamond Necklace Scandal (Part 2)
In August 1785 a shocking affair came to light which would prove so detrimental to the reputation and standing of the French King Louis XVI, and more especially his already unpopular wife, Queen Marie Antoinette, that it would become a dec…
475. The French Revolution: Marie Antoinette (Part 1)
The French Revolution is one of the great seismic events of global history. A devouring conflagration of bloodshed, violence and utopianism, it changed France and then latterly the whole of Europe forever. Yet, amidst the panoply of coloss…
474. The Road to The Great War: The Lights Go Out (Part 6)
“The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime”In the early days of August 1914, the British press has become increasingly vocal about the prospect of war breaking out amongst the great European p…
473. The Road to The Great War: The Tsar Chooses War (Part 5)
“We have been forced to draw the sword”.Following the expiry of Austria’s Ultimatum on Saturday 25th July 1914, the Kaiser and the Tsar - friends and cousins, long desirous of peace between their two nations - found themselves in a new and…
472. The Road to The Great War: Britain's Fateful Choice (Part 4)
On the 24th of July 1914, in London, the Liberal British Cabinet met to hear the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, read them the Ultimatum handed to Serbia by the Austro-Hungarian Empire the day before. The world held its breath, awaitin…