Episodes
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845 - 1194 - The Normans take up a much larger role than many initially know and this episode looks to tell the entire story of the Normans of Normandy.
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1014 - The story of the history of Ireland and the Irish folklore legend of Brian Boru and how he managed his unlikely inheritance in a medieval world of fierce competition on both local and national levels.
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Missing episodes?
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878 - The inevitable showdown between the Danish Vikings whose intensity against the Anglo-Saxons reached breaking point. We discover more about King Alfred the Great and how he set the foundations for the nation that would become England.
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1179 - 1241 This episode tells the life story of the Icelandic saga writer and statesman who lived during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries during the closing years of Icelandic independence.
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862 - 1242 - The story of the creation of the medieval nation state that was the birth of a unique modern culture with a rich history that would have a fortune changing influence on European and global politics. The fusion of Viking and Slavic cultures.
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793 - 1035 - Glorious literature tells us that the Vikings were savage raiders who sailed the seas and plundered from others. This episode investigates what we do know about the Vikings and their history and whether those preconceptions are completely fair.
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410 - 939 - From the abandonment of Britannia by the Romans, the island became a place of tribal warfare for many centuries, but from the chaos emerged the beginnings of a modern English nation.
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43 - 848 - When the Romans invaded Britain they discovered people who had decorated their bodies with bright colours. Who were these people and what became of them?
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955 - East Francia was a struggling new nation facing the threat of new European invasions from the peoples of the steppe. It would take military intelligence and bravery for East Francia to be able to deal with the threat of the Hungarians on this occasion.
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778 - The battle that involved Charlemagne and gave us a surprising result. It is immortalised by the Song of Roland, but this episode looks to revise the later medieval romantic poetry and find out the truth from the contemporary voices.
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715 - 987 - Early Medieval France was as important as any nation of Europe in its history. This episode deals with the rekindling of kingship through the Carolingians and their relationship with the Papacy, and how their succession tradition proved to damage the empire and make way for the fragmentation of the Frankish Empire.
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732 - The Frankish expansion was impressive but the Umayyad expansion was intercontinental and seemingly unstoppable. It would fall on the shoulders of a man called Charles Martel to unlock the solution to the insatiable desires of the Muslims.
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451 - 718 - A number of culturally linked Germanic tribes were initially united by King Clovis who expanded their realm significantly. The kings would gradually lose power, to be led by their senior statesmen until the time when Asiatic peoples entered Europe, this time from the west.
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476 - 774 - The fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 did not signal the end of romanitas in the Italian peninsula, but it does signal the injection of Germanic culture there. It should have added depth to the peninsula, but instead it brought bloodshed and poverty.
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238 - 712 - The Visigoths were one of two major branches of Gothic tribes who originated in eastern Europe and migrated to the west where they carved out their own fortune and cemented their place in the evolution of the modern countries of the Iberian peninsula.
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In this, the second of two unscripted episodes this weekend, we introduce the team competing in Group L of the Ancient World Cup and look ahead at what we can expect from the upcoming episodes of Volume Four.
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This episode of the History of the World podcast focuses on listener media interaction by reading out your messages and reviews.
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1453 - Was the Fall of Constantinople a foregone conclusion, and is it correct to regard it as the fall of the once great city? The fascinating story of the city, the characters and the sequence of events that led to the dramatic end of Roman culture.
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1071 - The Seljuk Turks came to power and threatened Byzantine territory more than any other society before. The Byzantines required a strong leader to stand up to this new powerhouse of the Middle East, and so a battle would take place with wider reaching ramifications to the world around it.
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1014 - The tensions between the Bulgarians and the Byzantines reaches the point of no return when two great military monarchs called Samuel and Basil meet in battle, and a strategical match plays out which results in the ultimate destruction of one nation.
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