In a swirling world dominated by miniskirts, feather boas, posh photographers, youth culture, Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles, London has been transformed, and avant-garde “boutiques” have taken over areas left empty in the wake of the demise of local manufacturing. Join Tom and Dominic in the second part of our series on Sixties Fashion, as they explore the birth of the miniskirt, Sergeant Pepper’s, hippies, the legacy of the 60s, and much more - all you need is love! *The Rest Is History Live Tou...
Aug 30, 2023•55 min•Ep 364•Transcript available on Metacast The Sixties is one of the only moments in history when Britain could claim to be the epicentre of world fashion, and in this episode Tom and Dominic delve into this cultural boom, from the boxy, militaristic styles of the 1940s, when fabrics, designs and even the Queen’s wedding dress were limited by post-war restrictions, to the greasy-haired Edwardian Teddy Boys of the early 1950’s, and the warring Mods and Rockers that followed. Then came the 60’s, full of child-like designs, colour supplemen...
Aug 27, 2023•52 min•Ep 363•Transcript available on Metacast “The mutual affection and harmony between the two had reached a degree never seen between a husband and wife…” The Taj Mahal, built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, tells the story of the imperial power and strength of the Mughal Empire, and remains to this day a symbol of perfection, refinement and romance. Tom and Dominic are joined by art historian Dr Mehreen Chida-Razvi, as they delve into the origins of the Taj Mahal, the empire behind it, and its c...
Aug 23, 2023•49 min•Ep 362•Transcript available on Metacast One of the greatest institutions of the ancient world, the Library of Alexandria was the embodiment of ultimate learning, and a “repository of everything”. Built within the same complex as the tomb of Alexander the Great, it stood as a beacon of knowledge, boasting an unparalleled collection of scrolls and manuscripts from across the world. Join Tom and Dominic as they explore the story of the Library, its role in the ancient world, and who eventually destroyed it… *The Rest Is History Live Tour...
Aug 20, 2023•55 min•Ep 361•Transcript available on Metacast “A cloud of black, acrid smoke hung over the area. It was a scene from a warzone, a battlefield - it was a scene from the end of the world…” New York in the 1970s was a city decimated by economic stagnation, unemployment and ever-rising crime rates, haemorrhaging its population to the suburbs and to the more business-friendly South. Join Tom and Dominic as they look at the 1977 power blackout, the looting of New York, and life in the real Gotham City. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom an...
Aug 16, 2023•54 min•Ep 360•Transcript available on Metacast "Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.” Arguably the most celebrated speech of the 20th century, Martin Luther King Jr.’s address in front of the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963 was a defining moment in the American Civil Rights movement, and to this day remains a symbol of hope, equality, and social change. Join Tom and Dominic as they discuss Martin Luther King Jr., how he became involved in the Civil Rights movement, and the unfolding of the March on Washington. *The Rest Is Histor...
Aug 13, 2023•54 min•Ep 359•Transcript available on Metacast Warning! This one isn’t for the faint-hearted... A naked, torch-carrying man, who would walk backwards around a funeral pyre, with his fingers covering his anus. The armed woman who worked a loom made from human body parts. 6-legged reindeers. Slaves buried alive with their owners, tapestries woven of human flesh, and rituals with horse penises. Tom and Dominic, in one of the most eagerly-awaited The Rest Is History episodes of all time, are joined by archaeologist Neil Price, as they delve into...
Aug 09, 2023•56 min•Ep 358•Transcript available on Metacast Join Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and Micah Richards for a new podcast bringing strong opinions on all the latest stories from the world of football. Hosted by three men who’ve been there and done it at the highest level of the game, The Rest is Football combines topical debate with outrageous tales from their careers. The essential new podcast for football fans. Listen to THE REST IS FOOTBALL, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Aug 08, 2023•13 min•Ep 357•Transcript available on Metacast “There’s a lot of severed heads at this villa!” The great TV sensation of the summer returns on The Rest Is History, as Tom and Dominic are once again joined by Tom’s daughter Katy, to navigate an incredibly competitive field of islanders, and crown the successors to last year’s winners, Empress Theodora and Stanley Baldwin. Can Catherine Howard remain more loyal to Sir William Hamilton than she was to Henry VIII? Will Charles II and another byzantine Empress, Zoe, win it all? Or can the frightf...
Aug 06, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep 357•Transcript available on Metacast A woman of immense influence on medieval Christendom, Catherine of Siena was one of the first female Doctors of the Church, who married Christ in her own bedroom. Living through a time of great anxiety due to the onset of the Black Death, she healed the sick, convinced the Pope to return from exile in France, appeased riotous crowds, and even brought her own mother back from the dead. Join Tom and Dominic as they discuss Catherine of Siena, her life, her impact on the Middle Ages, and her relati...
Aug 02, 2023•52 min•Ep 356•Transcript available on Metacast Mount Vesuvius' eruption in the autumn of AD79 remains one of the deadliest and best-known in history. The plume of super-heated volcanic gases spewed skyward formed a cloud 21 miles high, with the volcano ultimately releasing 100,000 times the thermal energy of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Join Tom and Dominic as they piece together the disaster, destruction and death caused by the Vesuvius’s eruption. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this...
Jul 30, 2023•46 min•Ep 355•Transcript available on Metacast Charles de Gaulle was a war hero in the First World War, and, having refused to accept his government’s armistice with Nazi Germany, became the voice of the French Resistance during the Second World War. But how did France’s largest uprising since the Paris Commune come to happen during his presidency? Join Tom and Dominic in the second part of our tour of Paris, as they look at de Gaulle’s role in the events of May 1968, and how he eventually overcame the protests. Read more about Tom and Domin...
Jul 27, 2023•42 min•Ep 354•Transcript available on Metacast May 1968 saw underlying tensions reach a climax in France, resulting in a period of civil unrest coloured by rioting, general strikes, and the occupation of universities and factories. Join Tom and Dominic in the first part of our tour through the streets of Paris, as they tell the story of how France’s economy came to a halt at the hands of cobblestone-wielding students. Read more about Tom and Dominic's trip to Paris, in partnership with Wise: https://wise.com/campaign/restishistory *The Rest ...
Jul 24, 2023•46 min•Ep 353•Transcript available on Metacast A city which played a fundamental role in the Dutch Golden Age and in the birth of the Dutch monarchy, Amsterdam has also stood in the avant-garde of European liberalism since the Second World War. Join Tom and Dominic on the second part of our walking tour through Amsterdam, as they look at the importance of its canals, the changing role of the Amsterdam Royal Palace, the Portuguese Synagogue and its relationship with the city’s jewish population, and more. Read more about Tom and Dominic's tri...
Jul 20, 2023•56 min•Ep 352•Transcript available on Metacast A city built on water, Amsterdam has often set the tone of European modernity. It first gained prominence as a miraculous centre for pilgrimage, and then stood out for its relationship with the Reformation, and for its role in the birth of modern capitalism. Join Tom and Dominic on part one of our tour of Amsterdam, as they take you on a journey through Dam Square, the birthplace of the Dutch East India Company, the Begijnhof, and the Amsterdam Dungeon… Read more about Tom and Dominic's trip to ...
Jul 17, 2023•41 min•Ep 351•Transcript available on Metacast With the French and Spanish siding with George Washington’s revolutionaries, the game is up for the British, and it seems time for them to cut their losses. Following the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown, the war is effectively over, but what are the short and long term consequences of this? In our final episode on the American revolution, Tom, Dominic and Professor Adam Smith look at the end of the war, the subsequent Treaty of Paris, and the broader question of how the revolution sh...
Jul 13, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep 350•Transcript available on Metacast “O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth!” The U.S. Congress votes for independence on the 2nd of July 1776, and George Washington reads the Declaration of Independence to his troops a few days later, after which they pull down the statue of George III in New York, melting it down to make bullets. The king is now the target of the revolutionaries’ grievances, it is no longer the British Parliament. In Episode 3 of our series on the American ...
Jul 10, 2023•51 min•Ep 349•Transcript available on Metacast “Last night three cargos of tea were emptied into the sea. This morning a man of war sails. This is the most magnificent movement of all. There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effort of the patriots, that I greatly admire.” The Boston Tea Party occurs amid the growing disagreements between the British parliament and the people of colonial America, as New Englanders, and Bostonians in particular, fight British attempts to regulate imperial trade. In the second episode of this s...
Jul 06, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep 348•Transcript available on Metacast “America, late the strength, now the foe to Britain, dismembered, torn, I fear forever lost to England, whence she sprung.” The American Revolution came about due to growing tensions between the American colonies and Great Britain, primarily over issues of taxation and representation. It led to the birth of the United States of America, established upon Enlightenment principles of liberal democracy and constitutionalism. In the first episode of our four part series, Tom and Dominic are joined by...
Jul 03, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep 347•Transcript available on Metacast “Who drinks the water I shall give him, will have a spring inside him welling up for eternal life.” A deeply mysterious object which doesn’t appear in the Bible, was the Holy Grail really the chalice used by Jesus during the Last Supper, and the very cup that caught his blood at the crucifixion? Or is it merely a symbol representing Christ’s bloodline? Join Tom and Dominic as they discuss the Holy Grail, the origin of the tradition, and the role it played within medieval Christendom. *The Rest I...
Jun 29, 2023•57 min•Ep 346•Transcript available on Metacast The most important object in the universe, but also a somewhat invisible presence in the Bible, the Ark of the Covenant has fuelled stories for millennia, whether as a weapon of mass destruction, an elaborate filling cabinet for sacred laws, or as the very location where God and man meet. Join Tom and Dominic as they delve into the mysteries surrounding the Ark of the Covenant, its creation, its importance and its eventual disappearance… *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are ...
Jun 26, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep 345•Transcript available on Metacast Following the use of the atomic bomb in Japan and the end of the Second World War, Oppenheimer pushes for an international approach to nuclear power. This attitude towards nuclear secrets, alongside his history of close relationships with known communists, results in all his security clearances being revoked in 1954 after a public hearing. Join Tom and Dominic as they explore McCarthyism, American anti-communist hysteria, and Oppenheimer’s fall from grace. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: T...
Jun 23, 2023•56 min•Ep 344•Transcript available on Metacast “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” This was J. Robert Oppenheimer’s reaction to the first atomic bomb test in July 1945, marking the beginning of the nuclear age. Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physicist of Jewish-German descent, was in charge of the American nuclear project, leading the Los Alamos laboratory and tasked with developing “the bomb” in 1943, following his involvement in the Manhattan Project. Join Tom and Dominic as they delve into the life of the man behind “t...
Jun 22, 2023•58 min•Ep 343•Transcript available on Metacast It’s 1895, and with the libel case brought against the Marquess of Queensbury having collapsed, Oscar Wilde is now arrested and charged with committing acts of “gross indecency”. With former lovers, hotel servants and chambermaids lining up to give evidence, and the evening papers, night after night full of scandalous allegations, turning the general public against him, Wilde must now face a trial brought about through his own poor judgement. In this second episode on the trials of Oscar Wilde, ...
Jun 19, 2023•49 min•Ep 342•Transcript available on Metacast “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” As his most popular work, "The Importance of Being Earnest", hints at, Oscar Wilde’s life was a complicated one. Perhaps the most famous gay martyr in history, Wilde is often presented as a sacrificial victim destroyed by a bigoted and puritanical establishment. But the story of how Wilde came to prominence, and eventually sued his lover’s father for libel, is one as surprising as it is complex. Join Tom and Dominic as they explore Oscar Wilde’s journ...
Jun 15, 2023•54 min•Ep 341•Transcript available on Metacast A mysterious death on the Nile, an unconventional love affair, a Roman-Greek hero turned God - the story of Hadrian and Antinous is full of intrigue. Join Tom and Dominic as they delve into the world of Roman romance, where gender binaries and modern moral arguments do not feature, and look into the possible theories of how Antinous' body ended up in the Nile... *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia...
Jun 12, 2023•52 min•Ep 340•Transcript available on Metacast The Easter Rising began in Dublin's General Post Office on Easter Monday, 24th April 1916, with Patrick Pearse’s dramatic proclamation of the Irish Republic. Led by republicans opposed to British rule in Ireland, this was the most significant uprising in more than a century - and changed the entire course of Irish and British history, with effects that still reverberate today. In today’s episode, Tom and Dominic return to the GPO in Dublin, as the brilliant Professor Paul Rouse tells the bloody ...
Jun 08, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep 339•Transcript available on Metacast The year is 1912. The bitter arguments about Home Rule for Ireland are reaching boiling point. But with Ulster in uproar, the Tories encouraging mutiny and thousands of rifles pouring into Ireland, is the United Kingdom really heading for a bloody civil war? And was Sarajevo really the turning point that saved Britain from a sectarian inferno? In today's episode, Tom and Dominic are joined by friend of the show Dan Jackson to discuss the thrilling climax to the Home Rule saga, with appearances f...
Jun 05, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep 338•Transcript available on Metacast At the start of the 19th century, the kingdoms of Britain and Ireland were officially 'united' with the Acts of Union. Historian Paul Rouse continues our sweep through the Anglo-Irish relationship, including the Great Famine and the political battles both for and against Home Rule. Tom, Dominic and Paul recorded this episode in the iconic General Post Office on O’Connell Street in Dublin. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London,...
Jun 01, 2023•54 min•Ep 337•Transcript available on Metacast “In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms.” The proclamation of the Irish Republic, delivered by Patrick Pearse in Dublin, marked the beginning of the Easter Rising in 1916. Looking at the Anglo-Irish relationship leading up to the Easter Rising, Tom and Dominic are joined by historian Paul Rouse, to explore the deep history between Britain and Ireland, from the ...
May 29, 2023•59 min•Ep 336•Transcript available on Metacast 
