Best 20th Century Conflicts Podcasts (2025)

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The Black American Experience in World War Two 25:24

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20h ago25:24

25:24

During the Second World War the immense needs for labour and military manpower transformed American society and gave Black Americans an historic opportunity to advance themselves. This podcast explores the barriers they faced and the racial discrimination of segregated armies and workplaces, and the ironies of a military power based on racial discr…

1
Suffrage, Medicine and Murder 33:45

7h ago33:45

33:45

In the 1850s a medical revolution was beginning with the discovery of anaesthesia and a political and social revolution was still in its infancy in the guise of the embryonic suffrage movement that would emerge in earnest over a half a century later. In their latest novel together under the pen name Ambrose Parry, Christopher Brookmyre and Marisa H…

1
Conflicted Loyalties: Minority voices in wartime Britain and America 24:12

3d ago24:12

24:12

What did Irish Americans make of Roosevelt's wartime pact with Churchill? What did Polish Americans make of his alliance with Stalin? In this podcast we explore the many complex, conflicted and often divided loyalties as a vast multi ethnic and global anti fascist coalition fought to defeat Nazism, Italian fascism and Japanese Imperialism. *****STO…

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The political right and 'anti wokeness' 26:40

1d ago26:40

26:40

Wokeness and anti wokeness are inventions of the political right on both sides of the Atlantic. They are confected ideas that are pushed by elite think tank, media and political groups and have been used in different ways since the era of the counter culture in the late 1960s. Their prime advocates claim that 'woke' is some manner of threat to eith…

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Lt. Col Charles "Lee" Smith P-47 Fighter Pilot ETO WWII - Part 2 of 4 36:44

3d ago36:44

36:44

Send us a text Welcome to episode 2 of the 4 part Lee Smith series, a P-47 fighter pilot during WWII. Now we jump back in as he transfers to England and begins his tour of duty in early 1944 and flies in support of D-Day and the battle of Normandy. Support the showBy Ryan Fairfield, Tony Lupo

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NEW EPISODE! 39. Brigands & Bandits: Banditry in 19th Century Cyprus with Mehmet Demiryürek 33:46

3d ago33:46

33:46

The Bouliler brothers are emblematic figures of banditry amidst a backdrop of economic struggle and social change. Hasan Bulli, a Turkish Cypriot from Paphos, became a legendary folk hero in Cyprus in the late 19th century. Often compared to American outlaws like Jesse James, he gained notoriety for his bold actions and was remembered through songs…

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Ruth Brook Klauber: 101 year-old RAF veteran who fled persecution and served in WWII 50:59

7d ago50:59

50:59

Ruth Brook Klauber, born in Frankfurt in 1924, was just nine years-old when her family fled to Britain following Hitler’s rise to power. Now aged 101, she speaks with us on 'For Honour's Sake' where we also had the honour of presenting her with her UK War Medal and the UK Defence Medal in recognition of her service with the Women’s Auxiliary Air Fo…

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From F. Scott Fitzgerald to pulp detective novels - 1925 America's greatest literary year 33:33

9d ago33:33

33:33

A century ago, America was the literary and intellectual powerhouse of the world. Black writers defined the black experience in the Harlem Renaissance, F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the glamour and hypocrisy of the jazz age in The Great Gatsby and thousands of detective, western and sci fi pulp novels were published, creating the foundations of mode…

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Britain, France and the creation of Iraq 1919-21 25:52

10d ago25:52

25:52

When the mandate system was created at the Paris Peace Conference, it became a powerful tool for the British and French to carve up the Middle East and Africa following the defeat and collapse of the German and Ottoman Empires. France took control of Syria and created the state of Lebanon and the British gained Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq. This…

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The plot against Harold Wilson - 1967 33:01

11d ago33:01

33:01

In the late 1960s the British secret state, bankers, right wing newspaper and TV proprietors and other elite figures sought to remove Prime Minister Harold Wilson from power. They were indifferent to the fact that he had won two general elections in a row and thought that a government that included unelected business figures would save the nation f…

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Lt. Col Charles "Lee" Smith P-47 Fighter Pilot ETO WWII - Part 1 of 4 42:31

11d ago42:31

42:31

Send us a text Welcome to Episode 1 of the 4 part Charles Lee Smith series. Lee flew in the 366th Fighter Group, 391st Fighter Squadron of the 9th Air Force. In this episode we meet Lee and hear what got him interested in becoming a pilot and we learn of his training experiences. Support the showBy Ryan Fairfield, Tony Lupo

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Carter, Reagan, Bush and China 27:04

12d ago27:04

27:04

From the late 1970s onwards China and the USSR were on two very different historical paths and three US presidents, Carter, Reagan and Bush sought to harness the potential of the world's most populous country as it rapidly became wealthier. China, often cited as having embraced capitalism after Mao, abandoned inward looking autarchy and opened its …

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Maoism and Anti Imperialism 24:35

13d ago24:35

24:35

Mao's ideas presented a clear challenge to western imperialism throughout the 20th Century and became a rallying cry to national liberation movements and anti imperialist groups wiithin western countries from the Baader Meinhof Gang to the Yippees. *****STOP PRESS***** I only ever talk about history on this podcast but I also have another life, yes…

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Britain's Broken Media 36:28

16d ago36:28

36:28

In the past two decades successive scandals have revealed that Britain has some of the worst media institutions in the developed world. The ability of ordinary people to interpret the news, use accurate information to hold politicians to account or to gain a coherent sense of the world has arguably never been weaker. In his new book Breaking: Break…

1
Gaza Update 29:12

16d ago29:12

29:12

Britain, France, Canada and other western governments have today issued a statement decrying the blockade of Gaza after nearly two years of offering unconditional support to Israel.This follows weeks of increasingly critical headlines in newspapers and magazines that are traditionally staunch supporters of the Zionist state. What does this suggest?…

1
China after Deng (Part One) 25:07

17d ago25:07

25:07

Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao are often overlooked but pivotal figures in recent Chinese history whose role in steering China through its extraordinary economic transformation in the 1990s and 2000s is overshadowed by Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. This is the first in a series of podcasts about these two figures and how they created the China now ruled…

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John E. Little: US Army rifleman who fought at at Monte Cassino and Anzio during WW2 - Part 5 of 5 34:44

18d ago34:44

34:44

Send us a text This series features John E. Little, a rifleman in the United States 34th Infantry Division, 135th infantry Regiment, Company C who fought at Monte Cassino, Anzio and the Gothic Line during the Italian Campaign in World War Two. Listen in as John, who was 100 years old when this was recorded, talks about these lesser known but brutal…

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Discussing Mark Twain's 'Jim' 35:11

21d ago35:11

35:11

The character of Jim in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain was written as a condemnation of the Jim Crow regimes that were springing up across the South as the Reconstruction Era slowly came to an end. Twain's Jim was the first Black character in popular American literature that can be thought of as being written in depth and without …

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Melting Point: Russian Jews and the journey to Texas 30:41

22d ago30:41

30:41

In the decade before the First World War over ten thousand Russian Jews travelled across the Atlantic but instead of alighting in New York, where a large Jewish diaspora community was established, they came to Galveston, Texas. Galveston was not the final destination for most of the new arrivals, many travelled across the USA and settled in its rur…

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NEW! Primary Source XXXIX: The Ballad of Hasan Bulli 2:09

22d ago2:09

2:09

Hasan Bulli is a significant figure in the history of Cyprus. A notorious bandit who roamed the island’s rural landscape in the late 19th century, he became something of a folk hero--often compared to Jesse James. His daring deeds and the stories surrounding his gang became the stuff of legend in Cypriot folklore. Turkish Cypriot poet Hafız Cemaled…

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The Contradictions of Thatcherism 25:10

23d ago25:10

25:10

Margaret Thatcher sought to revive Britain's fortunes during the 1980s, she was a social conservative and a free market fundamentalist; a contradictory set of ideological positions. The liberation of market forces devastated the social structures that Thatcher claimed to uphold, principally the family, which underwent dramatic transformations throu…

1
Trump's tariff capitulation 26:35

24d ago26:35

26:35

In a hundred years time will China offshore its manufacturing to poorer countries? Not if it has any sense. Today Trump's great retreat from the tariff war began in earnest as some cold economic realities have begun to bite, but what is the historical long view here? This episode explores how offshoring and America's weakening dollar supremacy, com…

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John E. Little: US Army rifleman who fought at at Monte Cassino and Anzio during WW2 - Part 4 of 5 33:42

25d ago33:42

33:42

Send us a text This series features John E. Little, a rifleman in the United States 34th Infantry Division, 135th infantry Regiment, Company C who fought at Monte Cassino, Anzio and the Gothic Line during the Italian Campaign in World War Two. Listen in as John, who was 100 years old when this was recorded, talks about these lesser known but brutal…

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BONUS EPISODE! Surfaces, Surveys & Spatiotemporal Dynamics: The Hala Sultan Tekke Hinterland Project with Jan Coenaerts and Polte De Weirdt 48:36

27d ago48:36

48:36

For this bonus episode, I interview Jan Coenaerts and Polte De Weirdt from Vrije University in Belgium as they embark on their next season at The Hala Sultan Tekke Hinterland Survey Project (HST-HASP). They use archaeological survey and landscape analysis to reassess spatial organization at Dromolaxia-Vyzakia (13th–12th century BCE Late Bronze Age …

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Britain, Germany and the Blitz 27:02

28d ago27:02

27:02

By the start of the blitz Britain didn't have enough anti aircraft guns, despite half a decade anticipating mass bombing as a means of war. Germany was ill prepared for the bombing of British cities as well, with its slow, light bomber lacking the speed or the payload to be able to devastate Britain in the way allied airforces would later destroy G…

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VE Day : London 1945 24:04

29d ago24:04

24:04

What was it like to experience the end of the Second World War in London, 80 years ago today? We read David Kynaston's Austerity Britain to find out how housewives, politicians, writers and diarists experienced the end of six years of terrible conflict and what this meant to them. *****STOP PRESS***** I only ever talk about history on this podcast …

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Nazi wartime labour shortages 25:49

30d ago25:49

25:49

At the height of the Third Reich's war production there were nearly five million additional German and foreign workers in the war economy. Despite the efforts made by Albert Speer to rationalise the war economy and make it more efficient, there was still too few workers to compete with the combined military production of the allied powers. Workers …

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Social change in American post war suburbia 26:41

1M ago26:41

26:41

What did the good life look like in 1945? Or more to the point, what did the good life look like to white working and middle class inner city families? The answer for many was suburbia, new out-of-town developments accessed by America's millions of new car owners who longed for space and who could be assured that people of their social, racial and …

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The German invasion of Belgium: 1914 25:06

1M ago25:06

25:06

In the first weeks of the outbreak of the First World War, the outdated Schlieffen Plan required the German Army to rapidly cross Belgium to attack northern France. Instead of the anticipated 6-8,000 troops, the Belgians fielded 32,000 men and defended the fortress town of Liege vigorously. German atrocities in Liege afterwards were the product of …

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John E. Little: US Army rifleman who fought at at Monte Cassino and Anzio during WW2 - Part 3 of 5 39:28

1M ago39:28

39:28

Send us a text This series features John E. Little, a rifleman in the United States 34th Infantry Division, 135th infantry Regiment, Company C who fought at Monte Cassino, Anzio and the Gothic Line during the Italian Campaign in World War Two. Listen in as John, who was 100 years old when this was recorded, talks about these lesser known but brutal…

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38. Bones, Burials & Bioarchaeology: Reconstructing the Past with Sherry Fox 1:13:16

1M ago1:13:16

1:13:16

In this interview, we delve into the past with bioarchaeologist, Sherry Fox (Arizona State University), as we explore how bioarchaeologists utilize technology to reconstruct the lives of ancient inhabitants, identify various ailments they suffered and how studying even their teeth can unveil details about their occupations. We'll explore a variety …

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The historiography of Malcolm X 25:21

1M ago25:21

25:21

The way in which Malcolm X and the Black Power movement has been interpreted and understood over time has changed as academics grappled with his legacy and interrogated his autobiography, published posthumously. This podcast explores how the way we have come to understand him has changed over time. You can buy Kevern Verney's book - The debate on B…

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America's post war rise and fall 31:42

1M ago31:42

31:42

In the aftermath of the Second World War, America had half the world's wealth and a quarter of its GDP. By the 1970s its position as an economic powerhouse without competitor had slipped away and it faced stronger challenges from Europe and Japan. A decade of crisis in America saw the forces of neoliberal thinking take centre stage to eviscerate th…

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Britain in an age of crisis 2001-2025 29:36

1M ago29:36

29:36

The period of the last 25 years in Britain has been one of continual crisis and disaster, from the Iraq War to the financial crisis to Brexit and covid. Britain has been transformed by these disasters and now is a smaller, poorer and more isolated country, perhaps permanently so. In his book Britain Alone, Liam Stanley explores the causes of this d…

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A Chinese Century? 40:50

1M ago40:50

40:50

America's de-industrialisation, offshoring, its battle to maintain dollar supremacy whilst also restoring itself to being a net exporter have led to historic crises from which there appear to be no exit. President Trump's recent and clearly failing tariffs against China and the rest of the world are merely an indication of America's relative econom…

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John E. Little: US Army rifleman who fought at at Monte Cassino and Anzio during WW2 - Part 2 of 5 40:52

1M ago40:52

40:52

Send us a text This series features John E. Little, a rifleman in the United States 34th Infantry Division, 135th infantry Regiment, Company C who fought at Monte Cassino, Anzio and the Gothic Line during the Italian Campaign in World War Two. Listen in as John, who was 100 years old when this was recorded, talks about these lesser known but brutal…

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Henny Franks- The 101 year old WWII veteran and Kindertransport refugee. 39:56

1M ago39:56

39:56

AJEX National Chair Dan Fox is joined by Henny Franks at Jewish Care’s Holocaust Survivors’ Centre. Henny was born Henriette Grünbaum in Cologne in 1927. Aged 15, she escaped to London on the Kindertransport with her 12 year old sister. Her father was to die in Sobibor but her mother went into hiding in Italy, Switzerland and Belgium. By 1942, Henn…

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Hollywood, witch hunts and class struggle in LA 35:52

1M ago35:52

35:52

In this episode of the Explaining History podcast we speak with the writer Dennis Broe whose new book The Dark Ages, explores the second Hollywood anti communist purge of 1951. We talk about Hollywood and Los Angeles as a site of ongoing class struggle, the role of the media and the LAPD in the development of modern Los Angeles and the role of diss…

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John E. Little: US Army rifleman who fought at at Monte Cassino and Anzio during WW2 - Part 1 of 5 37:54

2M ago37:54

37:54

Send us a text This series features John E. Little, a rifleman in the United States 34th Infantry Division, 135th infantry Regiment, Company C who fought at Monte Cassino, Anzio and the Gothic Line during the Italian Campaign in World War Two. Listen in as John, who was 100 years old when this was recorded, talks about these lesser known but brutal…

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Last flight out of Saigon - a story from the last days of the Vietnam War 29:33

2M ago29:33

29:33

Fifty years ago, the longest imperial war of the 20th Century ended with the fall of Saigon and the victory of the North Vietnamese in the reunification of Vietnam. Miki Nguyen's account of his family's desperate flight from Saigon is covered in his father's story, Last Flight Out, and his father's bravery escaping the retribution of the communist …

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Primary Source XXXVIII: An Excerpt from Luigi Palma Di Cesnola 1:52

2M ago1:52

1:52

Luigi Palma Di Cesnola is a controversial figure in Cypriot history. Born in Turin in 1832, he served in the First Italian War of Independence and later in the Crimean War. In 1858, he left Italy for the United States where his service in U.S. Civil War earned him distinction. He was later appointed as a consul in Larnaca where he engaged in wide-s…

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Pearl Harbor survivor, Ted Kuykendall, from the USS Nevada tells his story (WWII). Part 4 of 4. 33:33

2M ago33:33

33:33

Send us a text Ted Kuykendall was an electrictrician during WWII and was serving on the USS Nevada when the Japanese Imperial Navy bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec 7th, 1941. He shares his remembrances from one of the most historic events in modern history onboard the only battleship to make steam as it tried to leave the harbor during the attack. Later,…

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Pearl Harbor survivor, Ted Kuykendall, from the USS Nevada tells his story (WWII). Part 3 of 4. 30:30

2M ago30:30

30:30

Send us a text Ted Kuykendall was an electrictrician during WWII and was serving on the USS Nevada when the Japanese Imperial Navy bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec 7th, 1941. He shares his remembrances from one of the most historic events in modern history onboard the only battleship to make steam as it tried to leave the harbor during the attack. Later,…

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A little update...and a small request! 1:43

2M ago1:43

1:43

Hello everyone! Thank you as always for tuning in. I've got a lot of great episodes planned that will take us well into 2026! Have a listen! But I'm also writing to ask for your support. If you enjoy the show or any particular episode, please consider taking some time to leave a review online. Positive reviews help grow the podcast and spread the w…

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37. For King & Country: Cyprus in the Second World War with Marios Siammas 1:32:21

2M ago1:32:21

1:32:21

The impact of the Second World War was far-reaching -- Cyprus included. While initial reactions to the war were muted, the dynamic shifted dramatically when Greece entered the fray, spurring Cypriots to enlist in large numbers to serve King and Country. Much like in World War I, many Cypriots served as muleteers, but this time, direct action was fa…

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Pearl Harbor survivor, Ted Kuykendall, from the USS Nevada tells his story (WWII). Part 2 of 4. 31:23

2M ago31:23

31:23

Send us a text Ted Kuykendall was an electrictrician during WWII and was serving on the USS Nevada when the Japanese Imperial Navy bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec 7th, 1941. He shares his remembrances from one of the most historic events in modern history onboard the only battleship to make steam as it tried to leave the harbor during the attack. Later,…

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Pearl Harbor survivor, Ted Kuykendall, from the USS Nevada tells his story (WWII). Part 1 of 4. 35:10

2M ago35:10

35:10

Send us a text Ted Kuykendall was an electrictrician during WWII and was serving on the USS Nevada when the Japanese Imperial Navy bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec 7th, 1941. He shares his remembrances from one of the most historic events in modern history onboard the only battleship to make steam as it tried to leave the harbor during the attack. Later,…

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Jamie & Amba Cooper-Morris - Royal Engineers veteran and Adult Instructors in the Army Cadet Force 49:57

2M ago49:57

49:57

AJEX National Chair Dan Fox is joined by Royal Engineers veteran Jamie Cooper-Morris and his wife Amba (with a guest appearance from Cooper-Morris Junior!) at their home in Kent. They talk about Jamie's extensive operational army career, and his second calling in the Ambulance Service, a career introduced to him by Amba. They met through the Kent A…

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Sgt Bill Mauch 8th AMTAC Battalion, 1st Marine Div, Peleliu, Okinawa WWII - Episode 6/6 SERIES 54 29:40

3M ago29:40

29:40

Send us a text Welcome to the final episode of the 6 part Bill Mauch series. In this Episode Bill describes his trip across the US after leaving the Marines and the heartfelt moment he saw his family again. Support the showBy Ryan Fairfield, Tony Lupo

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Primary Source XXXVII: The Battle of Monte Cassino 1:59

3M ago1:59

1:59

The Battle of Monte Cassino (1944) was a series of Allied assaults on heavily fortified German positions in central Italy, centered around the ancient Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino. Capturing Monte Cassino would weaken Germany's grasp in Italy and open the way to Rome. Cypriot muleteers played a pivotal role in overcoming the rugged terrai…