Best Keith Hockton Podcasts (2025)

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Canadian Beaver Wars: Blood on the Snow 41:27

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18h ago41:27

41:27

Send us a text Imagine standing on the edge of a Canadian forest, the trees black against a bruised sky, the only sound the ripple of water, and a sudden, thunderous splash. It’s a beaver. But this isn’t just the story of a quirky rodent building dams and chewing trees. This is the story of an animal that reshaped a continent, an animal so valuable…

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The Brontë Sisters 27:14

1d ago27:14

27:14

Send us a text The wind screams across the Yorkshire moors, battering a lonely stone house where three sisters huddle close to the flame of a guttering candle. Outside, the world is bleak and cold, but inside, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë are conjuring storms fiercer than anything the night can offer. They’re not the genteel daughters the worl…

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Canada - The 51st State That Never Was 52:29

8d ago52:29

52:29

Send us a text There was a time when Canada teetered on the edge of vanishing, not through war, but through quiet conquest. In this dark chapter of North American history, we'll uncovers the unsettling truth behind America’s long obsession with its northern neighbor. From Revolutionary War invasion plans to 19th-century annexation bills and Cold Wa…

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La Belle Époque 1:03:55

12d ago1:03:55

1:03:55

Send us a text Paris, 1900. The city glows with electric light. Jazz drips from gramophones. The Moulin Rouge spins like a carousel possessed. In the cafés of Montmartre, Picasso sketches with fevered hands. Toulouse-Lautrec drinks, draws, and watches the night unravel. It is an age of opulence and illusion. Gilded carriages and motorcars jostle on…

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Wit as Weapon: Jane Austen’s Disarming Charm 48:04

16d ago48:04

48:04

Send us a text She never married. She never travelled far. And when she died at just forty-one, only a handful of people knew her name. And yet—Jane Austen changed the literary world forever. And in today’s episode, we’re stepping back into the drawing rooms and hedgerows of Georgian England to explore the remarkable life—and legacy—of one of Brita…

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The Mau Mau - Empire of Blood - Part Two 43:40

21d ago43:40

43:40

Send us a text In Part One, we uncovered the foundations of a rebellion—the Mau Mau oath, the theft of ancestral land, and the British Empire’s ruthless response. But what came next was even more chilling. This is the part they tried to erase. Thousands of files—detailing torture, rape, and castration—vanished. Some were locked away. Others were bu…

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The Mau Mau - Empire of Blood - Part One 47:46

22d ago47:46

47:46

Send us a text Kenya, 1952. Beneath the surface of the colonial order, something was stirring—something ancient, defiant, and dangerous to the British Empire. This is the story of the Mau Mau: a secretive and feared movement, bound by a powerful oath of loyalty, land, and blood. An oath whispered in the forests, taken in darkness, and sworn to recl…

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Bloomsbury’s Broken Light - Virginia Woolf 49:17

27d ago49:17

49:17

Send us a text Virginia Woolf didn’t just write novels—she cracked open the mind and bled onto the page. Time, memory, madness, sex, death—nothing was too sacred. Nothing was off limits. In the heart of Bloomsbury, she found her tribe—artists, rebels, lovers who believed in truth over convention. They questioned everything: war, empire, gender, eve…

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The Colour That Haunted History 42:55

1M ago42:55

42:55

Send us a text In the 1660s, Isaac Newton sat alone in the dark—and drove a needle behind his eye. Not out of madness, but to understand light. Centuries earlier, Homer described the sea not as blue, but wine-dark. In the Iliad and the Odyssey, the colour blue is never mentioned. Not once. This absence haunted William Gladstone. Scholar. Statesman.…

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Mallory and Irvine - Ghosts on Everest 52:20

1M ago52:20

52:20

Send us a text High above the world, where the wind screams and the air itself turns hostile, two men vanished into legend. In June 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine ascended into the death zone of Mount Everest—draped not in modern gear, but in wool, hope, and obsession. They were last seen climbing toward the summit, swallowed by mist… and t…

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John F. Kennedy: The Man Who Dared to Dream 55:59

2M ago55:59

55:59

Send us a text He had the jawline of a movie star, the charm of a matinee idol, and the pedigree of American royalty. But John Fitzgerald Kennedy was more than just a handsome face — he was a war hero, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and the youngest man ever elected President of the United States. He was the golden boy — but behind the perfect sm…

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Nicholas Flamel: The Immortal Alchemist 40:32

2M ago40:32

40:32

Send us a text They say he died in the fourteenth century. But his tomb was empty. No body. No bones. Just silence. Nicholas Flamel—a name etched into dusty grimoires and whispered in secret circles. A medieval scribe who, legend claims, unlocked the secrets of the Philosopher’s Stone. Gold from lead. Life from death. Immortality. For over six cent…

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Thrones of Blood: Rome’s Darkest Emperors 30:01

2M ago30:01

30:01

Send us a text How monstrous were Rome’s emperors? Was Caligula truly mad enough to declare war on the sea? Did Nero really watch Rome burn while playing his lyre? And were these men depraved by nature—or crafted that way by the sharpened pen of Suetonius? In his Lives of the Caesars, written in 121 AD, Suetonius offers a series of intimate autopsi…

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The Lord Lucan File: Blood, Shadows, and Silence 35:42

2M ago35:42

35:42

Send us a text On a cold November night in 1974, blood was spilled in a Belgravia basement. Sandra Rivett, the nanny, was bludgeoned to death. The intended target, perhaps, was someone else. The killer vanished. So did Lord Lucan. An aristocrat with a gambler’s charm and a predator’s instinct, Lucan stepped into the shadows and was never seen again…

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Three Scots in Africa - Slave, Slaver, Abolitionist 47:55

3M ago47:55

47:55

Send us a text Today’s journey takes us deep into the heart of Africa – a continent rich in culture, but ravaged by the forces of empire, greed… and the struggle for humanity. Sir John Henderson – the nobleman who was a slave. Richard Oswald – Politician and slaver, and Dr. David Livingstone – the missionary, explorer, and abolitionist, whose foots…

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Tolkien – Part Two: When the World Was Young 1:02:30

3M ago1:02:30

1:02:30

Send us a text Last time, we traced the scars of war across Tolkien’s early life. Now, we enter the shadow of The Lord of the Rings—a tale forged in the mud of the trenches and tempered by death, faith, and memory. Middle-earth is not fantasy—it’s a reckoning. Its wars echo the shell-blasted fields of World War I. Its darkness mirrors the despair T…

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Tolkien – Part One: When the World Was Young 54:07

3M ago54:07

54:07

Send us a text In the quiet corners of a small English town, in the flickering glow of candlelight, a boy loses himself in the pages of myth and legend—unaware that one day, his own words will shape the greatest fantasy saga ever written. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien… a name that would one day transport millions to the lands of elves, dwarves, and dra…

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Malta - The Greatest Siege in History 47:45

3M ago47:45

47:45

Send us a text Picture this: A sun-scorched island in the heart of the Mediterranean. A desperate band of knights, vastly outnumbered, stands against the might of an empire. It is the year 1565, and the Ottoman war machine—30,000 strong—has arrived on the shores of Malta, determined to wipe the Knights of St. John off the face of the earth. But wha…

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Nostradamus: The Prophet of Shadows 33:50

3M ago33:50

33:50

Send us a text For centuries, the shadow of Nostradamus has stretched across history like a curse. His cryptic quatrains, etched in riddles and veiled in doom, have been blamed—and believed—for the rise of tyrants, the fall of empires, and disasters still unfolding. Did he truly foresee Napoleon’s bloody ascent? The fires of World War II? The tower…

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Banking Collapses: When Empires Eat Themselves 35:32

4M ago35:32

35:32

Send us a text Money builds empires. But when it dies, it drags entire civilizations down with it. From the marble halls of ancient Rome to the glass towers of modern Wall Street, financial collapse has haunted humanity like a recurring nightmare. In this episode of Rearview Mirror Chronicles, we open the vault on three devastating meltdowns: a liq…

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Greenland: Strategic, Silent, Surging 36:57

4M ago36:57

36:57

Send us a text Greenland isn’t just ice and isolation—it’s one of the most strategically coveted places on Earth. Home to the Inuit for over 4,500 years, and later the Norse led by Erik the Red, Greenland has always drawn those bold—or desperate—enough to brave its brutal Arctic edge. The Norse colonies mysteriously vanished by the 15th century, bu…

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The Madman’s Library: Bound in Flesh, Written in Blood 45:10

4M ago45:10

45:10

Send us a text Welcome to the Madman’s Library—a place not of learning, but of unraveling. Here, books do not enlighten. They whisper. They bleed. They rot. Grimoires etched in rust-black ink speak in tongues never meant for human mouths. Manuscripts stitched from flayed skin stare back with hollowed faces. Blood-written ravings of prophets long de…

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Panama Canal: A Corridor of Corpses 34:48

4M ago34:48

34:48

Send us a text The Panama Canal wasn't built, it was bled into existence. What began in the 1880s as a grand French dream quickly unraveled into a nightmare. Led by Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man who conquered the Suez, workers fell by the thousands, claimed by malaria, yellow fever, and the jungle itself. The earth collapsed. The money vanished. An…

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Greatness Demands Blood 31:28

4M ago31:28

31:28

Send us a text What does it mean to be great—truly great? Once, the title was thundered through history: Alexander the Great, Catherine the Great, Peter the Great. It meant something vast, undeniable—power, vision, audacity, and impact that bent the world. But today? The word feels… dusty. Loaded. Hesitant. In this episode, Keith asks the uncomfort…

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Alexander: The Shadow Before the Storm – Part Two 55:56

4M ago55:56

55:56

Send us a text As Alexander the Great marched into the scorched lands of India, his ambition had become something more than hunger, it was obsession. At the banks of the Hydaspes, he faced King Porus and a wall of war elephants, beasts bred for terror and destruction. The battle was brutal, primal—thunder, blood, and chaos. But Alexander won. He al…

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Alexander: The Shadow Before the Storm – Part One 54:02

5M ago54:02

54:02

Send us a text Born in blood and prophecy in 356 BC, Alexander of Macedonia was never meant for peace. His mother, Olympias, whispered of divine ancestry and Achilles’ blood. His father, Philip II, carved an empire from fractured tribes and raised a son who would not just inherit a kingdom—but demand the world. Tutored by Aristotle, trained by war,…

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The Great Fire of London - The Ashes of 1666 40:21

5M ago40:21

40:21

Send us a text In the early hours of September 1666, a single spark in a baker’s shop ignited an unstoppable force—one that would consume the very soul of London. Within days, fire swallowed over 13,000 homes, St. Paul’s Cathedral crumbled in flames, and the sky above the Thames burned red. But this was more than a fire. It was judgment. It was rec…

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Christmas: A Spell Cast in Time 34:52

5M ago34:52

34:52

Send us a text From humble beginnings in a Bethlehem stable to the firelit pages of Dickensian London… from the legend of a gift-giving bishop who became Santa Claus to the thunderous silence of the trenches on Christmas Day 1914, where enemies became men and played football in no-man’s-land—we uncover the heart of a holiday that refuses to be forg…

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The Colosseum: Theatre of Human Ruin 53:01

6M ago53:01

53:01

Send us a text Step into the shadow of ancient Rome, where blood was currency, death was performance, and the roar of 50,000 voices could drown a man’s final scream. The Colosseum was no mere arena—it was a killing ground dressed as theatre, where emperors fed the mob with flesh and fire, and where the line between glory and oblivion was drawn in s…

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Persia: The First Superpower 44:45

6M ago44:45

44:45

Send us a text Persia—land of fire, kings, and legends—was no ordinary empire. It was the original superpower: vast, visionary, and astonishingly ahead of its time. From the shores of the Mediterranean to the banks of the Indus, it stitched together a world of cultures, languages, and faiths under the bold, unifying rule of Cyrus the Great. Here, t…

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Kipling’s Shadow: The Dark Wisdom of 'If—' and 'The Two-Sided Man 8:44

6M ago8:44

8:44

Send us a text Rudyard Kipling’s If— and The Two-Sided Man aren’t just poems—they’re survival guides wrapped in verse. Fierce, honest, and deeply human, they capture the struggle to stay balanced in a world constantly pulling us apart. In this episode, Keith dives into the raw beauty of these two masterworks—and shares why they’ve stayed with him t…

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Sliding Doors of History 55:00

6M ago55:00

55:00

Send us a text What if history didn’t have to end the way it did? What ifs, those tantalising counterfactuals, are more than thought experiments. They’re portals into the unknown, where a single decision, a missed arrow, or a failed winter campaign could have rewritten the world. What if Alexander the Great had lived just ten more years? What if Na…

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Sea Wolf Rising – Part Three 53:22

7M ago53:22

53:22

Send us a text In the fading light of empire, Lord Thomas Cochrane stood not as a relic—but as a scar that refused to fade. Once branded a traitor, imprisoned, and cast into disgrace, Cochrane should have disappeared into the margins of history. Instead, he became something more dangerous: unbound. Exiled from the Royal Navy, he sailed for foreign …

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Sea Wolf Rising – Part Two 59:08

8M ago59:08

59:08

Send us a text It was nightfall when hell was unleashed on the sea. In 1809, Thomas Lord Cochrane—brilliant, reckless, and already feared—led a fleet of fire and bomb ships into the mouth of the Basque Roads. The French fleet lay anchored and complacent. Within moments, they were in chaos. Cochrane’s infernal vessels, packed with explosives and fla…

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Sea Wolf Rising – Part One 45:16

8M ago45:16

45:16

Send us a text Thomas Cochrane didn’t climb the ranks—he tore through them. By 1801, barely out of his twenties, he commanded the tiny HMS Speedy—a 14-gun sloop with a crew of 54 men and boys. What he lacked in size, he made up for in ferocity. In a blaze of cannon fire and cunning, Cochrane captured or sank 53 French and Spanish ships, including t…

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Pompeii: Where the Living Turned to Stone 48:04

8M ago48:04

48:04

Send us a text It happened in an instant. A roar from the earth, the sky turned black—and then silence. The ancient city of Pompeii was buried alive in 79 AD beneath a tidal wave of ash and fire, its people frozen in their final, desperate moments. Some cowered. Others ran. None escaped. The pyroclastic surge hit at 400 miles per hour—incinerating,…

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Rosetta: Cipher of the Dead 34:13

8M ago34:13

34:13

Send us a text In the scorched dust of a ruined Egyptian fort in 1799, French soldiers unearthed a slab of dark stone—black, cracked, and carved with strange scripts. They didn’t know it yet, but they had uncovered a ghost key. A relic that would awaken the long-dead language of a fallen empire. The Rosetta Stone. Etched in Greek, Demotic, and Egyp…

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The Crown’s Forgotten Ghost 35:45

8M ago35:45

35:45

Send us a text Aphra Behn wasn’t just the first Englishwoman to earn a living with her pen—she was a spy, a subversive, and a survivor in a world that wanted women silent. Behind her Restoration comedies and daring satires was a double life of danger and deception, as she slipped across borders and between allegiances, working as an agent for the C…

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Rubicon: The Death of the Republic – Part Two 37:41

9M ago37:41

37:41

Send us a text The river was shallow. The sky was silent. And then, Caesar crossed. Behind him, his legions moved like fate itself—disciplined, cold, unstoppable. Before him, the Roman Republic held its breath. As his boots touched the far bank of the Rubicon, a line older than law was erased. What followed was swift and merciless: the Senate fled,…

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Rubicon: The Death of the Republic – Part One 34:33

9M ago34:33

34:33

Send us a text The year is 49 BC, and Rome is rotting from within—gripped by corruption, paranoia, and the brittle illusion of order. On the banks of the Rubicon, beneath a grey, cold sky, one man stands poised to tear the Republic apart. Julius Caesar—general, statesman, would-be saviour or tyrant—knows that crossing this shallow river means one t…

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Echoes in the Silence: Poetry for When the World Feels Heavy 31:39

9M ago31:39

31:39

Send us a text Keith has a cold this week (cue the tiny violins), so the deep-dive history episode will have to wait. But don’t worry—he’s not leaving you empty-handed. Instead, he’s taking you on a thrilling poetic detour through eight of the most powerful poems ever written. Think of it as soul fuel for stormy days. From the raw defiance of Invic…

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Bloomsbury: Art, Obsession, and Ruin 43:02

9M ago43:02

43:02

Send us a text They shattered convention with every stroke of the pen and brush—and tore through each other’s lives in the process. The Bloomsbury Group wasn’t just a circle of intellectuals—it was a volatile mix of writers, artists, and thinkers who lived and loved on the edge of propriety. Virginia Woolf haunted the edges of genius and madness. H…

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Freemasons: Cloaks, Daggers, and Awkward Handshakes 1:02:10

10M ago1:02:10

1:02:10

Send us a text They’ve been blamed for everything from world domination to hiding the Ark of the Covenant—yet they still can’t agree on who brings the biscuits to the meeting. The Freemasons: part medieval guild, part secret society, part boys’ club with an obsession for aprons, compasses, and handshakes that no one outside the lodge is supposed to…

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Napoleon - The Greatest Art Thief of All Time 37:15

10M ago37:15

37:15

Send us a text Napoleon Bonaparte wasn’t just a military genius; he was also one of history’s most audacious art thieves. During his campaigns across Europe, he systematically looted countless masterpieces, amassing an unparalleled collection of art for France. His most notorious haul came from Italy, where he plundered treasures like the "Laocoön …

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Robin Hood - The Wolf of Sherwood 1:02:57

10M ago1:02:57

1:02:57

Send us a text Deep in the tangled heart of Sherwood Forest, beneath the canopy of ancient oaks and whispered rebellion, a shadow moved—swift, silent, and merciless to the powerful. Robin Hood. Outlaw. Hero. Ghost. With his band of hardened men—Little John, Will Scarlet, and Friar Tuck—they didn’t just defy the Sheriff of Nottingham… they waged a b…

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Black Lei: The Death of the Hawaiian Kingdom 54:53

10M ago54:53

54:53

Send us a text It was a coup masked as diplomacy, a theft veiled in legality, and the death knell of a kingdom. In 1893, Queen Liliʻuokalani, Hawaiʻi’s first and last reigning queen—was overthrown not by her people, but by a cabal of American and European businessmen who hungered for land, sugar, and power. Backed by U.S. Marines and cloaked in fal…

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Nelson’s Last Command: Blood and Glory at Trafalgar 57:00

10M ago57:00

57:00

Send us a text October 21, 1805. The sea churns red off the coast of Spain. Smoke coils through the rigging. The air is thick with fire, splinters, and screams. This is Trafalgar. In a daring break from tradition, Admiral Horatio Nelson orders his ships into two columns—charging headlong into the heart of the Franco-Spanish fleet. It’s a suicide ma…

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Agatha Christie - The Missing Eleven Days 33:44

11M ago33:44

33:44

Send us a text She vanished into the night—leaving behind a crashed car, a fur coat, and silence. In December 1926, Agatha Christie, the most famous mystery writer in the world, became the center of a chilling mystery of her own. Her car was found abandoned on the edge of a quarry. Her belongings were still inside. For eleven days, there was no sig…

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The Kaaba: Where Heaven Meets Earth 43:55

11M ago43:55

43:55

Send us a text At the heart of Mecca, encircled by millions of footsteps and centuries of devotion, stands a structure like no other. The Kaaba—draped in black silk, inscribed with threads of gold—radiates a quiet majesty. Revered as the most sacred site in Islam, it draws pilgrims from every corner of the globe in a powerful, unifying act of faith…

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George Orwell - 1984 Wasn’t Fiction! 57:26

11M ago57:26

57:26

Send us a text George Orwell didn’t just write about dystopias—he saw them forming in real time. British writer, journalist, and relentless truth-teller, Orwell carved his legacy not with idealism, but with unflinching clarity. His time in colonial Burma taught him the mechanics of imperial cruelty. The Spanish Civil War showed him how ideologies r…