The History Network

"Ye Sons of Great Britain! come join with me And sing in praise of the gallant British Armie, That behaved right manfully in the Soudan, At the great battle of Omdurman". So go the opening lines of The Battle of Omdurman by William McGonagall. It was indeed a great battle where the British and Egyptian forces were heavily outnumbered by the Dervishes of the Mahdist leader Abdullah al-Taashi. It involved a gallant British cavalry charge in which Winston Churchill took part, and it was a battle with which the discipline of a modern army won over a vastly larger force with older weapons. As the French historian and writer Hilaire Belloc put it: "Whatever happens, we have got... The Maxim gun, and they have not". Dur: 19mins File: .mp3

In late October 2024, under a Vienna sports field (Ostbahn-XI-Platz) on the Danube in the Simmering district, a site of ancient mass burial was discovered. 129 bodies were discovered (intermixed bones may mean there were up to 150 bodies buried), all male, mostly between 20 and 30 years old, all roughly 1.7 metres tall, and many with wounds consistent with ancient battle. Many skeletons had injuries to their skulls, torsos and pelvises. The radiocarbon dating of the remains put them in the range from AD 80-234. Finds included an iron pugio dagger, spear points, scales from suits of scale armour (lorica squamata) and the cheek piece of a helmet. Near the foot of one skeleton, archaeologists discovered shoe nails that came from distinctive Roman legionary caligae. These works were carried out by the Vienna City Archaeology Department in cooperation with the archaeological service provider Novetus GmbH. Initial research results were presented at the Wien Museum in early April 2025. Dur: 57mins File: .mp3

The French infantry passed by the farm at La Haye Saint and advanced up to the ridge where Picton's 5th Brigade were literally lying in wait. Dutch skirmishers retreated back to their parent regiments in Allied lines. The British troops of Picton's 5th Brigade were stationed 100 yards behind the Dutch who were now trading volleys with the ever-advancing wave of French troops. The Dutch could not sustain the defense and reformed with other regiments. The British troops under Picton then formed up 4 men deep (twice as deep as a standard British line) to match the French who had now also formed into battle lines. The contest between the 2 masses of infantry was hotly contested and the Allied centre began to falter. Dur: 21mins File: .mp3

The Congress of Vienna began in November 1814 and its aim was to provide a plan for a long-term peace within Europe after nearly 23 years of constant conflict and to redraw territorial boundaries so no single nation could become too powerful. Dur: 28 mins File: .mp3

"American Indian Wars" in the modern perspective focuses mostly on the American West in the second half of the 19th century with cowboys, Custer and the calvary, but the worst defeat of an American Army in the Indian Wars happened over eighty years earlier when George Washington was president. Dur: 16mins File: .mp3

Another poem, "Gwaith Argoed Llwyfain", refers to another campaign against the Angles of Bernicia. It also provides remarkable insights. Here, the leader of the Angles is named as Fflamddwyn – perhaps meaning "flamebearer" or "flamboyant one." It may refer to Theodoric of Bernicia (r. ca. 584-591) whose reign coincides with Urien's. The idea that it refers to Ida, the first king of Bernicia (r. 547-559), is probably too early to correspond to Urien and Owain's dates (although there is some crossover with the earliest dates of Urien's reign). Dur 22mins File: .mp3

The works of the sixth century AD Brittonic poet and bard, Taliesin, survive in a fourteenth century Welsh manuscript of the Llyuyr Taliessin, The Book of Taliesin. Taliesin is one of the most important figures in Welsh literature, one of the Five British Poets of Renown listed in the ninth century Historia Brittonum. Taliesin himself may have served at the courts of several kings and, although the book ascribed to him contains poems from others and from later ages, at least some of the poems are likely to be original. Others see the earliest poems as being from the ninth century (and so none are original). Several of the poems, however, describe reigns and battles which took place in sixth century Britain and shed light on what is usually regarded as a particularly dark age. Dur: 22mins File: .mp3

On 5 March, 1804, a group of 233 convict rebels revolted against their incarceration in the British colony of New South Wales (corresponding to modern Sydney, Australia). They were met by the local garrison, consisting of only 28-30 regulars and a few loyalist militia, at a place some 40km north-west of Sydney soon dubbed Vinegar Hill. Dur: 29mins File: .mp3

It is the dream of every ancient historian that some new discovery will solve a mystery of the past – some newly discovered fragment of a lost historian which will make everything clear. Such circumstances are very rare, but the Gothic War of Decius is one recent occasion where exactly the new discovery historians dream of took place. Dur: 24mins File: .mp3

The battle of Abritus saw the death of two emperors in battle against a foreign enemy – Gaius Messius Quintus Trajanus Decius, usually known as Trajan Decius (r. 249-251) and his son and co-emperor Quintus Herennius Etruscus Messius Decius, known as Herennius Etruscus (r. 251). They lost their lives intercepting an invasion of Goths led by their king, Cniva, as it attempted to leave the empire weighed down with plunder after an immensely successful two-year raid. Dur: 33mins File: .mp3

At the conclusion of the Malayan Emergency in July 1960, plans were put into place to incorporate British North Borneo and Singapore into Greater Malaysia. This idea was met with fierce opposition from President Sukarno of Indonesia and in 1962 Indonesia began supporting revolutionary factions on the large, dense jungle island of Borneo. Dur: 18mins File: .mp3

For the battle of Chaeronea, we get none of the detailed deployment which we get for the subsequent battles of Alexander in sources such as Arrian, Plutarch, Curtius Rufus, and even in Diodorus himself. We can use those later deployments to our advantage, however, as Macedonian deployment remained remarkably similar - and, having learned so many lessons evident at Chaeronea, why would Alexander deviate from what had happened there – especially when his subsequent battles too brought him so much success. Dur: 26mins File: .mp3

Australia's involvement and commitment to the Vietnam War continued until 1973 when the last remaining platoon who were acting as guards for the Australian Embassy in Saigon, were withdrawn in June 1973. As with American involvement, Australia's contribution also escalated over time. Following the arrival of the AATTV in 1962, in August 1964 the Royal Australian Airforce (RAAF) began to run supply missions to Vung Tau, the port south of Saigon. Dur: 23mins File: .mp3

Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War began in 1962. In July that year, the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV) (or 'the Team') first arrived, consisting of thirty military advisers. These special teams were designed to train and advise local troops - ARVN units, Montagnards, territorial forces, and Mobile Strike (Mike) Forces. Dur: 25mins File: .mp3

Arthur Martin-Leake, serving as a lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1914 was the first man to be awarded a Bar to the Victoria Cross he received during the Second Boer War in 1902. In both circumstances Martin-Leake's conduct was to put the lives of his injured comrades first despite being exposed to constant enemy fire, and being wounded himself. Martin-Leake is the only recipient to gain his two Victoria Crosses in separate wars. Only two other men have been awarded two Victoria Crosses: Captain Noel Godfrey Chavasse in 1916 and 1917, and Captain Charles Upham in 1941 and 1942. Dur: 20mins File: .mp3

On September 22nd, 1862, already almost two years into the US Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation stating that, as of January 1st, 1863, all slaves within any State would be "thenceforward, and forever free." This proclamation freed 3.5 million men and women of African-American descent and, included in the proclamation, was the sentence that "the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom." This meant that African-Americans could serve in the armed forces of the Union. Dur: 20mins File: .mp3

In the Spring of 334 BC, the 22-year-old Macedonian king, Alexander III (r. 336-323 BC - not yet ‘the Great’), invaded the vast Achaemenid Persian Empire with an elite but small army of some 30-40,000 veteran infantry and only 5,000 cavalry. This invasion was the culmination of almost a century of pressure for some Greek commander or other to punish Persia for its own invasion of Greece during the fifth century BC. Persia had also continued to seriously meddle in Greek affairs thereafter, affecting the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC and with the King’s Peace in 386 BC. Dur: 31mins File: .mp3

The Italian invasion of British Somaliland is an often-overlooked action of the Second World War. Although small and a backwater of the British empire, the region would see several significant firsts of the Second World War. The loss of the colony in mid-1940 was the first significant loss of British colonial territory during the war. The loss alongside the few casualties suffered, caused frustration and concern in London. While the unexpected collapse of Italian East Africa less than a year later represented the first significant theaterwide defeat of the Axis powers. Dur: 20mins File: .mp3

Among the many brave acts of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (November 1878-September 1880), sixteen were awarded the Victoria Cross. Among this relatively small collection of awards, however, are several remarkable circumstances. The war saw the last Victoria Cross awarded to a civilian and the same award was the first to a clergyman (Reverend James Adams). Dur: 33mins  File: .mp3

At the turn of the nineteenth century, Italy, a newly unified upstart Great Power, was looking to expand its political and economic influence into neighboring North Africa. Just a few years earlier, France had taken effective control of the North African coast from Tunisia to Morocco, while Egypt was a British protectorate. Just two areas of North Africa were unoccupied by Western European powers: Morocco and Ottoman Libya. Dur: 22mins  File: .mp3