Looking for something along the lines of Stuff You Missed in History Class, but with better story telling and without annoying giggling at random moments. Stuff You Missed in History Class has fairly short (30 min or so) segments on a wide range of historical events. I just can’t listen to it without being annoyed at the hosts.
Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, if you’re looking something longform.
He’s currently doing a series on World War I. Each part is about 3 hours. He just released the fifth part.
Carlin is a little self-deprecating, but he’s a good storyteller and he doesn’t giggle.
It’s a bit of a left turn, but I really enjoy the Futility Closet podcast. It’s about 20 minutes of some incident from history like the tragedy of the Lady Be Good bomber or the mystery of Spring-Heeled Jack, then a few minutes of updates of previous stories and they close with the hosts attempting to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I’ve been finding myself wishing they could release more often because the 30 minutes goes by so fast.
I’ve hear this recommendation a ton and have tried to start this podcast several times, but his voice drives me up a wall. I’m not sure why. It’s like a faux-intensity.
Explaining History;
History Extra from BBC History Magazine;
In Our Time;
Talking History
Mike Duncan’s History of Rome (now complete, at 179 episodes) and Revolutions (ongoing) are excellent; he’s a great storyteller and injects just the right amount of wry humor into the narrative. I’m particularly enjoying his coverage of the French Revolution (he’s currently at the insurrection of August 10.) Robin Pierson’s The History of Byzantium is also pretty good, though a bit more dry.
In Our Time is excellent, but it’s a panel discussion (not a narrative) and it doesn’t solely deal with history—you also get philosophy, science, literature, etc. I also like The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, but as you might guess it’s something of a different beast.
I don’t know if it’s what you’re looking for, but I like Crash Course World History. 10-15min episodes, each on a narrow topic.
I usually listen to him when I’m doing chores. He really likes the sound of his own voice, and keeps pausing the narrative to launch into the same philosophical musings over and over again. Which is annoying in other circumstances, but when I’m doing housework where I can only half-pay attention it works, since if I zone out for a few minutes I don’t really miss anything.
For less rambling options, I’d recommend 12 Byzantine Emperors and a A History of Rome.
For more recent history, I’ve been listenting to the Internet History Podcast. I was fairly young during the early years of the Internet, so its kind of fun listening to history I actually can sort of remember.
Binge Thinking History - A very well researched and well done history podcast. Very rarely updated but worth catching up on.
The British History Podcast - something like 140 episodes in and still not up to the Norman Invasion.
History Extra - the podcast for the BBC History Magazine
My History Can Beat Up Your Politics - Current US politics contextualized within US history.
Useless Information - offbeat and unexpected stories from history.
Snarky_Kong, I agree about Dan Carlin, though I think it’s not his voice exactly but his cadence that bugs me. His phrasing and too-long pauses are annoying.
The history of Rome is excellent and cannot recommend enough. Seriously if you only get one of the podcasts on this thread this is the one.
I’d also recommend 12 Byzantine Rulers (and the Norman Centuries podcast by same guy).
The BBCs The History of the World in 100 objects is also really good
Norman Centuries - A Norman History Podcast by Lars Brownworth.
A bit of a niche, certainly. It’s amazing the breadth of Norman influence, including North Africa, Byzantium, Sicily, etc.
Episode 20 was recently released, and it concludes the series.
Erp, this is the podcast I was mentioning. Apologies, **griffin1977 **for not seeing your note.
Entertainment Weekly recently ran a piece on 20 podcasts you need to hear in 2015. Most of the ones they listed aren’t specifically history, but they did include Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History.
I don’t know if it’s close enough to what the OP is looking for (and even if it is, I don’t know specific titles to recommend), but here’s a list of [free online history courses](1,700 Free Online Courses from Top Universities | Open Culture Courses).
Seconding (or thirding, or fourthing, or fifthing?) this one. This is not only one of my favorite podcasts, but probably one of my favorite things, period.
It starts out a bit slow, but then increases massively in production values and hilarity at around the mid- to late Republic. Very much like the Roman Empire itself.