159. Young Putin, the KGB and the Soviet Unio...

How did the three iterations of the Ku Klux Klan come into being in 1866, 1915, and the late 1940s? What was the impact of the American Civil War and the Abolition of slavery in 1863 on the rise of this terrifying institution? And, what was the condition of the former slaves in t ...  Show more

Who did Samuel Johnson fall in love with towards the end of his life, and why did it break his heart? How did it enrage his old friend James Boswell? And, why did he fear imprisonment in an asylum…? Join Tom and Dominic as they reach the fascinating, but devastating conclusion of ...  Show more

In our most recent episode, Alastair mentioned our sister podcast, The Rest Is History, and its recent mini-series on the Soviet Union, its fall, Putin's early life and his subsequent rise to power. Here's the first episode of the series on Brezhnev, Putin's formative years, his ...  Show more

Vladimir Putin has the power to reduce the United States and Europe to ashes in a nuclear firestorm. He invades his neighbours, most recently Ukraine, meddles in western elections and orders assassinations inside and outside Russia. But who is the man behind the headlines?

Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on 24th February 2022, but how did we get to this point? After the brutality of the Second World War, Ukraine was completely under the control of Moscow. Then in the 1980s, with Chernobyl as the catalyst, the Ukrainian nationalist movement regained ...  Show more

On the 24th of June, 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin and his paramilitary group Wagner carried out what appeared to be an attempted coup in Russia. In a seismic turn of events, his mercenaries marched across the Russian border without resistance and seized key military installations i ...