Sportswashing and the Nazi Olympics

In the early hours of September 2, 1666, a small fire broke out on the ground floor of a baker's house in Pudding Lane. In five days, that small fire would devastate the third-largest city in the Western world.Adrian Tinniswood is a historian, teacher and writer. Adrian joins Dan ...  Show more

Today, we uncover a forgotten SAS mission straight out of a war thriller: an elite unit jumps the chain of command and hijacks a 'pirate train', turning it into a weapon against fascist Italy. Their goal? To launch a surprise attack deep behind enemy lines on an Italian concentra ...  Show more

An accusation that has dogged the Qatar World Cup throughout the tournament is that of ‘sportswashing’. You’ve probably seen it in an article, or heard it in a news report. But what does ‘sportwashing’ actually mean, and where did it come from? While the term itself wasn't coined ...  Show more

Forget the football, the next month's entertainment is coming from The Rest is History! Join Tom and Dominic over the coming weeks as they embark on their colossal festival of world history. To mark the Fifa World Cup they are bringing you an episode on every single country taki ...  Show more

Football, or soccer depending on where you are in the world, is quite unsuitable for women, wouldn’t you agree? No? Well the Football Association thought so when they issued a ban on women’s football in 1921, which stayed in place for fifty years.

Throughout its 92-year existence, the FIFA Men’s World Cup has delivered its fair share of iconic moments – and controversies. But how did the competition originally begin? Who were its first heavyweights? And what does a dog named Pickles have to do with it? On the eve of the 20 ...  Show more