13 Best Modern History Podcasts

1. Slow Burn

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Slow Burn illuminates America's most consequential moments, making sense of the past to better understand the present. Through archival tape and first-person interviews, the series uncovers the surprising events and little-known characters lurking within the biggest stories of our time.Want more Slow Burn? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to Slow Burn and your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Slow Burn show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify...MORE Hosts Christina Cauterucci, Josh Levin
Producer/Network Slate Podcasts
Email ****@slate.com
Estimated listeners
Apple Rating 4.6/5Apple Reviews 27.5KFacebook 1.4MTwitter 1.4MInstagram 124.7K Avg Length 44 min Format Long form Get Email Contact Get access to full database of 2.7M podcastsCreate podcast lists, export in spreadsheet or CSV file with email contacts and start your podcast outreach in minutes.Sign Up for Free with Email Continue with Google

2. American History Tellers

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The Cold War, Prohibition, the Gold Rush, the Space Race. Every part of your life - the words you speak, the ideas you share - can be traced to our history, but how well do you really know the stories that made America? We'll take you to the events, the times and the people that shaped our nation. And we'll show you how our history affected them, their families and affects you today. Hosted by Lindsay Graham (not the Senator)...MORE Host Lindsay Graham
Producer/Network Wondery
Email ****@airship.fm
Estimated listeners
Apple Rating 4.6/5Apple Reviews 19KFacebook 3.3KTwitter 3.5KInstagram 1.7K Avg Length 37 min Format Medium form Get Email Contact

3. Revolutions

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Season 12 premiered October 20, 2024 a nonfictional account of The Martian Revolution of 2247.Mike Duncan is taking everything he's learned from 12 seasons of historical revolutions - the repeating arcs, characters, ideas, events, and patterns which all revolutions seem to follow - and created a fictional history of the Martian Revolution of 2247. The series is written from the point of view of a historian working hundreds of years after the Martian Revolution and will be presented in the style and format of previous seasons of Revolutions...MORE Host Mike Duncan
Producer/Network Mike Duncan
Email ****@gmail.com
Estimated listeners
Apple Rating 4.8/5Apple Reviews 18.4KFacebook 9KTwitter 119.1K Avg Length 30 min Format Medium form Since Sep 2013 Get Email Contact

4. The Age of Napoleon Podcast

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The Age of Napoleon is a history podcast about the life and career of Napoleon Bonaparte as well as the general context of Europe between the early eighteenth and early nineteenth century. It is about big trends and the grand sweep of history, as well as the smaller, individual stories that bring them to life.MORE Host Everett Rummage
Producer/Network Airwave History
Email ****@gmail.com
Estimated listeners
Apple Rating 4.9/5Apple Reviews 2.7KFacebook 2.5KTwitter 28.8K Avg Length 62 min Format Long form Since Mar 2017 Get Email Contact

5. Witness History

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Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the 'Indian Titanic' and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy's Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia...MORE Producer/Network BBC
Email ****@bbc.co.uk
Estimated listeners
Apple Rating 4.5/5Apple Reviews 2.6KFacebook 9.2MTwitter 3.3K Avg Length 11 min Format Short form Get Email Contact

6. How It Began: A History of the Modern World

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A thrilling podcast about the History of the Modern World. Humanity has been hard at work for centuries to empower itself with better tools and insights, from science and surgery to electricity and the Internet, and this series celebrates the history of those triumphs. Compared to our ancestors, we live like superheroes and sorcerers, endowed with powers they could never have imagined...MORE Producer/Network Brad Harris, Historian of Science & Technology
Email ****@howitbegan.com
Estimated listeners
Apple Rating 4.8/5Apple Reviews 670 Avg Length 25 min Format Medium form Get Email Contact

7. Explaining History

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The Explaining History Podcast, created and hosted by Nick Shepley, offers a comprehensive exploration of 20th-century history through weekly episodes. For over a decade, this podcast has been providing students and history enthusiasts with in-depth analyses of key events, processes, and debates that shaped the modern world.The podcast covers a wide range of topics within 20th-century history, including:- Major historical events like World Wars I and II, The rise and fall of communism, fascism and imperialism- Political movements and ideologies- Economic developments and crises- Social and c..MORE Host Nick Shepley
Producer/Network Nick Shepley
Email ****@explaininghistory.com
Estimated listeners
Apple Rating 4.6/5Apple Reviews 177Facebook 1.2K Avg Length 34 min Format Medium form Get Email Contact

8. Secret Antenna

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We Are Secret AntennaA podcast wherein Kallie and Michelle discuss modern history as a story of overlapping subterranean spy syndicates, clandestine government hangouts, and powerful propaganda machines that have shaped the cultural-political moment of present-day America.New Secret Police, Same As The Old Secret PoliceMORE Hosts Kallie, Michelle
Producer/Network Secret Antenna
Email ****@protonmail.com
Estimated listeners
Apple Rating 4.8/5Apple Reviews 23Twitter 272Instagram 704 Avg Length 79 min Format Long form Get Email Contact

9. Transmissions From Jonestown

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On November 18 1978 Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple died in Jonestown in what is considered to be the largest mass suicide in modern history. Locked deep within an FBI vault, the tapes chronicling the history of Peoples Temple were finally made public after 20 years. From Jim Jones shady beginnings as a faith healer to that final tragic night that his loyal followers drank the Koolaide. Join us as we piece together the history of Peoples Temple and try to understand what led to their demise.MORE Host Shannon Howard
Producer/Network The Attention Span Recovery Project
Email ****@gmail.com
Estimated listeners
Apple Rating 4.4/5Apple Reviews 327Facebook 1KTwitter 1.1K Avg Length 74 min Format Long form Get Email Contact

10. The Vietnamese Boat People

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The Vietnamese Boat People podcast is stories of hope, survival and resilience. Between 1975 to 1992, almost two million Vietnamese risked their lives to flee oppression and hardship after the Vietnam War, in one of the largest mass exoduses in modern history. Escaping by boat, many found freedom in foreign land, many were captured and brutally punished, and many did not survive the journey. This population of people are known as the 'Vietnamese Boat People' and these are their stories...MORE Producer/Network VietnameseBoatPeople.org
Email ****@vietnameseboatpeople.org
Estimated listeners
Apple Rating 4.9/5Apple Reviews 136 Avg Length 34 min Format Medium form Get Email Contact

11. We Didn't Start the Fire: The History Podcast

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This brand new pop culture history podcast is nothing like anything you've heard before, and it's everything you need to understand the modern world. Katie Puckrik and Tom Fordyce, an American pop culture buff and a British music lover, have taken the smash-hit song by Billy Joel and turned it into a podcast. Billy lists 120 people, places, and things in 'We Didn't Start The Fire', and Katie and Tom will do an episode on every single one to create the most fascinating, random and original history of the post-war world. Over the next two and a half years, we're going to learn about politics, rock 'n' roll, sport, space, television, the Cold War, guided along the way by historians, eyewitnesses, and mega-fans...MORE Hosts Katie Puckrik, Tom Fordyce
Producer/Network Crowd Stories+
Email ****@crowdnetwork.co.uk
Estimated listeners
Apple Rating 3.8/5Apple Reviews 446Twitter 921Instagram 902 Avg Length 45 min Format Long form Get Email Contact

12. Throughline

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Throughline is a time machine. Each episode, we travel beyond the headlines to answer the question, 'How did we get here?' We use sound and stories to bring history to life and put you into the middle of it. From ancient civilizations to forgotten figures, we take you directly to the moments that shaped our world. Throughline is hosted by Peabody Award-winning journalists Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei. Subscribe to Throughline ...MORE Hosts Ramtin Arablouei, Rund Abdelfatah
Producer/Network NPR
Email ****@npr.org
Estimated listeners
Apple Rating 4.6/5Apple Reviews 16.3KTwitter 20.9K Avg Length 33 min Format Medium form Since Jan 2019 Video Podcast YouTube
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13. History Files

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What's up history buffs! Welcome to History Files, the podcast that has your curiosity craving covered.
Producer/Network Blake Hamilton
Estimated listeners
Apple Rating 1/5Apple Reviews 12 Avg Length 25 min Format Medium form Get Email Contact