Shows / Calm Bedtime History
Calm Bedtime History
Long, calm history to fall asleep to. Every day: a new 3 – 4 hour narrated journey through medieval Europe, ancient empires, and forgotten ages. Paced for drifting minds. No hooks. No shouting. Just history, a fireplace, and a good night's sleep.
Episodes
Calm Bedtime HistoryAzkaban: The History of the Fortress and Its Guards, c. 1500–1998 | Calm Bedtime History
In the fifteenth century, an uncharted island lay somewhere in the North Sea, hidden by enchantments and occupied by the sorcerer Ekrizdis. When he died and…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Viking Age: Norse Expansion, Settlement and Power, 793–1066 | Calm Bedtime History
On 8 June 793, raiders struck the monastery on Lindisfarne, a small island off the coast of Northumbria. The news travelled across the sea to Alcuin, a scholar…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Valyrian Freehold: Rise and Fall, c. 5000 BC–102 BC | Calm Bedtime History
On the Valyrian peninsula, sometime before the first recorded wars with Ghis, shepherds lived beneath the smoking heights of the Fourteen Flames. Later…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Norse Greenlanders, c. 985–1450 | Calm Bedtime History
In about 985, Erik the Red and settlers from Iceland reached the fjords of southwest Greenland and began establishing farms along the coast. Over the next five…
Calm Bedtime HistoryGellert Grindelwald and the Global Wizarding War, 1926–1945 | Calm Bedtime History
In the summer of 1899, Albus Dumbledore met Gellert Grindelwald in Godric’s Hollow, a quiet village in the west of England. More than four decades later, in…
Calm Bedtime HistoryAttila the Hun and the Hunnic Empire, 434–453 | Calm Bedtime History
In the summer of 449, the Eastern Roman envoy Priscus travelled north from the Danube towards Attila's court on the Hungarian plain. He found a world of wooden…
Calm Bedtime HistoryPeasant Work and the Agricultural Year in Medieval Europe, c. 1100–1500 | Calm Bedtime History
In late summer in an English manor, around the thirteenth century, tenants gather to bring in the grain before the weather turns. The church bell marks the…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Founding of Hogwarts and the Four Founders | Calm Bedtime History
In tenth-century Scotland, a castle is raised beside a quiet lake, beyond the sight of ordinary travellers. Four magical founders gather there to make a…
Calm Bedtime HistoryStonehenge and Its Changing Monument, c. 3000–1500 BC | Calm Bedtime History
On Salisbury Plain around 3000 BC, people cut a circular ditch into the chalk and raised banks around a place where cremated dead were buried. Over the…
Calm Bedtime HistoryAlfred the Great and Wessex, 871–899 | Calm Bedtime History
In January 878, Viking forces surprised Alfred at Chippenham in Wessex, and the king escaped into the wetlands of Somerset. By spring, he had established a…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Deathly Hallows in Wizarding History, c. 1200–1998 | Calm Bedtime History
On Christmas Eve 1997, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger walk through the snow into the old churchyard at Godric’s Hollow. Among the weathered stones, a nearly…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Visigothic Kingdom from Toulouse to Toledo, 418–711 | Calm Bedtime History
In 418, a Visigothic settlement took shape in southern Gaul, with Toulouse becoming a royal centre beside the Garonne. Nearly three centuries later, in 711…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Sumerians: From the First Cities to the End of Sumer, c. 4500–1900 BC | Calm Bedtime History
Around 4500 BC, small settlements lay beside the channels and wetlands of southern Mesopotamia. Over the following millennia, one of them, Uruk, grew into a…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Sumerian World: Writing, Gods, Cities and Lasting Ideas, c. 3500–1600 BC | Calm Bedtime History
Around 3200 BC, in the growing city of Uruk on the southern Mesopotamian plain, a scribe pressed signs into a small tablet of damp clay. In the centuries that…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Song Dynasty: Economy, Innovation and Conquest, 960–1279 | Calm Bedtime History
In Kaifeng in 960, Zhao Kuangyin became emperor and founded the Song dynasty after decades of military upheaval. Three centuries later, on 19 March 1279, Song…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Overland Silk Roads, c. 130 BC–1450 AD | Calm Bedtime History
In 138 BC, a Han envoy named Zhang Qian left Chang’an to seek allies beyond the western frontier. His journey would take him through captivity, desert oases…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Sea Peoples and the Eastern Mediterranean Crisis, c. 1207–1150 BC | Calm Bedtime History
At Thebes, around 1177 BC, Ramesses III’s temple at Medinet Habu recorded an attack by land and sea. Beyond the Nile, cities and palace kingdoms across the…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Samurai and Feudal Japan, c. 900–1877 | Calm Bedtime History
In the spring of 1185, Minamoto and Taira forces meet by the straits at Dan-no-ura, where the Genpei War reaches its final battle. Their world began…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Qing Dynasty: The Last Empire and Its Long Nineteenth Century, 1644–1912 | Calm Bedtime History
In 1644, Manchu forces entered Beijing as the Ming dynasty collapsed, and a new court began to establish itself in the former imperial capital. Beyond the…
Calm Bedtime HistoryQin Shi Huang: Unification and the Qin Empire, 259–206 BC | Calm Bedtime History
In 221 BC, at Xianyang in the state of Qin, Ying Zheng received news that Qi had surrendered and the rival kingdoms were united under his rule. He took the…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Punic Wars: Rome and Carthage, 264–146 BC | Calm Bedtime History
In 264 BC, Roman soldiers crossed the narrow strait to Messana in Sicily, answering an appeal that brought Rome into conflict with Carthage. Over the next…
Calm Bedtime HistoryPhoenician Seafaring and the Rise of Carthage, c. 1100–650 BC | Calm Bedtime History
Around 800 BC, ships entered the sheltered Gulf of Tunis and approached a peninsula that would become the site of Carthage. The earliest excavated traces…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Ottoman Empire, from the Frontier Principality to the End of the Sultanate, c. 1299–1922 | Calm Bedtime History
In the spring of 1453, Ottoman ships entered the Golden Horn after being hauled overland around its harbour chain. From the walls of Constantinople, the…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Ostrogoths in Italy: Theodoric’s Roman-Gothic Kingdom, 489–553 | Calm Bedtime History
In 489, Theodoric’s army entered Italy and moved towards the marsh-bound city of Ravenna, where Odoacer’s forces would hold out for years. By 493, Theodoric…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Ming Dynasty: From Peasant Emperor to the Fall of Beijing, 1368–1644 | Calm Bedtime History
In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang proclaimed a new dynasty at Nanjing after the Yuan court withdrew north. Nearly three centuries later, in April 1644, rebel troops…
Calm Bedtime HistoryMesopotamia: The First Civilisation, c. 5500–539 BC | Calm Bedtime History
Around 5500 BC, on the flat southern plain between the Tigris and Euphrates, Ubaid villagers farmed irrigated fields and fished the rivers and Gulf. By around…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Maya: From Early Villages to the Spanish Conquest, c. 1000 BC–1524 AD | Calm Bedtime History
In the Petén lowlands around 1000 BC, small Maya communities were beginning to settle among seasonal wetlands and limestone rises. Over the centuries, some…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Maurya Empire and Ashoka, 322–185 BC | Calm Bedtime History
In the third century BC, at Pataliputra beside the Ganges, the Mauryan court governed an empire stretching from Bengal towards Afghanistan. After the conquest…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Indus Valley Civilisation, c. 3300–1300 BCE | Calm Bedtime History
Around 2500 BCE, beside the Ravi River in what is now Pakistan, builders raised the brick streets of Harappa while Mohenjo-daro grew farther south along the…
Calm Bedtime HistoryImperial China from Qin to Qing, 221 BC–1912 | Calm Bedtime History
In 221 BC, in the former Qin capital of Xianyang, Ying Zheng proclaimed himself the First Emperor after defeating the last rival kingdoms. Couriers carried new…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Rise of the Hittites: From Hattusa to an Empire, c. 1750–1350 BC | Calm Bedtime History
At dusk in the seventeenth century BC, a Hittite royal messenger enters Ḫattuša, the walled city in the hills of central Anatolia. Beyond its gates, the routes…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Fall of the Hittite Empire and Its Successor Kingdoms, c. 1250–700 BC | Calm Bedtime History
Around 1200 BC, the Hittite capital of Hattusa stood above the Budaközü Plain in central Anatolia as its royal administration approached its end. Far to the…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Hittite Empire: Anatolia’s Bronze Age Great Power, c. 1650–1180 BC | Calm Bedtime History
In the late thirteenth century BC, Hattusa stood above the Budaközü plain in central Anatolia, its gates and temples linked by steep stone streets. Within its…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Hellenistic Age and the Successor Kingdoms, 323–30 BC | Calm Bedtime History
In Babylon in 323 BC, Alexander’s death left his generals facing an empire that stretched from Egypt to India. Over the next three centuries, their wars and…
Calm Bedtime HistoryHannibal Barca’s Campaigns in the Second Punic War, 218–202 BC | Calm Bedtime History
In autumn 218 BC, Hannibal’s army descended from the Alps into the Po valley of northern Italy, carrying the war from Iberia to Rome’s own peninsula. Over the…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Han Dynasty: Four Centuries of Chinese Government, 206 BC–AD 220 | Calm Bedtime History
In 202 BC, after defeating Xiang Yu at Gaixia, Liu Bang took the imperial title and founded the Han dynasty. The story begins in Pei County, where a man from a…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Gupta Empire: Mathematics, Literature and a Classical Age, c. 320–550 | Calm Bedtime History
In the fourth century, beside the broad rivers of northern India, Chandragupta I and his successors began to gather a new empire around Magadha and the Ganges…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Persian Wars, 499–449 BC | Calm Bedtime History
In the late summer of 480 BC, Persian ships gathered in the narrow waters beside Salamis while smoke rose from Athens across the Saronic Gulf. This was the…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Peloponnesian War, 431–404 BC | Calm Bedtime History
In the spring of 431 BC, Spartan soldiers entered Attica while the people of Athens gathered behind the Long Walls leading to Piraeus. For twenty-seven years…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Rise of the Greek City-States and the Invention of the Polis, c. 800–400 BC | Calm Bedtime History
At dawn in the eighth century BC, a small settlement above the Aegean shore was beginning another day of fields, sacrifice, and local judgement. Beyond its…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Goths and Vandals: From the Roman Frontier to New Kingdoms, c. AD 200–711 | Calm Bedtime History
In the summer of AD 376, families and armed followers gathered beside the lower Danube, waiting for Roman officials to decide whether they might cross into the…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Gothic Migrations and the Transformation of Rome, AD 250–418 | Calm Bedtime History
On 24 August 410, Gothic soldiers entered Rome through the Salarian Gate after years of warfare and negotiation. Their leader Alaric had begun his career among…
Calm Bedtime HistoryGenghis Khan and the Mongol Empire, 1162–1368 | Calm Bedtime History
In the spring of 1206, riders and felt tents gathered beside the Onon River for a quriltai that would change the political map of Eurasia. Temüjin, once a…
Calm Bedtime HistoryGaul: Tribes, Trade and the Eight Years That Took It, c. 500 BC–AD 200 | Calm Bedtime History
In late summer of 52 BC, Roman soldiers dug two vast rings of earth around the Gallic stronghold of Alesia, facing both the defenders inside and the army…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Fall of Carthage and the End of the Punic World, 201–146 BC | Calm Bedtime History
In the spring of 146 BC, Roman soldiers entered Carthage after three years of siege and fighting. The city stood on the North African coast, its harbours…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Fall of Achaemenid Persia: Darius III and Alexander, 336–330 BC | Calm Bedtime History
In the summer of 336 BC, a new Persian king took the throne after a sequence of murders at the royal court. Six years later, Darius III was dying beside a…
Calm Bedtime HistoryDarius the Great and the Organisation of the Achaemenid Empire, 550–486 BCE | Calm Bedtime History
In September 522 BCE, on a high cliff at Behistun in western Iran, Darius and six Persian nobles killed a man who claimed to be Bardiya, son of Cyrus. Within…
Calm Bedtime HistoryCyrus the Great and the Making of the Persian Empire, c. 600–530 BC | Calm Bedtime History
In October 539 BC, Cyrus entered Babylon after the Persian victory at Opis and the fall of Sippar. The city was ancient, immense, and still governed by its own…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Celtic World, from Hallstatt to the Roman Conquest, c. 800 BC–AD 100 | Calm Bedtime History
At Hallstatt in the Austrian Alps, around the eighth century BC, miners descended into dark galleries to cut salt from the mountain. Above them, across the…
Calm Bedtime HistoryEarly Medieval Ireland: Kings, Monasteries and the World Rome Never Conquered | Calm Bedtime History
In the spring of the seventh century, beyond the old Roman frontier, a king’s household gathered inside an earthen enclosure somewhere in Ireland. There was no…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Druids: Priesthood, Law and the Problem of the Evidence, c. 300 BC–AD 100 | Calm Bedtime History
In the winter of 52 BC, while Julius Caesar's army was tightening its hold on Gaul, disputes still travelled beyond the reach of Roman camps to assemblies…
Calm Bedtime HistoryCarthage: From Phoenician Colony to Mediterranean Power, c. 814–146 BC | Calm Bedtime History
It is dawn on the coast of North Africa, around 814 BC, and a small group of settlers from Tyre is establishing a new town beside the Gulf of Tunis. Over the…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Byzantine Empire, 330–1453: The Roman Empire’s Eastern Chronicle | Calm Bedtime History
On 29 May 1453, before sunrise, Ottoman guns and soldiers gathered beneath the walls of Constantinople. Inside the city, the last Roman emperor and a small…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Late Bronze Age Collapse, c. 1250–1150 BC | Calm Bedtime History
In the summer of the late thirteenth century BC, a messenger reached the palace of Ugarit on the Syrian coast with news of hostile ships nearby. Across the…
Calm Bedtime HistoryKadesh: The Great Chariot Battle of Egypt and the Hittites, c. 1300–1258 BC | Calm Bedtime History
In the fifth year of Ramesses II, around 1274 BC, an Egyptian army approached the fortress of Kadesh beside the Orontes River in western Syria. The Hittite…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Entire Story of Anglo-Saxon England, 410–1066 | Calm Bedtime History
On the morning of 25 September 1066, King Harold's army met Harald Hardrada's force at Stamford Bridge, east of York, after a rapid march from the south. The…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Entire Story of Rome, 753 BC–476 AD | Calm Bedtime History
At dawn in the spring of 753 BC, according to Rome's traditional chronology, small settlements looked down from the hills above the Tiber. Twelve centuries…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Achaemenid Persian Empire, c. 550–330 BC | Calm Bedtime History
In the spring of 330 BC, Macedonian troops entered Persepolis, the ceremonial heart of the Persian Empire, after a decade of campaigning across Asia. To…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Entire Story of Ancient India, c. 3300 BC–AD 550 | Calm Bedtime History
Around 2500 BC, in the lower Indus plain near present-day Larkana, workers moved through the planned streets of Mohenjo-daro, past wells, drains and the great…
Calm Bedtime HistoryThe Entire Story of Ancient Greece, c. 1100–146 BC | Calm Bedtime History
In 146 BC, Roman soldiers entered Corinth after the defeat of the Achaean League, and the city’s wealth was carried away. Nearly a thousand years earlier…