Single Malt History with Gareth Russell

In a sleepy Irish seaside village in 1957, a priest called on a housewife for a cup of tea one rainy afternoon to chat about what school was best for her daughter. A few hours later, the woman backed out of her driveway in such a panic she smashed her car into the gatepost. She kept driving. Within days, a scandal had swept over everybody involved.

Wallis Simpson divided a nation and continues to divide opinion. I'm joined by Anne Sebba, author of the acclaimed Simpson biography "That Woman," who the real Wallis Simpson was - and Anne's new hit read, examining what really happened to the alleged American Communist spy, Ethel Rosenberg. Content warning: This episode contains brief discussions of domestic and sexual abuse, which some listeners may find disturbing. 

The extraordinary stories of Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Katherine Parr, their marriages to the notorious King Henry VIII, and how they ended up memorialised in the rhyme Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived. Content warning: This episode contains frequent discussions of miscarriages and fertility struggles, which some listeners may find distressing.

Our interview with Professor James Walvin, author of the new book A World Transformed: Slavery in the Americas and the Origins of Global Power. Professor Walvin discusses working on the history of enslavement over the past four decades and his most recent work, in which he explores how the brutal enforced transportation and labour of millions of Africans continues to have significant consequences today. Slavery shaped many of the dominant features of Western taste: items and habits or rare and costly luxuries, some of which might seem, at first glance, utterly removed from the horrific reality of slavery. Dr. Walvin traces the global impacts of slavery over centuries, far beyond its legal or historical endpoints, arguing that the world created by slave labour lives on today. Content warning: This episode contains discussions of child abduction, physical coercion, racism, human trafficking, and child abuse which some listeners may find distressing.

Jean Findlay, author of the new novel "The Queen's Lender," stops by Single Malt History to discuss what drew her to the dramatic world of 16th-century Scotland and its artistic Danish queen.

The brutal real-life history that inspired Agatha Christie's iconic 1934 detective novel. WARNING: Contains discussions of home invasion, suicide, and pregnancy loss, which some listeners may find distressing.

Dr Tim Ashby joins us today to discuss the thrilling life of Elizabethan spy, and fellow Ashby, William. And I catch-up on the books I've been reading, including Heartstopper by Alice Oseman (why I love the TV adaptation), Elizabeth Fremantle's The Poison Bed, and Jane Ridley's biography of King George V. An eclectic bag today!

Franz Ferdinand's death is one of the most famous in history. But who was this man killed on 28th June 1914 by 'the shot heard round the world'? And how did it lead to the First World War? WARNING: This episode contains discussions of suicide which some listeners may find distressing.

Single Malt History is back with a trip to the 11th century in the company of Don Hollway, author of THE LAST VIKING.

I am joined by my friend Kate McCaffrey to discuss her genuinely astonishing research into the sixteenth-century network whose secrets she discovered hidden in Anne Boleyn’s Books of Hours.