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In 1936 after the election of a Popular Front Government and a social revolution that spread across Spain, the general’s counter revolution began with the help of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The delivery of Franco’s army from Morocco to southern Spain by German and Italian aircraft resulted in a bloody campaign of terror across the country.Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like to hel
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Eighty years ago today, Red Army soldiers liberated the surviving prisoners at Auschwitz, one of many Nazi death camps but now an enduring symbol of the Holocaust. Today, there will be no Russian representative at the official commemorations of the Holocaust at Birkenau, eight decades on. This podcast explores the complex nature of memorialisation at Auschwitz and the challenges of managing memorialisation, tourism and the past. Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you e
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The British right wing print media has enjoyed extraordinary power to shape politics and public affairs in the UK in the past half century. They have influenced the outcome of elections, their owners invited to meet with British Prime Ministers regularly and they have been largely free of regulation. This podcast explores the liberal ideas that have failed to constrain their power, in the context of Prince Harry’s record settlement with Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers.Help the podcast to
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This episode is the second in our isms and ologies series on Anarchism and gives a concise overview on the history of anarchist thought and politics from the 1848 revolutions onwards. Anarchism shaped countries as diverse as Mexico, Russia, Spain and China and both capitalist and Stalinist regimes sought to destroy it. Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like to help the show continue, plea
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At the end of the First World War the Ottoman Empire was carved up between the British and the French, with Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq being taken as mandates by Britain and Syria and Lebanon being occupied by France. The British originally secured Syria for France, but the French then overthrew the new king of the country, Faisal, the son of Sharif Hussein of Mecca.Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of c
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The most significant European fascist since Franco, Jean Marie Le Pen, died this week aged 96. This podcast explores the context of the rise of Le Front Nationale, and explores his role within it. Part two will examine how Le Pen used the failings of Mitterand’s government in the 1980s to his advantage. Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like to help the show continue, please consider sup
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In 1988 Mikhail Gorbachev visited the USA on a state visit and experienced celebrity treatment in Times Square in New York as he came to visit the new president elect George H.W. Bush. This episode explores this fateful visit and as the Soviet Union crumbled from within and Gorbachev’s formative years and career in the Communist Party its machinery.Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like t
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In late 1942 the battle for Stalingrad consumed Nazi Germany’s sixth army and both German and Soviet war correspondents attempted to give a picture of the horror and brutality. Western war reporters were unable to reach the battle until it had finished and were escorted through the ruins. Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like to help the show continue, please consider supporting it in th
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The Battle of Stalingrad was the greatest German defeat of the war, consuming the entire German 6th Army and dealing a catastrophic blow to German morale on the home front as the illusion of a possible victory vanished for millions of German civilians. This is the third of a series of Christmas podcasts on the siege and its bloody aftermath:Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like to help t
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The Battle of Stalingrad was the greatest German defeat of the war, consuming the entire German 6th Army as Stalin and his generals struggled to adapt to the onslaught and ordered that no Russian, civilian or military, be allowed to retreat. This is the second of a series of Christmas podcasts on the siege and its bloody aftermath:Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like to help the show co