Trapped History – Details, episodes & analysis

How do you hear the testimony of someone who has been terrorised and tortured? How do you listen as a perpetrator defends their crimes? How can two peoples who have hated and killed each other throughout history learn to live in peace?

These are the questions unsung hero Helen Bamber asked herself when she travelled to Belsen at the end of WW2 and bore witness to untold stories when she engaged survivors in conversation. She would spend her whole life working with victims of genocide, torture and human trafficking and her questions are as vital today as they were 80 years ago as we try rebooting history.

Tune in for a riveting conversation as the broadcaster and author Nihal Arthanayake joins Oswin, Carla and MK for our season opener on why we need to have this conversation, why listening is as important as talking and why connection is our only hope for the future.

Our new season kicks off proper next week with an enthralling episode where the broadcaster Nihal Arthanayake helps us tell the story of the woman who listened – the great Helen Bamber. And we’ll be taking you all the way through the summer till it starts getting cold again – introducing you to the tragic tale of the first singer-songwriter alongside the Communards’ Sarah-Jane Morris, the first female bodybuilding world champion with Jet from Gladiators, a story of love among the ruins of the concentration camps with the historian Gwen Strauss and the rollicking tale of genius and self-deception with the author Helen Lewis.

But to whet your appetite . . . we are absolutely delighted to give you this wonderful taster from the brilliant Astrid & Chinny, the brains behind the award-winning It’s A Continent Podcast. Which uncovers key moments in African history, one nation at a time. It is bite-sized history, it is accessible history and it is history which will deepen and broaden all of our understanding. So I strongly recommend seeking them out on apple, spotify, wherever you listen to stuff, right after you’ve listened to this episode.

Which we particularly want to share because Astrid and Chinny got there before us! I really think that this person is someone we should all know about and carry his name in our hearts. He is Patrice Lumumba, and he was a distinguished Pan-African politician who served as the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo after the country gained independence. Patrice was well-connected but as he became more politically active and vocal, calling for an end to Belgium's rule and advocating for his country's independence, he became a target of both the Belgian and American governments.

To such a point that we need to give you a trigger warning: there is a graphic depiction of death at the 29 minute mark.

In the meantime, sit back, enjoy the ride and make sure you’re back here from 1st July for the rest of Trapped History’s summer season.

Welcome back after our mid-season break! And what a return – with (drum roll) the mysteries, magic and mayhem of The Amazing Randi. He had everything a conjuror should have – the baffling genius, the cape, the beard, the mortal enemies – but more than anything, he had a mission: to uncover and expose cheats and frauds.

Join Carla and Oswin as Goldsmith's Professor Chris French takes us on a rollercoaster journey of psychics and charlatans, secrecy and snake-oil salesmen – and above all else, of doubt and belief. Hold onto your hats – there might be a rabbit in it . . .

Every episode, we ask our guest to nominate someone for the Trapped History Hall of Fame. Usually, it's someone we've never heard of but really should have. But sometimes, just sometimes, it's someone we think we know all about.

In the historian Kim Wagner's nominee, prepare to find out something new about someone you thought you knew.

It's October 1961. The Beatles are in Hamburg, JFK in the White House, Yuri Gagarin has just shot into space. And a state-sponsored killing spree is going down on the streets of a capital city. But this isn't Rio, Washington or Johannesburg. This isn't Moscow or Port-au-Prince or Saigon. This is Paris, the City of LIght, and by the month's end, over 200 north Africans will have been murdered by the city police.

Rewind a further 60 years and the same thing is playing out in the hills and forests of the Philippines, as the Moro resistance is being wiped out by the American army in the infamous Bud Dajo massacre.

Does history teach us anything? Looking around the world today, can we say that we have learnt from the past? This is a tough and harrowing episode of Trapped History, but it is an important one too.

So join Oswin and Carla as we try to make sense of atrocity in the company of one of the great historians of our times, Kim Wagner.

Join Oswin and Carla as we go back – way back – to a time before podcasts and instagram, before radio and photographs. Join us as we journey back to the 18th century and meet the people who made monarchy work.

And they're not the people you might expect to meet. At a time when Britain's kings and queens barely spoke the language, please let us introduce you to Mehmet and Mustapha, two Turkish men who ran the life of George I. And what about Abdullah, who brought a caracal from India all the way to the King's Menagerie at the Tower of London? Or Bridget Holmes, Frances Talbot and Grace Tosier – without whom, life would have been just a bit less tolerable for the Stuart and Georgian rulers.

So tune in to Dr Mishka Sinha, co-curator of Kensington Palace's wonderful exhibition 'Untold Lives', as we lift the curtain and peer into the machinery of monarchy.

We ask all our guests to nominate someone for the Trapped History Hall of Fame. Someone we've not heard of but should have.

In this Season Four opener, please meet Mishal Husain's nominee: Fatima Jinnah, known as Madr-e-Millat or 'Mother of the Nation', a woman who broke the rules and the barriers as Pakistan emerged from the chaos of Partition. She became the conscience of Pakistan, who as opposition leader and presidential candidate, constantly reminded people about the founding principles of the new nation.

It's a great introduction to our new season.

Mishal Husain joins Oswin and Carla for a truly special Season 4 opener, telling the tale of her family's journey through the stormy waters of Indian and Pakistani independence. It's a story of joy and freedom, but also one of fear, loss and terror.

Shahid, Tahirah, Mumtaz and Mary live through Empire, world war, independence and partition. They meet the people who will shape their future, men like Mountbatten and Jinnah - but they also find themselves unable to meet the people who really matter to them, the friends and family they grew up with but who end up on the other side of an embattled border.

It is a truly powerful episode, reminding us that we all have 'history' big and small within our grasp, within our family.

With Jeremy Corbyn announcing that he’s standing as an independent in the upcoming general election, we thought we should revisit his time in the Trapped History studio.

This all-new ‘director’s cut’ contains golden nuggets on the French and American Revolutions and on Charlotte’s campaigning for animal rights. It’s a real treat!

On top of that, the former leader of the Labour Party was really excited to be part of this episode – Charlotte is one of his all-time greats – and he tells us a thing or two about finding and losing tribes, how injustice can move people to great deeds, and how we all need a Charlotte to inspire us.

It’s a fascinating story so please join us for this wonderful repeat.

Guitars, light shows, psychedelia . . . Any idea who might unexpectedly be making their way into the Hall of Fame?

Tune in to hear Martin Gutmann's nominee. We guarantee you'll have heard of them before but not necessarily for Martin's reasons. It's a truly fascinating listen which might change the way you think about bands, friends and music.