THIS MONTH IN HISTORY
Channel Details
THIS MONTH IN HISTORY
Each month historian Paul Letters delves back into events from This Month in History. The focus is on modern history, with anaylsis of how historical events shape our modern world. For example, we talked to the US fighter pilot who stepped into the March 1969 conflict between China and the USSR whic...
Recent Episodes
14 episodes
Battle of Hong Kong Special
A one-legged Chinese Admiral and triad vigilantes make the most out of the period during the Battle of Hong Kong when the Imperial Japanese Army held...
1956 – Hungary and Mao
Mao pokes his nose into Hungary in 1956 and concludes, "Eastern Europe just didn’t kill on a grand scale…We must kill."
Paul Letters is a...
Nazis invite USSR into Axis Alliance
Noreen and I visit Berlin in November 1940 where Stalin’s Foreign Minister, Molotov, is wooed by Ribbentrop and Hitler: they want the USSR, already in...
Sun Yat-sen and the 1911 Chinese Revolution
Noreen and Paul delve into the reasons why China discarded their emperors and empresses for an unemployable medical doctor - and why he handed rule to...
Trump v Clinton v 1960
Noreen and I examine the rhetoric of the first presidential debates, in 1960, compared with 2016 Trump v Clinton. We consider whether 'civility' was o...
USA, Taiwan and Mao goes nuclear
We focus on the Taiwan Strait Crises of the 1950s and how close the world came to nuclear war. We see how the tail wagged the dog as little Taiwan ben...
Madman Nuclear Alert 1969
We look at war between the two communist giants, the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union – a conflict which began in March 1969. And we’re...
Filipinos ‘massacre’ Americans / How Chiang Kai-shek threw away China
Our irregular guest historian Bruce Gordon joins us. As well as being an eye witness to the Pearl Harbor attack, a US air force pilot in Vietnam and K...
WW3:Cuba / The living pop star who ‘died’ in 1969 / WW2 China v China v Japan [sic]
Why World War III didn’t happen – when it looked odds on in October 1962.
And we look at the three-way war in China in 1940.
We investiga...
JFK v Nixon / Why Japan joined the Axis powers / Sporting cheats
We look at the first US presidential election debate in history, and we’ll see how an afternoon by a hotel pool helps win that election and save human...
Battle of Shanghai / Mona Lisa
In the first half, we take ourselves to Shanghai in August 1937 and the forgotten battle for the city. We’ll see why Chiang Kai-shek decided to take a...
Churchill & Chiang / ‘I Have a Dream’ / Best clothing invention
Chiang Kaishek and Winston Churchill in 1940: Churchill the Appeaser and Chiang the Artful?
Also, we ask what is it about Martin Luther K...
The Burma Road: Churchill appeases Japan / A punk band, a writer and God end communism in Eastern Europe / Amelia Earhart’s disappearance
Why did Churchill appease the Japanese in 1940 and close the Burma Road?
How did a punk band, a writer and God end communism in Eastern Europe?<...
Poland to Paris in 1940 / Japanese expansion & Pearl Harbor before ‘Pearl Harbor’ / North Korea invades South: why?
Join us for a trip through June 1940 and June 1950. Get to know the Norwegian whose treachery added his name to the dictionary in at least five Europe...