The Other Half: Recent Episodes
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As the German occupation tightens its grip, Edith Cavell risks everything to save Allied soldiers, transforming her clinic into a clandestine lifeline under the constant threat of betrayal and arrest.
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A vicar's daughter became the founding mother of modern Belgian nursing, but the outbreak of the First World War would change her life forever.
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If you ever find yourself in need of someone to help you dig up a dead body - Elizabeth Van Lew is your woman. As the US Civil War reaches its bloody climax, Elizabeth rises to the occasion turning the Richmond Underground into an intelligence machine. She played a significant role in winning the war, but it would cost her dearly.
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Against an outpouring of support for the new Confederacy, Elizabeth begins her journey as a spy, establishes the Richmond Underground and helps enable one of the biggest prison breaks of the war.
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Wealthy, well-connected people rarely rebel - but Southern socialite Elizabeth van Lew would be an exception.
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Revolutionary heroes can come from anywhere - and Colombia found one in their seamstress spy, Policarpa Salavarietta
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With her beloved king in custody, Jane does everything in her power to break him out of captivity.
Fleeing an unhappy marriage and filled with royalist fervour, a young Scottish courtier spies, smuggles and embezzled for her king during the English Civil War.
While the image of the spy is often a suave man in a tuxedo - the history of espionage is populated by a number of talented and courageous female spies.
Cixi was on the sidelines, but a bungled attempt at reform and a disastrous war with Japan would bring her back once again.
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Cixi orchestrates a coup to firmly establish her as the chief power behind the throne.
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Born in relative poverty and obscurity, Cixi becomes an Imperial concubine, and rises through the ranks to become one of the most powerful voices at court.
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More husbands, more countries, more scandal. Lola Montez embarks on a world tour, showcasing her controversial new routine: The Spider Dance
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Lola Montez goes up in the world, capturing the heart of a king and sparking a revolution in the process.
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Lola Montez was a woman of many names, who defied societal norms and captivated Europe with her scandalous escapades, extensive travels, and enigmatic persona.
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Manuela Saenz makes one last desperate effort to bring her lover back to power while the Liberator wastes away, trying and failing to escape his labyrinth.
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Manuela Sáenz returns to Simón Bolívar's side in Bogota as he struggles to hold his dream together and assassins close in.
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Simon Bolivar is celebrated as the Liberator of five. And by his side was one of history's great forgotten female revolutionaries.
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Sally arrives in France on the eve of Revolution and into a sexual relationship with her enslaver begins - leading to a fateful choice that would change her life forever.
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Not all rulers are monarchs, and not all mistresses consented to sleeping with rulers. The relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson is one of the most controversial in American history - this is how it starts.
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As the sexual side of her relationship with Louis XV ended, Reinette would need to find new ways to remain in power - all the while, a new enemy emerged from across the Rhine.
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Reinette solidifies her position as the maitresse-en-titre to Louis, but. in doing so, creates some powerful enemies.
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A mother takes her daughter to see a fortune teller, who tells her that she would grow up to sleep with the King of France.
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Hortense travels to England and seduces a King. And his daughter.
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A woman born in Italy, raised in the court of the Sun King and who would become the mistress of England’s most famous womanising monarch.
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Roxelana goes to even more extraordinary lengths to protect her family, but even she would not be able to keep cracks from opening up.
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Roxelana picks a fight with a rival and has another killed. She was playing for keeps.
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Sold into slavery at a young age, Roxelana would tear up the rule book in the Imperial harem in Istanbul.
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After losing her parents at a young age, Lady Nijo is sent to be the concubine of Emperor Go-Fukakusa. But if he expected her to knuckle under, he would be sorely disappointed.
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As the Roman Republic entered its death spiral - Servilia would have to choose between her son and the man she loved.
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The decline and fall of the Roman Republic is one of history's great epics - with a colourful cast of characters that have become household names. All of them men. All, except one.
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The teacher of Socrates and the lover of Pericles - Aspasia of Miletus came to Athens with nothing, but left quite a legacy.
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In the fifth season of the Other Half Podcast, we are looking at Rulers' Mistresses: a cross-cultural story of extra-marital love and lust, bringing ten women, who so often existed in the shadows, into the light.
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Pascalina helps propel Pius XII to the papacy, becoming his right-hand woman and the most powerful woman in Vatican history.
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Pascalina would come a long way from her family farm in Bavaria, becoming the right-hand woman to a man who would become Pope just as Europe slipped towards war.
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Scandal was never far from Christina but she is about to get embroiled in her most serious one to date.
Pontifacts: Women and Female Power in the Vatican with The Other Half Podcast
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On Monday 19 September, Queen Elizabeth II will be laid to rest in Windsor after a state funeral at Westminster Abbey. Royal funerals have gone back hundreds of years, with the first one in the Anglican tradition occurring in 1603. What did those funerals look like, and how will they compare to the one we will watch tomorrow?
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Christina arrives in Rome and makes her mark on a very different court from the one in her homeland.
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One of the greatest conscious uncouplings in European royal history as Queen Christina does two unthinkable acts: give up both her throne and her faith.
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Christina, Queen of Sweden, is arguably the most fascinating female monarch in Early Modern history. One of learning and science, independence and free thinking. She is Scandinavia’s Elizabeth I in many ways, but their legacy is very different.
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Corruption, family drama, betrayal. The pontificate of Innocent X would certainly not be a dull one with Olimpia Maidalchini at the helm.
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Olimpia was very different to her Renaissance forebears, but whose partnership with her brother-in-law would see her become the true power behind the throne of St Peter.
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You might expect Felice della Rovere’s place in history to more or less end with the death of her father - but in fact, she was just getting started.
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Fortune played very little role in Felice's impact on history - few women achieved more in the Italian Renaissance than she.
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Lucrezia emerges from her self-imposed isolation, starts a family and meets the next great love of her life - and I don’t mean her husband.
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Lucrezia is pulled out of mourning to get married for the third, and final, time - but not before getting embroiled in scandal.
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History has many great femme fatales - but the very byword for femme fatale, the archetype for centuries, is Lucrezia Borgia.
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Caterina takes on her most powerful yet - the Borgias
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With her husband indisposed after an illness and treasury empty, Caterina would need to work hard to prove herself once more as the regent of Imola and Forli.
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Caterina Sforza was married young to a scheming relative of the Pope. She would find quickly that to survive, she would need to take matters into her own hands.
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Catherine's fame and influence grow, leading her to the papal court itself in Avignon and the heat of the ruptures that would lead to the Great Schism.
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Introducing the writer, church doctor and eventual saint, Catherine of Siena.
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I speak to historian and author Hallie Rubenhold about the victims of Jack the Ripper, why they have been forgotten and the importance of social history.
Buy The Five The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
Listen to Bad Women
Now nearly 40, Joanna had given up hope of producing a natural heir, meaning that now she had to solve a bit of a conundrum - who should succeed her as ruler of Naples?
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Learn more Joanna sits in triumph back in her capital city, but her kingdom still faced three terrible foes: invaders, plague and internal foes.
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Learn more Following the grisly murder of her husband, Joanna ends up facing war from within and without her kingdom, all of which would end up with her on trial for her life in Avignon.
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We travel to fourteenth-century Naples to hear about one of the most powerful female rulers of the whole medieval period. Joanna of Naples is one of very few queens regnant in the Middle Ages - her reign was action-packed.
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Call it the Dark Century, Rule of the Harlots, or, as I have, the Pornocracy, the tenth century was a nadir in papal history, with powerful nobles calling the shots. And at the centre of it all its matriarch: Marozia
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The legend of Pope Joan is quite possibly the most intriguing and enduring of Vatican myths. But how could the Papacy allow a story this astonishing, this embarrassing, to survive for centuries?
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The Papacy, which is going to be a hugely important factor in this series, is a two-thousand-year institution - where do you start? Well, talking to the host best papal podcast around seems like a good start. Today I talk to Bry Jensen, one half of the Pontifacts podcast, about what the Papacy is, and how it has affected European history.
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In what feels to me a lifetime ago, but was actually only about 12 months, I spoke to Ellen Alspten on the podcast about her book 'Tsarina.
Since then - and I can only assume because of it - the book has gone on to be tremendously successful. It has been shortlisted for the Author’s Club’s Best First Novel award, got a starred review from Booklist and has sold so well that it already has a sequel - 'The Tsarina's Daughter'.
I spoke to Ellen earlier this week about it. Enjoy!
Buy 'The Tsarina's Daughter' by Ellen Alpsten
To finish off the third season of The Other Half, we cover three final women: Tomoe Gozen, Khutulun and Escrava Anastacia.
As rebellion sweeps India, Rani Lakshmibai fights for her nation's independence and becomes its most famous heroine.
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Today I speak to one of my favourite history bloggers. Claire is history blogger that lives in the darkest depths of rural Mid Wales (her words). Her great belief is that it’s okay to live in the past and her blog is all about the latest history books to read and the latest period dramas to watch. You can also find the latest historical travel inspiration for when you have a spare day or two and want to travel back in time!
The Hisdoryan blog
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Rani Laksmibai is one of the great heroines of modern India - a warrior queen who fought against British rule of her country.
Elodie Harper is a reporter and presenter at ITV News Anglia. She's worked as a journalist for the past decade, including for Channel 4 News, ITN and BBC Radio with a focus on crime reporting in Norfolk, where her first two novels are set.
The Wolf Den takes her in a new direction and to a new time period in the lupanar of Ancient Pompeii.
Buy Elodie's book from Blackwells or, if you're not from the US or Canada, from your local bookstore. You can also get it from Amazon, but I reckon Jeff Bezos has enough money.
After her country was stolen from her, a young countess from Lithuania took up arms to get it back.
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Sacagawea completes her journey to the Pacific and back again - making electoral history along the way - as well as looking at how she has been remembered by generations of Americans.
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Sacagawea saves the Corps twice and runs into her family.
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For me, there is only one woman in US history that truly fits the folk heroine bill, the one with more rivers, mountains and memorials in her honour than any other woman in American history - Sacagawea.
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