It is 1793 and France has declared war on Britain, meaning that the British navy must serve as both sword and shield to Europe. Horatio Nelson is at this time a slim and sickly 34 year old captain who nevertheless burns with the zeal to serve his king and country, and has recently taken over command of the impressive Agamemnon. Meanwhile, the British navy has taken Toulon by the summer of 1793 through diplomatic means - its foothold in the Mediterranean - but is struggling to hold it. Upon arriving in the city Nelson is shocked to find it besieged by the French, under the leadership of one Napoleon Bonaparte - the first time that these two titanic rivals of history will brush shoulders, but not the last. At last the city falls to the French, and the British must go in search of another Mediterranean base. They settle upon Corsica - Bonaparte’s homeland. It is there, on the morning of the 12th of July that during the siege of Calvi that Nelson is struck in the face by a spray of stone and shrapnel, severely blinding his left eye forever more. Will this critical injury prematurely end his promising career? Just as a great armada of Spanish and French ships gathers on the horizon, heralding the coming one of history's bloodiest naval battles...
Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss the Siege of Toulon, Nelson’s heroic early forays into the Mediterranean, and the dramatic aftermath of his first near fatal injury.
_______
LIVE SHOWS
*The Rest Is History LIVE in the U.S.A.*
If you live in the States, we've got some great news: Tom and Dominic will be performing throughout America in November, with shows in San Francisco, L.A., Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Boston and New York.
Tickets on sale now at TheRestIsHistory.com
_______
Twitter:
@TheRestHistory
@holland_tom
@dcsandbrook
Producer: Theo Young-Smith
Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett
Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Плейлист
The Rest Is History
The 1st of August 1798 saw the British fleet sailing towards Alexandria into a land of classical history and mythology, the sun setting like blood over the River Nile and French flags flying over the...
In the wake of the Battle of Cape St. Vincent in 1797, Horatio Nelson, though a much acclaimed public hero for his bravery during the battle, is in the doldrums. Having led a harebrained attack on Ten...
Valentine’s day, 1797: the British Royal Navy are hoping for a decisive clash with the Spanish enemy, off the coast of Portugal, at Cape St. Vincent. Nelson has already narrowly avoided capture at the...
It is 1793 and France has declared war on Britain, meaning that the British navy must serve as both sword and shield to Europe. Horatio Nelson is at this time a slim and sickly 34 year old captain who...
It’s 1758 and Britain’s greatest naval commander has just been born. The young Horatio Nelson has inherited his father’s love of god and his mother’s hatred of the French. At age 12, he leaves Norfolk...
“Nixon now! Nixon now! More than ever we need Nixon now!”
It's the 5th of November 1968, and Richard M. Nixon is on tenterhooks, alone in his dark hotel room. He watches as the final states are called...
The Democratic National Convention is in Chicago, and the incumbent president, Lyndon B. Johnson, has pulled out of the race. Anti-war protestors are flooding the streets of the city, and Johnson cont...
“Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”
George Wallace, Governor of Alabama, was one of the most successful third-party presidential candidates in American history. In 1968, he...
“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and com...
The peaceful figurehead of the Civil Rights movement in the early 1960s, Dr Martin Luther King had inspired hundreds of thousands to demand equal rights for African Americans. But by 1968, the once un...
"Tonight I want to speak to you of peace in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.”
On the night of Sunday, 31st of March 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson, after announcing an end to the bombing of North Vietna...
“Let us march! Let us march! May impure blood water our fields!”
Written after the declaration of war against Austria in 1792, “La Marseillaise” was born in the provinces of France, away from the Pari...
The war between revolutionary France and the allied powers of Prussia and Austria has reached fever pitch, and in early August 1792, the latter party threaten a terrible vengeance on Paris should harm...
During the "Ancien Regime", royal executioners held an unholy status, and would strike up fear in the crowds as they walked the streets of Paris. But with the Revolution, the role of executioners in s...
“You have shaken off the yoke of your despots, but surely this was not to bend the knee before a foreign tyrant…”
It’s January 1792, and one of the largest factions in revolutionary France, the Girond...
Welcome to Season 2 of The French Revolution
Revolutionary fervour threatens to engulf the streets of Paris, as demonstrators have gathered on the Champ de Mars to sign a petition demanding the remov...
In the aftermath of Boudicca’s uprising, the Romans felt they could not withdraw from the British Isles. They sent their most competent fighters and leaders to suppress the indigenous Britons in the s...
“Two cities were sacked, eighty thousand of the Romans and of their allies perished, and the island was lost to Rome. Moreover, all this ruin was brought upon by a woman...”
Few figures have statues d...
Viewed as an idiot by those around him, Claudius felt the need to prove himself. In the century since Caesar had invaded Britain, the mythology surrounding the island had taken hold in Roman imaginati...
Julius Caesar saw the Britons as brutal savages. Yet the Romans romanticised their lack of civilisation, deeming them as untainted by Mediterranean luxury. In 55 BC, after sending scouts along the Ken...
After lying in state in an open casket, Evita’s corpse is taken down to a secret laboratory in the basement. And as the Argentinian Victor Frankenstein, Dr Ara, busily embalms her body, her ghost cont...
The workaholic mother of a nation, Evita’s health deteriorates and she faints at a public event. A self-proclaimed martyr, she seems to be willing to die for Perón and Perónism, and her supporters see...
“There is only one man who can lead any worker’s regime.”
Together, Eva and Colonel Perón built a political movement powered by operatic rhetoric. Perónism promised genuine benefits for the working c...
An admirer of Hitler and Mussolini, Colonel Perón rose through the ranks during the 1943 military coup in Argentina. Following a disastrous earthquake in 1944, Perón crossed paths with Eva at a fundra...
“Don’t cry for me Argentina, the truth is I never left you.”
Few political figures have been both hailed as a saint and immortalised through an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. The mythology of Evita Pe...
It’s August 1944: the Liberation of Paris is underway, and France appears to slowly be extricating herself from Nazi control. But, on the French western shores, in Saint-Malo, the deafening sounds of...
“I like an Englishman to look like an Englishman, and beards are foreign and breed vermin. Also depend upon it, they will lead to filthy habits.”
Europe has had a love-hate relationship with facial h...
What did Marcus Aurelius, Jesus, and Ragnar Lothbrok all have in common? Apart from their notorious and symbolic deaths, all three men boasted luscious beards. Throughout history, beards have posed qu...
St Crispin’s day, 1415: Henry V stands victorious, after a tremendous defeat of the French forces at the Battle of Agincourt. He is just about to make a historic speech which will be retold by Shakesp...
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers”.
The Battle of Agincourt in 1415 endures as perhaps the most totemic battle in the whole of English history. Thanks in part to Shakespeare’s masterful Henr...