Hello I'm Paul Bradshaw and I'm Lauren Gray, welcome to Viral
History - your weekly fix of fascinating ephemera from the world of history.
Coming up on this week's show, I sit down with historian and writer Tracy Borman. And I meet up with Nick Hodges creator of YouTube channel History Buffs. First
up, let's go to the news.
New research is revealing that Viking armies that invaded Britain in the ninth
century were much larger than previously thought. The excavation of the camp at
Torksey in Lincolnshire showed the site was the size of 75 football pitches
reflecting a Viking army several thousand strong - larger than most towns
of the period. And excavations at Bamburgh Castle have unearthed a unique
find of national significance, a small copper alloy fragment, decorated with an
intricate, zoomorphic depiction of a bird, is likely from the 8th century next up
Tracy Borman is one of our most respected historians and writers, with
books on everything from witchcraft to Thomas Cromwell. And Viral History had
great pleasure in talking to her about the Tudors. The Tudors were dazzlingly
successful at restoring not just the authority of monarchy but also the
mystique. They created this division between the public and the private and
appointed themselves almost as godly beings, so of course everybody adored
them. In what ways and how effectively was England governed during the Tudor
period? England was very much a sovereign state during the Tudor period, the Tudors
reigned and ruled as well and everybody respected their authority. There were
also seismic changes during the 16th century, notably the Reformation the
revolution in government, we were a very different country by 1603 to the one
that the Tudors inherited in 1485. Could this be called the beginning of the
modern? I think there is a transition during the Tudor period
it goes from medieval during the Plantagenets and then of course it's
propelled into the beginnings of a modern age. How did English society and the
economy change during this period and with what effects? There were very
significant changes in society and the economy and there was a lot more
regionalization as well as having this strong central power of government, there
was also a devolution of power to local authorities, the beginning
of poor law, of keeping records locally, lots of the things that historians now
rely on, actually began thanks to the revolution of the Tudors.
It's great to talk with someone so steeped in their subject. Well next up on
Viral History, we sit down with a fellow YouTuber and content creator of the
mighty channel History Buffs! So Nick, what is History Buffs and how did you come up
with the idea? Well, History Buffs is a channel that reviews historical movies
and tells people how accurate they are like how accurate was Gladiator or Braveheart
of the Patriot and I wanted to do it and I wanted to do a film review show on
YouTube and I noticed that there wasn't any show that was dedicated just to
reviewing historical movies, and I thought that if I wanted to try and make YouTube
a career that might be something new tapping into a niche market of not
many other people were doing. So when did you launch your channel and were you
surprised for how quickly your numbers grew? I think the first video I uploaded
was back in July 2015 and it took a while before the channel started to grow
but once it did - yeah it was it was really I was really happy it exceeded my
expectations and everyone else's yeah. How do you choose which films to review?
I choose them based on the popularity of the film and also how many people have
been requesting it, so for example, at the end of each video I say let me know
which film you'd like me to do and when I take a look at the comments when I see
which films pops up the most so I noticed that I came to a point when I
noticed when I typed in History Buffs in the search engine of YouTube it would
say History Buffs and all the films I've done, but at the very top would be one
filmed I hadn't, had never done and it was Saving Private Ryan, so I was like
okay now I need to cover that. So history's been
approached in lots of different ways in the past number of centuries from print
to multimedia, how do you see that growing in the future? Like you know
Assassin's Creed also the new Battlefield 1 game which is set
during the first world war and one of the things that I noticed that when the
game came out due to popularity that people were obsessed with the first
world war would be and researching as much as they could about it, so I really
think games are the next step after that. So why do you think that history is having
a renaissance of sorts? I suppose I guess I could say it into a renaissance on the
Internet I mean like personally I believe that it's not being tackled on
telly as much as it used to be, but I think that people are just really hungry
for it, they you know want to get as much as they could. And do you have
any other plans for History Buffs in the near future?
Well right now I'm reviewing, writing a script for the movie Timeline which is
about a bunch of archaeologists who go back to the 100 Years War in France in
the 14th century then I'm doing the Bounty and then I'm thinking of
reviewing a film called Torah Torah Torah which is about Pearl Harbour, a lot
of my subscribers have been asking me to review Pearl Harbour because it's not known
as a very good film, but I thought like instead of that maybe I should bring
people's attention to a very an excellent Pearl Harbour film that people
more people should be aware of. Thank You Nick for having that in-depth interview
with us today. Thank you.
Here's marguerite with On This Day
Today in 1907 Frank Whittle, the inventor of
the jet engine was born in Coventry. He lived until 1996, seeing his invention
used all over the world. Well that is all from us this week. Feel
free to hit the subscribe button, follow viral history on Facebook, Twitter
and Instagram, like this video and tune in next week. And remember - what's past is
prologue. See you in seven days.
...with books from everything from witchcraft.. ...and you pressed it this time?
Elizabeth as Queen had more limitations than her mudder,
then her mudder had. And I meet up with Nick Hodges creator... so history bring..
Next up....