Show Notes
What would you do if your life was omitted, reduced to an overlooked footnote, or filed away as an anomaly?
In this episode, Dan and Elizabeth turn a lens on the practice of history itself, interrogating the choices and power structures that have traditionally left women out of the history books.
They retrace the lives of three women who once stood firmly in their moment: Hatshepsut, a pharaoh who consolidated power in Ancient Egypt; Joanna Ferrour, a peasant whose voice briefly direct the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381; and Ada Lovelace, a Victorian thinker whose ideas arrived well before the world was ready for them.
Each was successful in their time. And yet each of their world-changing contributions were quietly edited out, only to be rediscovered generations — or even millennia later.
So what does it mean when the practice of history fails to record the world as it was? And what happens when history’s failures reveal themselves, much later, as triumphs to a new generation?
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As always, Dan’s royal favourites can chime in anytime on the royal court on Patreon at patreon.com/thisishistory. And don’t forget to listen to this season’s accompanying bonus episodes for this miniseries, where Dan and Producer Al are dissecting the biggest historical failures as submitted by the royal favourites. In this episode, they discuss Catherine Parr’s failed arrest, and what the Crusades reveal about success and failure.
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Presented by Dan Jones and Elizabeth Day
Producer - Alan Weedon
Senior Producer - Dominic Tyerman
Researcher - Phoebe Joyce
Executive Producer - Simon Poole
Executive Producer - Dan Jones
Executive Producer for Daylight Productions - Elizabeth Day
Production Manager - Jen Mistri
Production coordinator - Eric Ryan
Head of content - Chris Skinner
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More from History’s Greatest Fails
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