Historian Mat McLachlan brings Australian history to life in this engaging, educational and entertaining podcast. From the ancient age to the modern world, take a trip through time with Living History!<hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>
Living History with Mat McLachlan
Claim This Podcastby Mat McLachlan
4.9(41 reviews)
217 episodes
Updated Weekly
Accepts GuestsHas SponsorsLocation 🇦🇺
74
Podcast Authority
BetaGoodBased on show quality, social media presence, reviews, charts, and more
Quality91
Social0
YouTube93
Engagement51
Podcast Overview
Historian Mat McLachlan brings Australian history to life in this engaging, educational and entertaining podcast. From the ancient age to the modern world, take a trip through time with Living History!<hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
6/23/2019
Unlock The Full Podcast Authority Score Report
See how your podcast performs across key metrics
74
Podcast Authority
BetaGoodBased on show quality, social media presence, reviews, charts, and more
Quality91
Social0
YouTube93
Engagement51
8
Excellent Areas
3
Good Performance
8
Growth Opportunities
excellent
Episode Length
29 minutes
Performing excellently!
good
Publishing Consistency
Every 11 days
Recommendations available
Unlock the full report to see detailed tips
poor
Episode Thumbnails
Recommendations available
Unlock the full report to see detailed tips
+16 More Metrics
Unlock comprehensive insights including:
- • YouTube presence analysis
- • Social media reach metrics
- • RSS compliance scoring
- • Podcast 2.0 features
- • Technical standards
What's Included in Your Full Report
Detailed Analytics
- Complete breakdown of all 19 authority metrics
- Personalized recommendations for each metric
- Industry benchmarks and comparisons
- Technical RSS feed analysis and compliance scoring
Growth Strategies
- Step-by-step action plans for improvement
- Quick wins to boost your score immediately
- Pro tips from successful podcasters
Get your free podcast insights report
See how your show performs across every key metric
Instant delivery
No spam
Attract Better Guests
High authority scores make your podcast more attractive to industry leaders and influencers who want to appear on credible shows.
Secure Sponsorships
Sponsors look for podcasts with proven authority and engagement. Your score demonstrates your podcast's value to potential partners.
Grow Your Audience
Understanding your strengths and weaknesses helps you make data-driven decisions to expand your listener base effectively.
2 verified contact emails on file for Living History with Mat McLachlan
Pitch yourself as a guest, propose sponsorships, or reach out directly to the host.
Recent Episodes
May 1, 2026
Ep287: Hitler's V1 Flying Bomb
<p>At a quarter past four in the morning on the 13th of June 1944, the world's first cruise missile fell out of the sky onto a railway bridge in the East End of London. It killed six people. One of them was 19-year-old Ellen Woodcraft. Another was her eight-month-old son. Their husband and father was a soldier in Normandy. He would not learn of their deaths for days.</p><br><p>In this episode, Mat McLachlan tells the story of Hitler's V-1 — the buzz bomb, the doodlebug, the first robot weapon ever used in war. From the secret laboratories at Peenemünde to the photo-interpretation tables at Medmenham, from the Guards Chapel disaster on Waterloo Sunday to the Tempest pilots tipping flying bombs out of the sky with their wingtips, this is the eighty-eight-day campaign that brought a new kind of terror to a city that thought the Blitz was over.</p><br><p>Through authentic voices from the summer of 1944, we hear George Orwell guiltily hoping the next bomb falls on someone else, the diarist Vere Hodgson writing that the brain of man has gone so far beyond his morals that the only thing to do is scrap him and begin again, and Field Marshal Alan Brooke recording his disgust as the Home Secretary panics in front of the War Cabinet. We meet R.V. Jones, the 28-year-old scientist who'd been hunting the V-weapons since 1939, and the Double Cross Committee that fed Berlin a brilliant lie that saved central London — at the cost of the working-class boroughs to the south. We follow Wing Commander Roland Beamont and the Belgian ace Remy Van Lierde hunting buzz bombs over Romney Marsh, and the Australian pilot Ken Collier who accidentally invented the wingtip technique that would become the defining image of the doodlebug summer.</p><br><p>Why did Hitler refuse to aim the V-1 at the Allied invasion ports, where it might have changed the war? Why did the British government deliberately steer bombs onto Croydon and Wandsworth instead of Westminster — and keep it secret for thirty years? How did a robot bomb costing five thousand Reichsmarks come closer to ending the war than any other weapon Germany ever built? Mat explores these questions through the words of those who were there — the scientists, the pilots, the cabinet ministers, and the Londoners who lived under the buzz.</p><br><p>A clear-eyed look at one of the most futuristic weapons of the Second World War, and the man who threw it away. Hitler had the world's first cruise missile. He used it to kill people in their beds. And he lost the war anyway.</p><br><p>“Hitler, and all of us, hoped this new weapon would sow horror, confusion and paralysis in the enemy camp. We far overestimated its effect.” — Albert Speer, Nazi Minister of Armaments</p><br><p><strong>Episode Length: </strong>40 minutes</p><br><p><strong>Features: </strong>First-hand accounts from George Orwell, Vere Hodgson, Field Marshal Alan Brooke and Hans Speidel; Wing Commander Roland Beamont's recollections of hunting the V-1; the testimony of fireman Harold Chisnell from the Imperial War Museum sound archive; Hitler's confrontation with Rommel and Rundstedt at Margival on the eve of the Normandy collapse; and the story of the Double Cross deception that saved central London.</p><br><p><strong>Presenter: </strong>Mat McLachlan</p><p><strong>Producer: </strong>Jess Stebnicki</p><br><p><strong>Sail through history with Mat McLachlan! </strong>Join a 2027 history cruise: https://battlefields.com.au/history-cruises-2027</p><br><p>Find out everything Mat is doing with books, tours and media at https://linktr.ee/matmclachlan</p><br><p>For more great history content, visit www.LivingHistoryTV.com, or subscribe to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@MatMcLachlanHistory</p><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>
April 24, 2026
Ep286: Gallipoli - The Turkish Perspective
<p>Every Anzac Day we tell the story of the men in the boats. This year, we're telling the story of the men on the cliffs above them.</p><br><p>On April 25th, 1915, Deputy Officer Muharrem stood in a shallow trench above a small cove on the Gallipoli coast and watched 4000 Australian soldiers rowing toward him through the darkness. He had 160 men to stop them. No reinforcements. No artillery. No orders. Behind him, the German general commanding the Turkish army had galloped off to the wrong end of the peninsula, chasing a landing that didn't exist. The chain of command had collapsed. Muharrem was on his own.</p><br><p>What happened next is one of the most remarkable stories of the entire Gallipoli campaign. Two Turkish colonels who didn't wait for permission to act. A desperate forced march across an open plain under naval gunfire. A single field gun manhandled onto a ridge by its exhausted crew. And a bluff that stopped the Anzacs from winning the day.</p><br><p>"The bastards will give us a go after all," said Lance Corporal George Mitchell, as the first Turkish bullets hit the water around his boat.</p><p>"I was very frightened," said Turkish Private Adil Sahin, shaken awake by a sentry as the boats appeared below him. "We didn't know anything about this invasion."</p><br><p>Two armies. Two perspectives. One dawn that decided the fate of the entire campaign.</p><br><p><strong>Episode Length:</strong> 40 minutes</p><br><p><strong>Features:</strong> First-person accounts from Turkish defenders including Captain Faik, Private Adil Sahin and Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Kemal; Australian voices from Charles Bean's Official History and Bill Gammage's The Broken Years; and material drawn from Mat McLachlan's book Krithia: The Forgotten Anzac Battle of Gallipoli (Hachette, 2024).</p><br><p><strong>Presenter:</strong> Mat McLachlan</p><p><strong>Producer:</strong> Jess Stebnicki</p><br><p>Sail through history with Mat McLachlan! Join a 2027 history cruise: https://battlefields.com.au/history-cruises-2027</p><br><p>Find out everything Mat is doing with books, tours and media at https://linktr.ee/matmclachlan</p><br><p>For more great history content, visit www.LivingHistoryTV.com, or subscribe to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@MatMcLachlanHistory</p><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>
April 14, 2026
Ep267: The Rats of Tobruk, 1941
<p>Eighty-five years ago, 14,000 Australian soldiers were surrounded in a dusty Libyan port by Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps. They were outnumbered, outgunned and cut off from the world. Nazi propaganda called them rats caught in a trap. They took the name and made it their own.</p><br><p>In this episode, Mat McLachlan tells the story of the Siege of Tobruk — 242 days that proved the German blitzkrieg could be stopped. Through the voices of the men who were there, we go inside the perimeter: the terror of a first night patrol, the nine-inch trenches of the Salient, the flies in the stew, the dust that turned sleeping men into waxed mummies, and the destroyers that slipped in through the darkness to keep them alive.</p><br><p>"Anybody that wasn't frightened was either a liar or a fool. We were all frightened, naturally. But we had a job to do and we did it." — Harley Brooks, 2/12th Battalion</p><br><p>From Corporal Jack Edmondson's Victoria Cross action on Easter Sunday to the bond between a mother and her fallen son, from General Morshead's red hat to Bob Semple — the last Rat of Tobruk, who died in 2024 aged 102 — this is the story of ordinary men who refused to be beaten.</p><br><p>And when it was over, the men who had conquered Europe had not conquered them.</p><br><p><strong>Episode Length:</strong> 27 minutes</p><br><p><strong>Features:</strong> First-person accounts from the AWM Keith Murdoch Sound Archive including Eric Brough MM (2/24th Battalion), Harley Brooks (2/12th Battalion), Max Thow (2/12th Battalion), Owen Curtis (2/12th Battalion), Alf Miller (2/4th Australian General Hospital), Jack Hawkes (2/28th Battalion) and General Sir Thomas Daly (18th Brigade HQ).</p><br><p><strong>Presenter:</strong> Mat McLachlan</p><p><strong>Producer:</strong> Jess Stebnicki</p><br><p>Sail through history with Mat McLachlan! Join a 2027 history cruise: https://battlefields.com.au/history-cruises-2027</p><br><p>Find out everything Mat is doing with books, tours and media at https://linktr.ee/matmclachlan</p><br><p>For more great history content, visit www.LivingHistoryTV.com, or subscribe to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@MatMcLachlanHistory</p><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>
217 total episodes available
Similar Podcasts
Discover related shows you might enjoy
The Old Front Line
Paul Reed
Not So Quiet On The Western Front! | A Battle Guide Production
Dan Hill and Dr. Spencer Jones
WW2 - Both Sides of The Wire | A Battle Guide Production
Prof. Matthias Strohn & Jesse Alexander
We Have Ways of Making You Talk
Goalhanger
Pete & Gary's Military History
Peter Hart
Half-Arsed History
Riley Knight
Battleground
Goalhanger
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
The WW2 Podcast
Angus Wallace
Forgotten Australia
Michael Adams
The Rest Is Classified
Goalhanger
Cold War Conversations
Ian Sanders
The Rest Is History
Goalhanger
The Rest Is Politics: US
Goalhanger
The History Listen
ABC Australia
Deep-dive analytics for Living History with Mat McLachlan
Frequently asked questions
Have a different question and can't find the answer you're looking for? Reach out to our support team by sending us an email and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
- What is Living History with Mat McLachlan?
- How often does this podcast release new episodes?
This podcast updates weekly.
- Where can I listen to this podcast?
This podcast is available on 10 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
- Does this podcast accept guests?
Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.
Legal Disclaimer
Pod Engine is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially connected with any of the podcasts displayed on this platform. We operate independently as a podcast discovery and analytics service.
All podcast artwork, thumbnails, and content displayed on this page are the property of their respective owners and are protected by applicable copyright laws. This includes, but is not limited to, podcast cover art, episode artwork, show descriptions, episode titles, transcripts, audio snippets, and any other content originating from the podcast creators or their licensors.
We display this content under fair use principles and/or implied license for the purpose of podcast discovery, information, and commentary. We make no claim of ownership over any podcast content, artwork, or related materials shown on this platform. All trademarks, service marks, and trade names are the property of their respective owners.
While we strive to ensure all content usage is properly authorized, if you are a rights holder and believe your content is being used inappropriately or without proper authorization, please contact us immediately at hey@podengine.ai for prompt review and appropriate action, which may include content removal or proper attribution.
By accessing and using this platform, you acknowledge and agree to respect all applicable copyright laws and intellectual property rights of content owners. Any unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or commercial use of the content displayed on this platform is strictly prohibited.