Hello and welcome to the Restless History, Dominic. Have you heard the latest exciting news about our live tour?

I have, Dominic. It's actually shocking news. It's shocking but also heartening. But just to remind you the listener, the rest is history is going on a nationwide tour at the end of April 2023.

I say tour but it's for three nights only. We'll be in London on the 25th of April and the historic Drury Lane Theatre. Then we'll be able to edit more of the following evening on the 26th of April to play at Usher Hall.

And we will finish on the 30th of April at the Larry in Sulford Greater Manchester. But Tom, the listeners are gacking to know about this shocking news that you have for them about the tour.

Ladies and gentlemen, I can announce that our London live show has now sold out. I repeat, all 2000 seats, yes 2000 seats at Drury Lane Theatre are now sold out.

So not even frozen the musical, the show that we are of course replacing at Drury Lane, not even frozen sold out that quickly.

I can imagine Elsa listening to this right now, fuming at the very thought of the rest is history stealing her snowy thunder. But Elsa, all I will say to you is let it go.

People can go to both shows.

But just to emphasize, that's our first live date already sold out and tickets are selling incredibly quickly for Sulford and Edinburgh too.

So if you do want to come, please buy your ticket right now to avoid disappointment. Now, if you've never been to one of our live shows, what a treat awaits you. We have an incredibly inventive approach.

Tom will take the first half and he will be running through his repertoire of Marilyn Monroe songs and I do be the do thanks for that.

And I will be picking up after the interval with the PowerPoint presentation on the economic policies of Stanley Baldwin. It's an absolute riot.

Fun for all the family. So these are our first ever shows outside London as a podcast. So we'll be putting on a tour de force. I think Dominic is the only word for it in both greater Manchester and the Scottish capital.

There'll be impressions, perhaps a Mureguin pipe music and plenty of absolute lads from history.

Here is how you can get tickets. Just go to restishistorypod.com. It is very, very, very straightforward. That is www.restishistorypod.com. Buy your tickets now to Sulford and Edinburgh before it's too late.

There is an inscription with an over these men who were buried where they fell and over those who died before the others went away dismissed by Leonidas. It reads as follows. Here 4000 men from the Pelophenese once fought 3 million.

That inscription is for them all, but the Spartans have their own. Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by that here obedient to their laws we lie.

So wrote Herodotus, the father of history, looking back on the Spartans who died at the Battle of Thymopoli.

Tom Holland is one of the two great engagements in the Greek-Opersian Wars, the Wars that in some ways are at the very foundation of history itself.

So tell us why are we doing this subject? Apart from the fact that it's a brilliant subject.

It is a brilliant subject. I mean, basically it's the subject that got me into history as a child. So maybe come to that in a minute.

The reason we're doing specifically the Thymopoli and Salamis, which are the two great battles fought in 480 BC, is that this is the 2500th anniversary.

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