History's Toughest Heroes: Hugh Glass: The Real Story of The Revenant

History's Heroes

BBC

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.8 • 704 Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The real-life Revenant who survived a savage bear mauling and crawled hundreds of miles across the American plains to confront the scoundrels who abandoned him.

In History's Toughest Heroes, Ray Winstone tells ten true stories of adventurers, rebels and survivors who lived life on the edge. Immortalised by Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2015 blockbuster movie, the real-life Hugh Glass is still a bit of a mystery. This fur trapper and great mountain man of the Wild West became famous in his own lifetime for being absurdly tough – the legend went that he'd escaped pirates, been schooled by native tribes in survival on the often brutal American Plains. He was savaged by a bear, and crawled 200 miles to wreak bitter vengeance on the men who abandoned him.

A BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. Producer: Suniti Somaiya Development Producer: Georgina Leslie Executive Producer: Paul Smith Written by Imogen Robertson Commissioning editor for Radio 4: Rhian Roberts

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts.
0:07.3	Hello, I'm Kimberly Wilson. I'm a psychologist, and in my new podcast, Complex, I'll be your guide
0:14.4	through all the information and misinformation that's out there about mental health.
0:19.0	I'm joined by expert guests covering topics
0:21.8	from people pleasing to perfectionism,
0:24.2	burnout to empathy,
0:25.9	to find tangible advice
0:27.3	so we can understand ourselves a little better.
0:30.5	Complex with me, Kimberly Wilson.
0:33.0	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:35.7	Before we get going heads up, this story contains some gory scenes.
0:40.4	If you're squeamish, you might want to listen to another episode.
0:45.5	Summer in 1825.
0:48.9	A group of travellers set off along the Santa Fe Trail.
0:52.9	The route from Missouri to New Mexico took them
0:55.9	and their wagons across the high plains
0:57.8	through deserts and over mountains.
1:01.4	There wasn't much going in the way of water and food.
1:04.9	So they were bringing all different kinds of merchandise
1:07.9	from St. Louis across the southern plains into Taos and Santa Fe.
1:13.7	They had been out for a couple weeks, and they encountered a group of fur trappers
1:20.9	who had lost some of their mules, and they needed new mounts.
	...

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