VE Day
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 8 May 2022
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For most of us, VE Day conjures up black and white images of carefree servicemen and women dancing and beaming in Trafalgar Square, of Churchill greeted by jubilant crowds in Whitehall, and of course, lots and lots of bunting. But was it really like this? In this podcast, you'll hear the speech given by Churchill from the Ministry of Health, cheered on by the boisterous crowd, an account by veteran Edward Toms about the drinking habits of the Soviets, and thoughts from two brilliant historians, Toby Haggith and Russell Miller.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, |
| 0:00.6 | folks, Dan Snow here. |
| 0:01.6 | I am throwing a party to celebrate 10 years of Dan Snow's history hit. |
| 0:06.1 | I'd love for you to be there. |
| 0:07.5 | Join me for a very special live recording of the podcast in London, |
| 0:10.4 | in England on the 12th of September to celebrate the 10 years. |
| 0:14.1 | You can find out more about it and get tickets with the link in the show notes. |
| 0:17.6 | Look forward to seeing you there. |
| 0:30.1 | Hi everyone. Welcome to Dan Snow's history hit. Today is the 77th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, VE Day. Danversary Snow here reporting for duty. So the guns fell silent across Europe, Nazi Germany unconditionally |
| 0:41.8 | surrendered. Hitler's short-lived successor as head of state as Fuhrer, Admiral Dernets, |
| 0:49.0 | surrendered to the Allies. Nazism was defeated. Don't forget, though, that wasn't in the Second World War. |
| 0:55.5 | 99 days later, Japan surrendered in the Far East. But it was the end of a long, brutal |
| 1:02.2 | struggle against Germany. In fact, the greatest war in human history. At 3 p.m., Winston Churchill |
| 1:09.6 | gave a speech from the cabinet room of Downing Street. |
| 1:13.3 | He went to Parliament to officially tell them that the war had ended. Then he addressed the crowds |
| 1:18.5 | of London. This is an episode from our deep and brilliant archive. We recorded it in 2020 |
| 1:24.8 | when we're in the heart of lockdown. It marked the 75th anniversary of VEDA. |
| 1:29.4 | We talked to historians, we talked to a veteran, and we listened to recordings of Churchill himself from the day. |
| 1:35.3 | It's such a fun episode this. It was such an important episode. |
| 1:37.8 | I hope you enjoy the fact that we're repeating it. |
| 1:40.7 | We've also got some great VE Day content on History Hit TV, lots of 75th anniversary programming, |
| 1:46.9 | which is all available on History Hit TV. It's the world's best history channel. You simply go |
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