Welcome everybody to Dan Snow's History. This episode is first broadcast on the 18th of June.

Now the 18th of June is on a million of our stories that we've talked about on this podcast.

The anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. When I was a kid my dad told me stories about history.

When I did that was my kids now. Their favorites the moment, Budica, Joan of Arc, Dan Busters,

the Alamo, took another collectic collection. Anyway my dad used to tell me stories.

And they probably reflected as a domain, they reflected his upbringing in a British boarding school in the 1950s.

Their staples were Wolfenkorebek, the black hole of Calcutta, Gordon and Cartoum, Trafalgar, Waterloo.

It seems to share those stories with me. And I remember I found Waterloo so compelling.

It was a remarkable battle. The end of a military career of one of history's greatest soldiers, generals and statesmen Napoleon Bonaparte.

A battle that for hours and hours on that long June day looked like it could have gone either way.

A battle that pitted Napoleon's veterans against. A polygot allied force.

Some veteran British units from the Peninsula War allied with Dutch and what we now call Belgian troops.

And the Prussians making their dramatic late afternoon arrival in Napoleon's eastern flank to crash into the Napoleon's army.

And possibly deny him a victory that would have opened the road to Brussels and perhaps driven a wedge through the Grand Coalition facing him.

We all never know. Because on the evening of the 18th of June Napoleon's final gamble. Attack by the Imperial Guard.

The Imperial Guard who had never broken in the face in any before came face to face to the top of that infamous ridge with the British guards, exchanged musketry and the French broke and ran back down the hill.

It was the end of Napoleon he couldn't his carriage. Escape the battlefield and he would abdicate a few days later.

I remember when I was a kid my dad would say to me we'll go to 200th anniversary. When I said 2015 I found it extraordinary I'd even be alive that long.

I'd been my late 30s. The whole idea was hysterical. While 2015's come and gone, in fact we're closer now to 2025.

But my dad and I did get that reenactment. And it was a very special experience.

Also that summer started a podcast. I started this podcast down to Snow's History here. And the first guest I had on was my dad.

And we told the story of the Battle of Waterloo together.

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