History podcast Trapped History is confirmed to come back this July with co-hosts historian Oswin Baker and broadcast journalist Carla O’Shaughnessy discussing more history’s forgotten changemakers.

With new episodes released twice a month and lasting around forty minutes, the podcast’s mission is to reboot the mainstream sense of history and bring to global attention the unsung heroes not covered in school. The podcast has previously featured singers, scientists, soldiers, artists and record-breakers from around the world..

Every episode, Oswin and Carla are joined by a special guest with a unique perspective or insight into the featured changemaker. Some of the guests who have previously joined the show in the past 4 seasons include BBC presenter Mishal Husain, UK politician Jeremy Corbyn and award winning author Sathnam Sanghera. The podcast provides history for the curious, with inspiring and often heart-breaking stories of people who broke the mould with their bravery and defiance. Guests also nominate their own suggestions for historic people they believe deserve recognition, who are either promoted by the podcast on social media or produced as a separate mini episode.

The new season’s first episode kicks off with BBC presenter and author Nihal Arthanayake discussing how Helen Bamber bore witness to some truly terrifying conversations after World War II. Guest Jet from 90s television game show The Gladiators covers Lisa Lyon, the woman who pioneered the world of female body building. Plus, a fascinating interview with a changemaking hero still alive today – 96 year old television director Madame Xuan Phuong on her experiences of the American War in Vietnam.

The full line up of episodes and release dates are as follows:

01/07/2025 The Difficult Conversation: Helen Bamber’s Mission to Bear Witness
(with author and BBC presenter Nihal Arthanayake)
15/07/2025 Connie Converse: The Lost Singer-Songwriter
(with jazz singer Sarah-Jane Morris)
29/07/2025 ‘The Great Men of History’: Replaying the Same Old Shtick
(with The Atlantic’s Helen Lewis)
05/08/2025 Love in the Depths of Hell: Margarete, Milena and Ravensbruck
(with author Gwen Strauss)
19/08/2025 Lisa Lyon: The Body is a Statement
(with Jet from The Gladiators)
02/09/2025 Madame Phuong: Recasting the American War in Vietnam
(with Madame Phuong herself)
16/09/2025 Halls of Fame: From the Pantheon to Trump’s Garden of Heroes
(with London artist Habib Hajallie)

Trapped History was originally Oswin’s idea, having studied history at university and working for over 30 years as a social researcher. Throughout his career, he has focused on researching and understanding the lives of ignored and marginalised people. Oswin first started Trapped History as an Instagram account in 2020 to cover the forgotten people he was working on and then followed with the podcast two years later, along with his co-host broadcast journalist and producer Carla. A cosy team of three, Oswin, Carla and their engineer MK Lee record each episode together at the studio of a local youth centre.

The name of the podcast speaks to its mission to break people free of history, inspired by a quote from writer and activist James Baldwin: “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.”

Oswin Baker, Trapped History’s founder, explains:

“If I never hear another history show about Winston Churchill it won’t be soon enough! Don’t get me wrong – he’s incredibly important but I realised that I was simply bored listening to the same old history about the same old people. And they tend to be the same old dead, white male people. So we set about trying to change things. That’s what Trapped History is for – to share hidden stories of unsung heroes. And to give our sense of history a bit of a jump-start, because today we need these inspiring stories of ordinary people more than ever before.”

A history podcast to watch, Trapped History has grown to success with around 45,000 Instagram followers and 6,000 email subscribers, placing it as one of the top 20% of podcasts worldwide according to Buzzsprout. Last year, Trapped History was a finalist at the Independent Podcast Awards.