I enjoy Behind the Bastards. Really good for some lesser-known 19th and 20th century figures -- recent episodes include the arms dealer who helped drive Europe into WWI, the man who developed mustard gas (and nitrogen fertilizer) and the time Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard tried to summon the Antichrist. Really good for some funny stories about less-talked about sides of famous assholes.

I also enjoy the two Christmas episodes which treat with "non-bastards" -- thus far they've covered Raoul Wallenberg (whom I won't spoil) and John "most abolitionists don't go far enough" Brown.

The episodes are always well-sourced and footnoted, and the host manages to find really engaging sources. He's a big Hitler historiography buff if you're also into that.

But yeah, it's a good show for a chuckle and some existential dread

I enjoy Futility Closet. It explores the unusual, quirky and lesser known aspects of history. What I particularly like is that the presenter takes his job seriously: he goes to contemporary sources, eye-witness accounts, historical records, checks details and gets a lot of his information from non-internet sources (seems to spend the whole day in the library).

This is not repackaged information from elsewhere that has been dumbed down but valuable historical research. He also publishes all his references - which are usually extensive.

The Memory Palace by Nate DiMeo and Futility Closet by Greg and Sharon Ross are both well-researched.

The thing I like most about The Memory Palace is that it has a very narrative, almost storyteller-ish (?) quality about it, and while it’s very clearly well-scripted and rehearsed (nobody sounds that good, that consistent without rehearsing), it doesn’t come across as staged. Most episodes are about a topic or a person I’ve never heard of before. If I had to suggest just one episode, I think I’d go with Notes on an Imagined Plaque to be Added to the Statue of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, Upon Hearing that the Memphis City Council Has Voted to Move it and the Exhumed Remains of General Forrest and his Wife, Mary Ann Montgomery Forrest, from their Current Location in a Park Downtown, to the Nearby Elmwood Cemetery (and not just for that title, which is almost longer than the episode).

Futility Closet is a little drier, a little less polished. Greg Ross clearly does his research, and each episode plays out like a conversation between him and his wife about something he found at the library. Note that the history segment is only about a third to half of the episode; there’s also a chunk of time devoted to listener mail, and they close out with one of them challenging the other with a lateral thinking puzzle.

Strong recommendation for In Our Time. It has a huge backlog and the format is the Melvyn Bragg interviews university professors who are experts in the topic of the day.

There are tons of great ones. Here's list of my favorites that I think clear the AskHistorians bar:

• Literature and History- This one is ambitious. Dr. Doug Metzger is attempting to cover - in detail - as much of world literature as he can, tracing its development from the ancient Near East, 5000 years ago and working his way forward. He's currently chipping away at Roman literature, but is about to move into early Christian and Persian material.
• Footnoting History - Hosted by a, well, host of academics, Footnoting jumps from topic to topic to cover events that don't always get the attention they deserve. Like the title implies, it;s the sort of things that get relegated to footnotes in more grandiose narrative. Examples range from Prester John to the Haitian Revolution to the original stories behind Disney princess characters.
• Ancient Greece Declassified - The only purely interview-based podcast on this list. Each week brings an interview with a different scholar about their research on all aspects of Ancient Greece.
• The Hellenistic Age - I have to admit that the host, Derek, is a friend. He's taken on the byzantine task of trying to create a coherent narrative out of all of the disparate components of the Hellenistic period. He also occasionally interviews academics about their active research studying Hellenistic society. Most recently, that included Dr. Nikolaus Overtoom and his work on the Parthian Empire.
• The History of Egypt - Dominic Perry is a PhD candidate in Egyptology The University of Auckland. He is steadily telling the whole narrative political history of Ancient Egypt, from the first legendary pharaohs around 3000 BCE to (theoretically) the Roman occupation. He's just recently reached Tutankhamen.
• History in the Bible- Another comprehensive and detailed narrative history. This one is about, of course, the history presented in and surrounding the Bible. Hosted by Dr. Gary Stevens - a sociologist and architect - it is very thoroughly researched. He takes a secular skeptic position, and explains the history of Biblical criticism alongside the historical narrative. Currently working his way through the life of Paul.
• Tides of History - This is another topical show. Dr. Patrick Wyman jumps between all sorts of historic topics to try and explain their impact on the modern world. He's recently been doing a lot on pandemics and plagues, but previous topics range from Christopher Columbus to the Ottoman Empire.

And lastly, I personally host the History of Persia podcast, a narrative history working my way through the ancient Iranian empires. I obviously cannot objectively speak to my own quality, but I like to think that put at least as much effort, attention, and research into the show as I would into any answer I post here.

I like the Africa Past & Present podcast. Strictly speaking, it's not a history podcast as much as an African Studies podcast. By that I mean the episodes frequently feature guests who are experts on Political Science, Law, Literature, Media Studies, Anthropology, etc.

And very frequently the topics discussed concern contemporary music, elections, the Boko Haram insurgency; as well as discussing historical topics.

For the episodes that do focus on historical topics, I have found them to be illuminating interviews.

The only podcast I really listen to regularly is The Ottoman History Podcast. It's both hosted and produced by historians of the Ottoman Empire and also has a number of different guests (who are also historians) discussing topics related to not just the Ottoman Empire but the Middle East and the broader Islamic and Islamicate world. Also in addition to covering a large range of topics, it also provides a nice bibliography with each episode which makes it easier to further research the topic if you're interested.

Aside from that I've recently started listening to podcasts by the Ajam Media Collective, which are pretty good. Their podcast isn't strictly focused on history but rather it covers a range of topics related to the Persianate world (both modern and historical).

I very much enjoy "The History of China Podcast". The recording quality is a little lackluster early on but it gets much better, but the speaker himself is very easy to listen too as an english native speaker who also speaks chinese well as he lives in China(so it's great for getting the right pronunciations). The podcast covers as it says on the tin, the history of China. It's quite a lot of content as you might expect, and it goes pretty in depth with a lot of stuff. Currently it's on episode 186 and in the middle of the Yuan Dynasty. The podcast goes in chronological order more or less, with it's first episodes starting off with the very mythological history which obviously have no real primary sources but as time went on it went to the mythical Xia, then Shang, and finally around the Zhou dynasty it starts to transition into more of a full time history podcast as the sources are finally readily available enough to be made without involving myth. Over all if you have even the slightest interest in China I highly recommend it, and if you don't I still recommend trying an episode or two to see if you like it.

A couple of others you might like:

• Dan Snow's History Hit (mainly interviews with historians who've got a book out, but an eclectic mix of subjects)

• You're Dead To Me - host is a public historian and "head geek" on Horrible Histories, with one historian amd one comedian discussing a particular subject.

• The Rex Factor - "Rating" every monarch of England/GB from Alfred the Great onwards. Then did Scottish monarchs, then consorts, I think.

Hi there anyone interested in recommending things to OP! While you might have a title to share, this is still a thread on /r/AskHistorians, and we still want the replies here to be to an /r/AskHistorians standard - presumably OP would have asked at /r/history or /r/askreddit if they wanted non-specialist opinion. So give us some indication why the thing you're recommending is valuable, trustworthy, or applicable! Posts that provide no context for why you're recommending a particular podcast will be removed.

The History of English podcast. I haven't listened to many episodes, but so far I'm liking the mix of history and little details about languages, as it really clears up why English is such a unique and beautiful, yet horrendously inconsistent language.