Patreon newsletter #14 (Patreon)

Dear Patrons,

Welcome to newsletter number 14, this edition with a special merch announcement and a WW2-themed cool history thing...

Napoleon Calendar 2025

We're delighted to announce the release of the Epic History 2025 Napoleonic Calendar! We've put this together with our many loyal Napoleonic fans in mind - it features 12 iconic paintings and more than 500 anniversaries, including battles, other major events and every Marshal's birthday.

You can buy one here: https://epic-history-tv-merch-shop.creator-spring.com/listing/epic-history-napoleon-calendar?product=2440

Every Patreon supporter received a merch shop discount code at signup, so if you're purchasing a calendar, don't forget to use yours! (Message us if you can't find it).

IMPORTANT NOTE: calendars must be ordered by 23rd September to guarantee delivery by the New Year. This is due to production and shipping lead-in times, which are unfortunately out of our hands.

AND if ancient history is more your thing, we have another new merch shop addition - 'The Battles of Belisarius' map, hand-drawn by Epic History viewer Jesse Kennedy.

Our series consultant Professor David Parnell shared this on social media, and we liked it so much, we asked Jesse if we could put it in the shop. Particularly loving the use of Procopius quotes dotted around the map!

Production Updates

No new previews to share this week, but rest assured, we are hard at work on:

Voices of the Peninsular War (ETA 2 weeks)

The Battle of Marengo (ETA 3 weeks)

The Battle of Trafalgar (ETA 7 weeks?)

Wold War Two (ETA TBC)

... and other projects to be announced shortly.

One Cool History Thing

This week the Epic History team went on an outing to Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, which many of you will know as the heart of the UK's WW2 codebreaking operations.

We were joined by channel narrator Charles Nove, who has a big personal connection to the site - Charles's mum, a talented French and German linguist, was recruited to work in Hut 3, translating intercepted messages!

While the achievements of the men and women who worked at Bletchley are now famous - and celebrated in films like Enigma and The Imitation Game - for decades after the war, their immense contribution was completely unacknowledged. The people who worked here simply returned to civilian life, and swore never to tell anyone 'what they did in the war'.

The secrets were eventually revealed in the 1970s, and the site is now a fantastic museum, explaining the pioneering and vital work that was done here. You can walk through the old manor house where it all began, as well as many of the hastily assembled 'huts' that sprang up across the grounds as the operation grew. Many have been restored with period furniture and equipment, with audio recordings and projections to take you right back to the 1940s.

The most famous work at Bletchley involved efforts to crack the German Enigma codes and intercept vital intelligence. The exhibition that takes you through this process was undoubtedly the highlight of our visit. In Hut 11A you are introduced to the Enigma machines and the billions of possible outcomes they create, before learning how brilliant mathematicians such as Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman set out to break the codes, with the help of the Bombe machines (seen below). I think we were all left in awe at the scale of these linguistic, mathematical and engineering feats, achieved under enormous pressure, and which had such an important impact on the war.

A great day out, which also provided some inspiration and useful information for our upcoming WW2 series! We'd highly recommend to all.

That's all for this newsletter. We'll be back with more news and updates in a couple of weeks, and thank you for your support!

Toby