Today In History with The Retrospectors
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Today In History with The Retrospectors
Curious, funny, surprising daily history - with Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina and Arion McNicoll. From the invention of the Game Boy to the Mancunian beer-poisoning of 1900, from Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain to America's Nazi summer schools... each day we uncover an unexpected story for the ages...
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1358 episoodi
The Real Lord of the Flies
Captain Peter Warner and his crew made a startling discovery as they sailed past the uninhabited island of Atta in the Pacific on 11th September, 1966...
The 19th Century Drunk Driver
London cab driver George Smith became the first person ever arrested for drunk driving after slamming his cab into a building on 10th September, 1897....
Why Nobody Liked 'Joey'
‘Friends’ spin-off ‘Joey’ premiered on NBC on 9th September, 2004. 18.6 million Americans tuned in to watch Matt LeBlanc’s next chapter as Joey Tribbi...
Last of the Tasmanian Tigers
The last known Tasmanian tiger to be held in captivity was found dead at Hobart’s Beaumaris zoo on 8th September, 1936.
The critically en...
The One Man Submarine
America’s first attempt at submarine warfare set sail - or rather, sank - off the coast of New York on 7th September, 1776.
‘The Turtle’...
The Night The Earls Vanished
When 90 Irish nobles, led by the Earl of Tyrconnell and the Earl of Tyrone, fled for Normandy in the dead of night on 4th September, 1607, their inten...
Becoming Frederick Douglass
Posing as a sailor, with a borrowed ‘Protection Pass’ in his pocket, Frederick Douglass boarded a train from Baltimore to Philadelphia on 3rd Septembe...
Candle In The Wind II
On 1st September 1997, as Britain was still reeling from Diana Princess of Wales’ untimely death, Elton John’s Candle in the Wind 1997 turned up on a...
America's First Bank Robbery
The Bank of Pennsylvania opened to discover that an astonishing $162,821 (around $3 million today) had vanished without a trace on 31st August, 1798....
The Dizzy Leap From Brooklyn Bridge
Larry Donovan made headlines by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge on 28th August, 1886: a daring feat that earned him the name of the ‘Champion Jumper o...
The Birth of Ladybird Books
The British Museum Library registered the legal deposit of the first ever 'Ladybird Series' titles, from publishers Wills & Hepworth (later 'Ladybird'...
The Man Who Lived in the Airport
The inspiration for Steven Spielberg movie ‘The Terminal’, Iranian refugee Mehran Karimi Nasseri, began his incredible 18-year stint inside Paris’s Ch...
Noodles: The World's Convenience Food
Nissin Chikin Ramen (日清チキンラーメン), the first marketed brand of instant noodles, launched in Japan on 25th August, 1958.
The produc...
The Godfather of Graffiti
Darryl McCray, better known as ‘Cornbread’, was honoured at the Graffiti Hall of Fame in Harlem on 24th August, 2013. But it was in 1960s Philadelphia...
The Voodoo Revolution
The creation of Haiti was the culmination of a slave revolt that began on a stormy night in the dense woods of Bois Caïman in Saint-Domingue, on 21st...
One Direction: The Movie
‘This Is Us’ premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square on 20th August, 2013. 10,000 ‘Directioners’, some of whom had slept rough for three nights, were...
The CIA's Iranian Coup
Mohammad Mossadegh was overthrown in a coup backed by the CIA and MI6 on 19th August, 1953. He had nationalised Iran's oil industry, threatening the B...
Discovering Helium
French astronomer Pierre Jules César Janssen became the first person to observe helium, an element never before seen on Earth, on August 18th, 1868. <...
The Man Who Invented Seat Belts
Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin patented the three-point seatbelt while working for Volvo, on 17th August 1959. Prior to that, cars only had lap belts -...
Inside The Stanford Prison Experiment
The Stanford Prison Experiment, created by Philip Zimbardo, began on 14th August, 1971.
24 male college students volunteered to be assign...
The Fake King of Albania
German circus performer Otto Witte went to his death-bed claiming he had been crowned King of Albania on 13th August, 1913 for a five-day reign which...
Ford Puts The World On Wheels
The Ford Model T rolled into production on 12th August, 1908, still hand-assembled in much the same way as its rivals. But Henry Ford’s ambition for t...
America's Biggest Mall
The Mall of America, in Bloomington, Minnesota, opened on 11th August, 1992, with more than 10,000 employees, 330 stores, and a Camp Snoopy theme park...
Let's Open The Louvre
The world’s most famous museum opened to the public for the very first time on 10th August, 1793: exactly one year after France abolished the monarchy...
California's Courtroom Siege
Jonathan Jackson, teenage brother of imprisoned black power activist George Jackson, entered the Marin County Courthouse concealing three guns under h...
The Shocking Debut of the Electric Chair
Axe murderer William Kemler became the first person to be put to death by electric chair at Auburn Prison, New York on 6th August, 1890. It did not go...
Pepsi Owes Me a Fighter Jet
Is an ad a legally binding contract? Judge Kimba Wood finally brought the curtain down on one of the strangest disputes to ever reach a courtroom on 5...
Put Him in the Stocks!
The public stocks in St Clement’s Dane’s parish (now Portugal Street in London’s Strand) were finally dismantled on 4th August, 1826. They had origina...
Virginia Woolf's Diary
Virginia Woolf returned to her journal after a two-year hiatus on 3rd August, 1917. In the gap, she had suffered a major mental breakdown, attempted s...
Little Hugh and the Blood Libel
Nine year-old ‘Little Hugh’ went missing in Lincoln on 31st July, 1255. A popular narrative emerged that local Jews (in fact gathering for a wedding)...
When Noel Gallagher Met Tony Blair
The ‘Cool Britannia’ party - held at 10 Downing Street on 30th July, 1997 - quickly became one of the most iconic events of the New Labour era. Celebr...
Welcome To Mordor
When J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring reached British bookshops on 29th July 1954, there was little sign it would become one of the most in...
When Zombies Came To Hollywood
Independent horror film ‘White Zombie’, starring Bela Lugosi, premiered in New York City’s Rivoli Theatre on July 28th, 1932. It marked the first time...
Meet Bugs Bunny 🥕
Warner Brothers’ biggest animated star, Bugs Bunny, made his cartoon debut on July 27th, 1940, in A Wild Hare - though, at the time, he didn’t officia...
Finding Machu Picchu
American professor Hiram Bingham "discovered" Machu Picchu on 24th July, 1911 - though he initially misidentified it as Vilcabamba, the last stronghol...
Radio 1 Hits The Road
Concerned that it was too London-centric, the BBC commissioned a series of pop-up outside broadcasts for its youth music station Radio 1, kicking off...
Where's Pablo Escobar?
Pablo Escobar dramatically escaped from La Catedral (aka ‘Hotel Escobar’, his luxurious prison compound) on 22nd July, 1992.
The drugs l...
Herostratus: Burning Ambition
The fire that destroyed the second Temple of Artemis - one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world - was supposedly set on the day Alexander the Gre...
Let's Assassinate Hitler
Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg tried to kill Hitler with a suitcase bomb on 20th July, 1944. He failed. The plan — bold, desperate, and nearly success...
Publishing Punch
Punch Magazine published its first edition on 17th July, 1841. Subtitled ‘the London Charivari’, the weekly periodical aimed to carve a niche in the m...