Today In History with The Retrospectors

By The Retrospectors

TV & Film Comedy History

What's Today In History with The Retrospectors about?

Ten minute daily episodes bringing you curious moments from this day in history, with Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina and Arion McNicoll: The Retrospectors. It's history, but not as you know it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Download our free app to listen on your phone

LAST EPISODE

When Gnomes Took Over The W...

12.01.2023

Lampy, Britain’s oldest surviving garden gnome, was insured for £1 million on 28th November, 1997. Imported from Germany, his human dad was Sir Charles Isham, an eccentric aristocrat who adorned his rockery in Northampton with a selection of gnomes, the ...

Today In History with The Retrospectors episodes:

12.01.2023 When Gnomes Took Over The World Lampy, Britain’s oldest surviving garden gnome, was insured for £1 million on 28th November, 1997. Imported from Germany, his human dad was Sir Charles Isham, an eccentric aristocrat who adorned his rockery in Northampton with a selection of gnomes, the ...
11.30.2023 Football's First International Rerun. England played Scotland in a publicly-advertised game for the first time on 30th November, 1872 - kickstarting international football as we know it today. The English team included players drafted in from Oxford University. The Scottish team was entirely ...
11.29.2023 Marriage of the Moonies The first American mass marriage ceremony of the Unification Church - for 28,000 couples in matching garb, led by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon - took place at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, Washington, D.C. on 29th November, 1997.Newleyweds ...
11.28.2023 The Sound of Luxury In the annals of automotive innovation, November 28th, 2018 marked a peculiar milestone: the birth of the Lincoln Chimes. The brainchild of Jennifer Prescott, overseer of "Vehicle Harmony" at the motor company, this warning system replaced the synthetic sound of ...
11.27.2023 The Berners St Hoax We reveal how, on 27th November, 1809, a respectable house on the well-to-do Berners Street in London became ground zero for one of the most disruptive practical jokes in history: the Berners Street Hoax. First a chimney sweep turned up ...
11.24.2023 QVC's First Day The ‘Windsor Shower Companion’ ($11.49) was the first product sold on home shopping network QVC, which made its debut on 24th November, 1986, quickly becoming a cable TV phenomenon. Joe Segel, the channel’s founder, focussed on a ‘soft sell’ approach ...
11.23.2023 The Tamagotchi Effect With cutesy graphics and a female-focussed origin story, Tamagotchi was positioned as a ‘nurturing toy’ for Japanese girls when Bandai launched the brand on 23rd November, 1996. But the gadget's massive popularity soon transcended gender and nationality - shifting 40 ...
11.22.2023 Fall of the Knights Templar Pope Clement V ordered the arrest of all Knights Templar and seizure of their properties on 22nd November, 1307: a day that sealed the fate of the once-celebrated Christian military order. They had attracted the ire of Philip IV of ...
11.21.2023 The First Hanukkah When the Maccabees celebrated the recapture of Jerusalem from the Macedonian emperor Antiochus IV, they lit a menorah in the city's holy temple. The date, in the ancient Hebrew calendar, was the twenty-fifth day of the third month of Kislev ...
11.20.2023 The Real Moby Dick The ill-fated whale-ship The Essex, was rammed by an 85-foot sperm whale on 20th November, 1820. The incident inspired Herman Melville’s sea-faring novel, Moby Dick. Left to fend for themselves in tiny whaling boats, the young crew had to make ...
11.17.2023 Turn To Page 3 Rupert Murdoch, controversial owner of The Sun, launched "The Birthday Suit Girl", a topless photo feature, on 17th November, 1970. Within a year, the paper’s circulation had nearly doubled to 2.5 million. Editor Larry Lamb intended his ‘Page 3 girls’ ...
11.16.2023 When Space Mountain Saved EuroDisney Rerun. Disneyland Paris, now Europe’s most popular theme park, initially haemorrhaged money - at a rate of around $1 million per day. But, after three hard years, it returned its first annual profit on 16th November, 1995. This change in ...
11.15.2023 The Queen's Soviet Spy Sir Anthony Blunt, esteemed art historian and a favourite of the Royal family, was publicly revealed as a Soviet spy on 15th November, 1979, when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher confirmed he had been part of the "Cambridge Five", a group ...
11.14.2023 Let's Go On Strike Workers involved in tomb construction in the Valley of the Kings staged the earliest recorded strike in history on 14th November, 1157 B.C. Having not been paid their ration of food for 18 days, they set about disrupting temple life ...
11.13.2023 Hypnosis Goes Legit In this episode we uncover the incredible story of Scottish surgeon James Braid, who entered the Manchester Athenaeum on 13th November, 1841 as a skeptic of what was then known as ‘mesmerism’, or ‘animal magnetism’ - and left as perhaps ...
11.10.2023 The Temple of Reason The French government introduced a new State religion on 10th November, 1793: the ‘Cult of Reason’, which attempted to reflect the anti-clerical attitudes of the French Revolution. But - as with the new secular calendar that reset the year to ...
11.09.2023 Roosevelt's Panamanian Photoshoot Presidential diplomacy now routinely involves hundreds of trips on Air Force One - but, until Theodore Roosevelt travelled to inspect the Panama Canal on 9th November, 1906, no serving US President had ever ventured abroad. It was the biggest infrastructure ...
11.08.2023 The Instant Message Murder Bruce Miller appeared to be the victim of a violent robbery at his salvage yard when his body was discovered on 8th November, 1999 - but he had actually been killed as part of a disturbing love triangle; one that ...
11.07.2023 Meteorite! The first meteorite to crash land into Earth - and have its date recorded - impacted the hamlet of Ensisheim (in modern-day France, then Austria) on 7th November, 1492. The stone's descent created a crater in a wheat field, captivating ...
11.06.2023 Creating The At-Home Pregnancy Test This episode first premiered in 2022, for members of
11.03.2023 Muhammad Ali and the Hail of Toothbrushes In a quirky blend of sports, public health, and self-promotion, boxing legend Muhammad Ali took on an unusual opponent at the Washington Monument on 3rd November, 1979: ‘Mr. Tooth Decay’. The demonstration, promoted by Don King, culminated with Ali knocking ...
11.02.2023 The First Cheerleader Johnny Campbell, a medical student from the University Of Minnesota, spurred on his alma mater’s struggling football team by leading spectators in a rousing cheer on 2nd November, 1898 - and, in so doing, became the world’s first recognised cheerleader. ...
11.01.2023 The Flying Artilleryman Dropping bombs from planes was unheard of until 1st November 1911, when Italian Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti embarked on an aerial mission over Libya. With a handful of lightweight grenades resting in his lap, he headed to Ain Zara, a village ...
10.31.2023 The BBC's Halloween Hoax ‘Ghostwatch’, a Halloween drama in the style of a documentary, reached 11 million viewers on its first and only UK broadcast on BBC 1, on 31st October, 1992. It starred Sarah Greene, Craig Charles, Mike Smith, and - in a ...
10.30.2023 Building The Chunnel On 30 October, 1990, with little fanfare and without any cameras present, the first connection was made between the French half and the British half of the Channel Tunnel, when a two-inch metal probe broke through to link Great Britain ...
10.27.2023 Rebel Without A Script Nicholas Ray’s ‘troubled teen’ picture, ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ opened in the US on 27th October, 1955. The film was eagerly anticipated, partly due to the recent death of its star, James Dean, in a car accident. Although the movie’s ...
10.26.2023 Making 'Under Pressure' When Queen and David Bowie met in Switzerland to record their iconic collaboration ‘Under Pressure’ on 26th October, 1981, quite a lot of drugs and wine were taken - to the extent that nobody can recall exactly how the iconic ...
10.25.2023 America's First Black General Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. became the first African-American general in the US Army on 25th October, 1940 - despite facing opposition from those who saw his appointment as political opportunism, whilst Roosevelt wooed the ‘negro vote’. Despite facing racial discrimination ...
10.24.2023 Mourning Jane Seymour King Henry VIII’s third wife, Queen Consort Jane Seymour, died aged just 29 on 24th October, 1537 - 12 days after giving birth to their son, future King Edward VI. Her death was attributed to complications following a prolonged and ...
10.23.2023 Not The Beginning Of The World According to the 17th-century Archbishop James Ussher, the world began on 23rd October, 4004 BC at precisely midday. Today, it is easy to ridicule Ussher’s date – and plenty of people do – but his methodology was scrupulous and his ...
10.20.2023 Australia's Most Iconic Building The Sydney Opera House was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 20th October, 1973, marking the start of a two-week festival of events in celebration of the audacious new building. “I understand that its construction has not been totally without ...
10.19.2023 David Blaine, Trickless Magician Ten thousand spectators gathered by the side of the Thames on 19th October, 2003 to watch street magician/illusionist David Blaine come back down to Earth, having spent 44 days suspended in a perspex box in a stunt called ‘Above The ...
10.18.2023 Let's Buy Alaska On October 18th, 1867, the United States formally took possession of Alaska, after purchasing the territory from Russia for $7.2 million, or less than two cents an acre. This certainly looks like an incredibly good deal today but at the ...
10.17.2023 The Sound of the Circus The traditional music for the circus, "Entrance of the Gladiators", wasn’t actually written for the circus at all, instead when it was composed on 17th October, 1899, it was in fact intended to be a military march. Julius Fučík composed ...
10.16.2023 Catch Me If You Can Jack The Ripper’s ‘letters’ can mostly be dismissed as hoaxes. The possible exception is the letter sent to George Lusk, the President of Mile End Vigilance Committee, on 16th October, 1888. It was marked, “From Hell”. And it had half ...
10.13.2023 Reviving Hebrew On October 13th, 1881, the linguist and grammarian Eliezer Ben-Yehuda held what is thought to have been the first modern conversation in Hebrew with two friends at a Paris café. The conversation would have had some serious stumbling blocks, given ...
10.12.2023 Playboy's Identity Crisis The world’s most famous adult magazine went ‘SFW’ on 12th October, 2015 - when Scott Flanders, then Playboy’s chief executive, announced that future editions would no longer contain full nudity. The change lasted for only one year. ‘Reading it for ...
10.11.2023 The Japanese Exclusion League Triggering a national and international outcry, the San Francisco school board issued an order on October 11th, 1906, requiring all Japanese and Korean children to attend a separate “Oriental School” where Chinese pupils were already segregated. The move came as ...
10.10.2023 Governing Outer Space On 10th October, 1967 a treaty went into force that has gone on to become the backbone for all international space law – a United Nations-approved agreement known as the The Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in ...
10.09.2023 Rigging the World Series Scandal beset baseball’s biggest contest on 9th October, 1919, when members of the Chicago White Sox conspired to lose the World Series to underdogs the Cincinnati Reds, in return for a slice of gambling profits. There had been numerous attempts ...
10.06.2023 Bienvenue au Moulin Rouge The world’s most famous cabaret, the Moulin Rouge, opened its doors in Paris on 6th October, 1889. Founded by Joseph Oller and Charles Zidler, the club was originally called the Jardin de Paris and featured everything from art galleries to ...
10.05.2023 To Versailles! To Versailles! The ‘Women’s March’ of 1789 began spontaneously, when a market trader banged a drum in a Parisian square on 5th October - launching a chain of events which would eventually end a century of Versailles rule and lead to the ...
10.04.2023 Carving Mount Rushmore Sculptor Gutzon Borglum began chiseling the rockface of Mount Rushmore on 4th October, 1927 - the start of a 14 year project to carve Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and Roosevelt into the South Dakotan summit. A team of up to ...
10.03.2023 When Sinéad Shocked America Irish popstar Sinéad O’Connor tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II during her performance of Bob Marley’s ‘War’ on NBC’s TV show ‘Saturday Night Live’ on 3rd October, 1992. The unexpected act was meticulously planned by O'Connor; a ...
10.02.2023 Meet Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit was published on October 2nd, 1902. The book was an instant sensation, needing reprints almost immediately, and ultimately went on to sell an extraordinary 40 million copies worldwide. Potter had initially written it ...
09.29.2023 The Inquiry Office Henry Robinson opened the Office of Addresses and Encounters on Threadneedle Street, London on 29th September, 1650. The centre provided a forward-looking, unusual mix of services ranging from job placements, money lending, and property dealings… to (shhh) match-making. Robinson's inspiration ...
09.28.2023 Let's Get Metric Rerun. Feet, inches, palms, cubits, rods… all were SWEPT ASIDE on 28th September, 1889, when the first General Conference of the Weights and Measures Commission met in Sèvres, France to refine a definition for the NEW universal measurement of distance: ...
09.27.2023 Let's Catch A Steam Train George Stephenson drove Britain’s first-ever steam-powered passenger train, the Locomotion Number One, on 27th September, 1825, from Darlington to Stockton on Tees. The Cambridge Chronicle and Journal reported, with breathless excitement: “in the presence of great crowds of spectators, including ...
09.26.2023 Yves Rossy: Rocketman Pushing the boundaries of human flight to hitherto unknown extremes, Swiss aviator Yves Rossy entered the record books on 26th September, 2008, becoming the first person ever to cross the English channel using a jet-propelled wing strapped to his back, ...
09.25.2023 Thank You For Not Smoking The world did NOT wake up to the dangers of smoking on September 25th, 1878, despite the efforts of Dr. Charles R. Drysdale, who had a letter published in The Times warning that smoking is a practice “deleterious to health ...

Older episodes