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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How Shrek Changed Hollywood
Dreamworks’ irreverent animated comedy Shrek opened in 3,500 U.S. theaters on 18th May, 2001 - dethroning The Mummy Returns with a $42 million opening...
The Unkillable King George
George III narrowly dodged a bullet for the SECOND time in one day on 15th May, 1800, as he attended a performance at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. ...
America's Last Witchtrial
Can ‘mesmeric’ mental powers harm you from afar? Well, no. But that didn’t stop Lucretia L. S. Brown accusing fellow Christian Scientist Daniel H. Spo...
The Man Who Shot The Pope
Pope John Paul II was shot in St. Peter’s Square on 13th May 1981, in front of thousands of pilgrims attending his weekly general audience. Struck mul...
Richard I's Awkward Wedding Night
Richard the Lionheart was a bachelor into his thirties, but finally got hitched on May 12th, 1191, at the Chapel of St. George at Limassol, Cyprus. Hi...
Dynasty's Flamboyant Finale
With big hair, big drama, and even bigger shoulder pads, Aaron Spelling’s primetime soap-opera ‘Dynasty’ defined the 1980s. But, by May 11th, 1989, th...
Cocaine + Caffeine = Coca-Cola
John Pemberton launched Coca-Cola from a pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, on 8th May, 1886. Legend has it that a serendipitous mishap had led to the addi...
The Return Of 'The Scream'
The theft of Edvard Munch’s iconic painting ‘The Scream’ sullied the opening day of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer - but, on 7th May, 1994, the ic...
Duran Duran's James Bond Banger
A View To A Kill by Duran Duran was released on 6th May, 1985. It remains the only James Bond theme to reach Number One on the Billboard Hot 100.
Renouncing King John
The Magna Carta would not have become law unless a group of Barons had first renounced their allegiance to King John on 5th May, 1215. Primarily prote...
America's Celebrity Child Soldier
Eleven year-old Johnny Clem formally became part of the Union Army on 1st May, 1863 - though he had already been participating as a Drummer Boy for th...
Jerry Lewis vs The Holocaust
The Day the Clown Cried, Jerry Lewis’s notorious, unreleased Holocaust movie, faced a crisis on 30th April, 1972, when the American actor-director fou...
Roget's Lexical Legacy
Peter Mark Roget waited until retirement to compile his personal collection of synonyms into a book for publication: the first edition of Roget’s Thes...
Don't Call Me Bigot
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown dealt his party’s reelection campaign a massive blow on 28th April 2010, when during a meet-and-greet in the margi...
Mussolini's Last Day on Earth
Benito Mussolini was captured by partisans on 27th April, 1945, whilst attempting a hopeless escape to Switzerland, ‘disguised’ in a Luftwaffe coat an...
Jane Fonda's Workout
Two-time Oscar winner Jane Fonda expanded her repertoire beyond acting and activism into exercise videos on 24th April, 1982, with the release of her...
How To Brew Beer in Bavaria 🍻
Duke Wilhelm IV issued what later became known as the Reinheitsgebot - the decree setting out that Bavarian beer should be made using only water, barl...
The 'Hitler Diaries' Hoax
Extracts from Adolf Hitler's long-lost diaries were brought to the world’s attention on 22nd April, 1983, provoking an international sensation - until...
The Red Baron's Flying Circus
Germany’s most famous fighter pilot, Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (aka ‘The Red Baron’) was shot down near the Somme River on the Western...
The Origins of AstroTurf
The Houston Astrodome was a marvel of modern engineering: the world’s first fully covered sports stadium; a futuristic symbol of Houston’s rise as the...
The World's Weirdest War
A 335-year-long ‘war’ (in which not a single shot was fired) officially ended on 17th April, 1986, when the UK’s Dutch ambassador landed on the Isles...
I Name This Ship Brittania
Queen Elizabeth II stood before 30,000 spectators at Clydebank to launch HMY Britannia on 16th April, 1953. The yacht’s name had been kept secret, and...
Tommy Cooper Dies On Stage
Tommy Cooper's unexpected death on stage at Her Majesty's Theatre on 15th April, 1984 remains one of the saddest and most surreal moments in UK comedy...
Meet The Naked Chef
Jamie Oliver blasted on to British screens when his first TV series, ‘The Naked Chef’ premiered on BBC Two on 14th April, 1999.
Created...
The CIA's 'Brain Warfare'
Project MKUltra, a CIA program aimed at mastering mind control, secretly started on 13th April, 1953, supposedly to combat Soviet brainwashing. It soo...
Yes, We Have Bananas
Bananas, the world’s favourite fruit, were first displayed in London on 10th April, 1633, in the shop window of botanist Thomas Johnson, editor for Ge...
Less of the Moors
Spain began to expel Moriscos - the descendants of Muslims who had converted, often under pressure, to Christianity - on 9th April, 1609.
The Nudge Revolution
Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler’s bestseller ‘Nudge’ was released on 8th April, 2008, catapulting a new method of behavioural economics into the publ...
I'm Betty Ford, And I'm An Alcoholic
Former First Lady Betty Ford quietly marked what she would later call her “sobriety birthday” on 7 April 1978: a deeply personal victory following yea...
The Surprising History of Post-Its
3M scientist Spencer Silver created the adhesive that makes Post-It Notes sticky back in 1968 - but it wasn’t until 6th April, 1980 that the stationer...
The First Motorbike
Gottlieb Daimler's patent for his high-speed petrol engine (dubbed the "Grandfather Clock") on 3rd April, 1885, wasn't just a technological breakthrou...
Let's Legalise Pinball
With a single, deliberate shot, Roger Sharpe played pinball for the council of the New York City Council chamber on 2 April 1976, theatrically overtur...
The Spaghetti Harvest
One of the most famous hoaxes in broadcasting history aired on the BBC’s revered Panorama programme on April Fools Day, 1957: a segment purporting to...
Riot in the Concert Hall
It became known as the ‘Skandalkonzert’: an evening of expressionist, experimental pieces at Vienna’s Great Hall of the Musikverein on March 31, 1913,...
The First Ever Starbucks
When Starbucks opened in Pike Place, Seattle, on March 30th, 1971, it was a simple shop selling whole coffee beans, tea, and spices - with no creamy m...
Cleopatra ❤️ Caesar
Julius Caesar intervened to put his lover and ally Cleopatra on the Egyptian throne on 27th March, 47 BC - cementing their position as the world’s pre...
The Heaven's Gate 'Ascendancy'
The mass suicide of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult in San Diego County was discovered on 26th March, 1997. The tragedy came to light after a for...
Flour Power: The Tichborne Dole and the Biddenden Maids
Each Lady Day, the Hampshire village of Tichborne hands out bags of flour to the locals - a tradition that began on 25th March, 1150 after Lady Marbe...
The Suffragettes of Sport
The first international women’s sports event, The Women’s Olympiad, kicked off in Monte Carlo on 24th March, 1921. A hundred athletes from five nation...
Ricky Martin's Latin Explosion
Ricky Martin’s ‘Livin’ La Vida Loca’ was released on 23rd March, 1999 - launching the singer to worldwide superstardom, and kickstarting a Latino pop...