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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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...
The Death of Kissing
Kissing was a big deal in the Middle Ages: for signing contracts, for greeting colleagues, and for showing deference to the King - a tradition that en...
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!
The inventor of margarine, French chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès, patented his butter substitute on 15th July, 1869. Inspired by a competition launche...
Mr. Dynamite
Dynamite was invented by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, who demonstrated it in Britain for the first time on 14th July, 1867. He had discovered that wh...
Hollywood's Iconic Landmark
Designed as a temporary billboard for a luxury housing development, the iconic ‘Hollywood’ sign (originally spelling out ‘Hollywoodland’) was dedicate...
Evolution on Trial
The Scopes Monkey Trial - one of the most famous show trials in U.S. history - began in Dayton, Tennessee on 10th July, 1925.
Though it...
The Sun Sets on 'Eldorado'
One of the BBC’s biggest-ever flops, soap opera ‘Eldorado’, broadcast its final episode on 9th July, 1993 - just one year after it had begun, at a rep...
Let's Build A Rollercoaster
Promenades Aériennes, the world’s first modern rollercoaster, opened in Paris on 8th July, 1817. Thrillseekers climbed a towering wooden structure bef...
Meet Pinocchio
Pinocchio, ‘The Story of a Puppet’, debuted in Giornale per i bambini, an Italian weekly magazine for children, on 7th July, 1881. Its author, Carlo L...
When Lennon Met McCartney
The Quarrymen took to the stage at a parish fête near Liverpool on 6th July, 1957: the event that first brought together the brains behind the Beatles...
Sailing Alone Around The World
Captain Joshua Slocum set sail from Nova Scotia in The Spray, his revamped oyster sloop, on 3rd July, 1895: the first solo circumnavigation of the wor...
Zeppelin Takes Flight
Airships had flown since the 1850s, but the first rigid airship to comfortably carry passengers - the Zeppelin - had its maiden voyage at Lake Constan...
The First Tour De France 🚲
Around sixty cyclists set off from a café in Montgeron, just outside Paris, on 1st July, 1903: the start of the first ever Tour de France.
Debating Darwin's Theory
Thomas Huxley and Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, were among the prominent figures discussing Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution at the Oxford...
When Kubrick Met Spielberg
After nearly three decades of development, A.I. Artificial Intelligence finally had a theatrical release on 29th June, 2001. Written and directed by S...
The Real Pied Piper
What happened to the 130 children that went missing from the town of Hamlein, Lower Saxony on 26th June, 1284? According to legend, a vindictive ‘Pied...
Introducing... The Fork
The fork had only recently received Royal approval in Britain when it was gifted to the Governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop, on 25th June, 1633.<...
Henry VIII's 'Ugly Wife'
Anne of Cleves was dumped by her profligate husband Henry VIII on 24th June, 1540, when she was summoned to Richmond Palace and asked to accept an ann...
Bobbitt
Lorena Bobbitt cut off her husband John Wayne Bobbitt’s penis with a kitchen knife while he was asleep in their apartment in Manassas, Virginia on 23r...
I Invented The Donut 🍩
Sea Captain Hanson Gregory claimed to have first cut a hole in a donut on 22nd June, 1847, sparking an American tradition: the nation now consumes ten...