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. In just ten minutes!
Best Daily Podcast (British Podcast Awards 2023 nominee).
Get early access and ad-free listening at Patreon.com/Retrospectors or subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
- Update frequency
- every day
- Average duration
- 12 minutes
- Episodes
- 1105
- Years Active
- 2021 - 2025
I'm Too Sexy For This Chart
Right Said Fred’s novelty single ‘I’m Too Sexy’ reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 on 8th February, 1992. The playful earworm, which had been rejected by all major record labels, topped t…
00:12:04 |
Wed 08 Feb 2023
Bring Out Your Vanities!
Controversial friar Girolamo Savonarola supervised the mass destruction of Renaissance art, literature and other priceless items he deemed as ‘fripperies’ on 7th February, 1497 - an event that became…
00:11:20 |
Tue 07 Feb 2023
Here Come The Minstrels
Blackface performers The Virginia Minstrels - replete with white clown mouths, oversized tailcoats, and bookended by tambourine and bones players - first appeared on 6th February, 1843, at the New Yo…
00:11:56 |
Mon 06 Feb 2023
RetroRecommends: History Daily
On February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst was kidnapped by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army. In this episode from our friends at History Daily, host Lindsay Graham (American Scandal, American Histor…
00:22:12 |
Sat 04 Feb 2023
The £21,000 Masque
With a cast of over 800, and a budget equivalent to £3 million, James Shirley’s extravagant masque ‘The Triumph of Peace’ was performed on 3rd February, 1634. Unusually, it was such a popular show th…
00:11:54 |
Fri 03 Feb 2023
Christian Bale's Terminator Freakout
Rerun. TMZ posted leaked footage of Christian Bale’s infamous meltdown on the set of ‘Terminator Salvation’ on 2nd February, 2009.
Triggered by the film's Director Of Photography, Shane Hurlbut, repe…
00:12:04 |
Thu 02 Feb 2023
Killing King Carlos
The only Portuguese monarch to be assassinated, King Carlos I, was shot through the neck by Republican activists on 1st February, 1908, as his open carriage rode through Lisbon. His elder son Luis Fi…
00:12:08 |
Wed 01 Feb 2023
Chimps In Space!
Before Yuri Gagarin, before Alan Shepard… a chimp called Ham was blasted into space for six-and-a-half minutes of weightlessness on 31st January, 1961. He successfully returned to Earth without serio…
00:12:10 |
Tue 31 Jan 2023
Hannah Hauxwell: Britain’s First Reality Star
Running a remote Yorkshire farm, with no flushing toilet and no electricity is an unlikely route to TV stardom, but 46 year-old spinster Hannah Hauxwell managed it on 30th January, 1973, when ITV air…
00:11:33 |
Mon 30 Jan 2023
Let’s Embalm Lenin
The corpse of Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Soviet Union, was placed on display in Moscow's Red Square on 27th January, 1924 - where, astonishingly, he remains viewable to this day.
He’d wanted to …
00:11:54 |
Fri 27 Jan 2023
Brides on the Move
Rerun. Sometimes termed ‘The Diaper Run’ due to the large number of babies on-board, the S.S. Argentina set sail from Southampton to New York City on 26th January, 1946 – transporting 456 ‘War Brides…
00:12:05 |
Thu 26 Jan 2023
The Nellie Bly Express
Pioneering journalist Nellie Bly returned from her 72-day trip around the world on 25th January, 1890. The final leg of the journey was upon a chartered train to New Jersey, nicknamed ‘the Nellie Bly…
00:12:11 |
Wed 25 Jan 2023
27 Years in the Jungle
Japanese ‘holdout’ Shoichi Yokoi had been hiding out in the jungles of Guam since the Second World War when he was discovered by hunters on 24th January, 1972, dressed in clothes woven from tree fibr…
00:11:57 |
Tue 24 Jan 2023
Rock N Roll’s Big Night
The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame welcomed its first inductees in a star-studded event at the Waldorf Astoria, New York on 23rd January, 1986. But the ceremony was not the glamorous HBO spectacular we h…
00:12:10 |
Mon 23 Jan 2023
Lalli and the Axe
According to Finnish legend, a peasant farmer named Lalli murdered the Christian missionary Bishop Henry on the ice of lake Köyliönjärvi on January 20, 1156, dispatching him with an axe blow to the h…
00:12:02 |
Fri 20 Jan 2023
Introducing the BlackBerry
Rerun. Research In Motion were once the world’s most popular maker of smartphones, but when they launched the BlackBerry 850 on 19th January, 1999, the device had no phone functionality: it was marke…
00:11:53 |
Thu 19 Jan 2023
The 17th Century UFO
One of earliest recorded UFO sightings in America happened on 18th January, 1644 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony when lights rose out of the water near Boston, zoomed across the sky and vanished over…
00:12:05 |
Wed 18 Jan 2023
The Last Queen of Hawaii
On January 17, 1893, Hawaii’s monarchy was overthrown when a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate, the first step towards the islands’ annexation as a US terr…
00:11:39 |
Tue 17 Jan 2023
Meet Don Quixote
Prior to the release of his book Don Quixote on 16th January, 1605, Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes had previously been a soldier, a royal messenger, a tax collector and – for a spell – a slave.
B…
00:12:09 |
Mon 16 Jan 2023
Henry IV and the Philosopher's Stone
It was today in history in 1404 that Henry IV issued the Act Against Multipliers, a ban on the mysterious art of creating or duplicating gold, more commonly known as alchemy.
It came at an odd time f…
00:12:01 |
Fri 13 Jan 2023
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are the property of The Retrospectors. This content is not affiliated with or endorsed by eachpod.com.