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
- 1104
- Years Active
- 2021 - 2025
The First Aboriginal Cricket Stars
The first group of Australian sportspeople to ever represent the country overseas were an Aboriginal team of cricketers, who began an acclaimed tour of England on 25th May, 1868.
The team had to face…
00:12:12 |
Wed 25 May 2022
The Wine That Won Over The World
California had virtually no reputation as an international wine-growing region until 24th May, 1976 - when 11 wine experts gathered at a Parisian hotel and decided, in a blind taste-test, that wines …
00:12:06 |
Tue 24 May 2022
Demonstration? Defenestration!
Throwing people out of windows might seem a peculiar way to protest, but it’s happened so often in history, it’s got a special name: defenestration. And perhaps the most significant of all - because …
00:12:03 |
Mon 23 May 2022
Knievel vs. Canyon
Motorcycling daredevil Evel Knievel had been keen on jumping the Grand Canyon since 1968, but never staged an actual attempt. On May 20th, 1999, however, his son Robbie performed the feat on live tel…
00:12:04 |
Fri 20 May 2022
Rubik’s Magic Prototype
Over 100 million Rubik’s Cubes were sold in just a few short years at the onset of the 1980s - a phenomenon kickstarted on 19th May, 1974, when Hungarian Professor of Architecture Ernő Rubik supposed…
00:11:59 |
Thu 19 May 2022
Smearing Christopher Marlowe
Atheist, homosexual, heretic… the slurs levelled at popular playwright Christopher Marlowe came thick and fast after he was arrested on 18th May, 1593. Just twelve days later, he was murdered in a Lo…
00:11:39 |
Wed 18 May 2022
The Coffee Shop Stock Exchange
The Buttonwood Agreement, as it came to be known, effectively launched the New York Stock Exchange. Signed by 24 stockbrokers on 17th May, 1792, it promised two things - that they would trade exclusi…
00:11:53 |
Tue 17 May 2022
Marie Antoinette's Wedding
The future Queen of France was accompanied by 57 carriages, 117 footmen and 376 horses on her journey from Austria to Versailles - but remarkably took only three hours to do her hair and makeup when …
00:12:07 |
Mon 16 May 2022
What Mary Told Me
When three young kids in Fatima, Portugal reported that the Virgin Mary had appeared to them on 13th May, 1917, the incident sparked hysteria across their rural, intensely Catholic community.
The ‘th…
00:12:04 |
Fri 13 May 2022
Russell Crowe vs. the Romans
Ridley Scott’s ‘Gladiator’ opened in the UK on 12th May, 2000 - and was widely credited with resurrecting the ‘swords-and-sandals’ genre, sparking an interest in Roman history, and achieving that rar…
00:12:04 |
Thu 12 May 2022
The Computer That Defeated Kasparov
IBM's Deep Blue conquered Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov on 11th May, 1997 - in a man v machine clash Newsweek brazenly baptised ‘The Brain’s Last Stand’.
Despite the incredible achievement…
00:11:40 |
Wed 11 May 2022
How To Paint the Sistine Chapel
Michelangelo was a sculptor, not a painter, when on 10th May, 1508, he embarked upon the biggest gig of his career: painting the roof of the Sistine chapel in the Vatican.
Outwardly reluctant, and d…
00:11:56 |
Tue 10 May 2022
Captain Blood and the Crown Jewels
Fugitive Thomas Blood sneaked his way into the Tower of London’s jewel room on 9th May, 1671 - bludgeoning the 77 year-old Keeper of the Jewels, Talbot Edwards, in the process.
Disguised as a parson…
00:11:59 |
Mon 09 May 2022
Bonjour, Eiffel
The lifts weren’t operational, so there weren’t any visitors, but the commemorative coins had already been minted - so it was 6th May, 1889 that went down in history as the official opening of the Ei…
00:12:04 |
Fri 06 May 2022
Coco Chanel's Iconic Scent
Chanel No 5, the legendary perfume still said to shift one bottle every thirty seconds, was first released in Paris on 5th May, 1921.
Created by Ernest Beaux, its innovative mixture of jasmine, sanda…
00:11:59 |
Thu 05 May 2022
Debut of the Daily Mail
As British literacy rates surged to a new high of 97%, the time was right to launch a simpler, shorter, more readable newspaper - and Alfred Harmsworth’s Daily Mail caught the zeitgeist when it hit t…
00:11:50 |
Wed 04 May 2022
The Wu-Tang Scamster
Martin Shkreli, ‘the most hated man in America’, purchased the one extant copy of the Wu-Tang Clan’s concept album ‘Once Upon A Time In Shaolin’ for $2 million on 3rd May, 2015.
In seeking to sell t…
00:12:04 |
Tue 03 May 2022
The Swedish Meatballs Controversy
Where are meatballs from, and why does it matter? Social media users frenziedly grappled with these very questions on 29th April, 2018, when Sweden’s official Twitter account proclaimed: “Swedish mea…
00:11:11 |
Fri 29 Apr 2022
The First Space Tourist
Dennis Tito, a 60 year-old investment manager from California, blasted into orbit onboard a Russian Soyuz rocket on 28th April, 2001 - becoming the first ever private citizen to visit the Internation…
00:11:33 |
Thu 28 Apr 2022
The Duel That Shocked France
King Henri III of France had a favourite group of young courtiers - his ‘mignons’ (or ‘cuties’, ‘sweeties’, or ‘‘darlings’) - known for dressing in an effeminate and eye-catching style. On 27th April…
00:11:56 |
Wed 27 Apr 2022
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