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
- 1103
- Years Active
- 2021 - 2025
The Boy Who Poisoned His Granddad
William Alnutt tipped arsenic into the family sugar bowl on 20th October, 1847 - and five days later, the 12 year-old’s sweet-toothed grandfather, Samuel Nelme, was dead. It was the second time the d…
00:11:37 |
Wed 20 Oct 2021
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…
00:10:19 |
Tue 19 Oct 2021
Calling Andrew Sachs
When Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross failed to reach their celebrity guest, 78 year-old ‘Fawlty Towers’ star Andrew Sachs, they instead left him a series of answerphone messages, joking about sexual …
00:11:32 |
Mon 18 Oct 2021
How Lincoln Got His Beard
Future President Abraham Lincoln had yet to grow his iconic facial fuzz when he received a letter from Grace Bedell - an 11 year-old resident of Westfield, New York - dated 15th October, 1860. “I ha…
00:11:41 |
Fri 15 Oct 2021
Mary, Queen of Plots
Accused of planning the assassination of her cousin Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots stood trial for treason on 14th October, 1586.
Mary’s coded letters, delivered to her co-conspirators in beer barr…
00:11:00 |
Thu 14 Oct 2021
Martin Monti - American Traitor
The first ever U.S. officer to be convicted of treason, Army Lieutenant Martin J. Monti Jr., defected from the Air Service to the Nazis on 13th October, 1944.
After a stint in radio propaganda, he jo…
00:11:10 |
Wed 13 Oct 2021
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 …
00:11:41 |
Tue 12 Oct 2021
Branson’s Cola Gamble
Virgin Cola, Sir Richard Branson’s ultimately flawed contender in the Cola Wars, was certainly taken seriously by the competition. On 11th October 1994, a pokerfaced Coca-Cola spokesperson told The I…
00:10:56 |
Mon 11 Oct 2021
The Permanent Wave
Hairdressers descended upon Oxford Street on October 8th, 1906 to witness Karl Nessler’s first public demonstration of his pioneering new ‘perm’ - a style which didn’t have its heyday until some eigh…
00:11:23 |
Fri 08 Oct 2021
TV’s Greatest Salesman
Ron Popeil, inventor of The Pocket Fisherman, the Amazing Smokeless Ashtray, and the Inside-The-Shell Egg Scrambler, was (satirically) awarded an Ignoble Award for Consumer Engineering on 7th Novembe…
00:11:55 |
Thu 07 Oct 2021
The Play That Never Ends
Agatha Christie’s ‘The Mousetrap’, the world’s longest-running play, opened at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham on 6th October, 1952. Producer, Peter Saunders predicted the production would run for 14 m…
00:11:06 |
Wed 06 Oct 2021
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 Versaille…
00:11:40 |
Tue 05 Oct 2021
Birth of the Breastaurant
Hooters, the beach bar chain famous for its flirtatious waitresses, first flung open its doors in Clearwater, Florida on 4th October, 1983. Its publicity-friendly ‘Hooters Girls’ - and a chance visit…
00:11:16 |
Mon 04 Oct 2021
Postcards - The Poor Man's Telephone
A 12 x 8.5cm ‘Correspondenzkarte’, the earliest progenitor of the modern-day postcard, was created by the Austrian Post on 1st October, 1869.
Cheaper and more practical than sending long-form letters…
00:11:44 |
Fri 01 Oct 2021
The Shipwrecked Mr. Crusoe
Literature’s most famous castaway, Robinson Crusoe, was washed up on a desert island - where he would remain for 28 years - on 30th September, 1659.
By selecting this date, author Daniel Defoe ensure…
00:11:47 |
Thu 30 Sep 2021
The 33-Day Pope
The corpse of John Paul I was discovered by a nun in the early hours of 29th September, 1978. His body was embalmed within 24 hours, heightening suspicions that the cause of death may have been unnat…
00:11:59 |
Wed 29 Sep 2021
Let's Get Metric
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 …
00:11:38 |
Tue 28 Sep 2021
When 3-D First Flopped
Journalists, exhibitors and producers packed the Ambassador Hotel Theater, Los Angeles on 27th September, 1922 - to see the first ever paid-for screening of a 3-D film, ‘The Power Of Love’.
Using an …
00:11:17 |
Mon 27 Sep 2021
America's Transgender Celebrity
Christine Jorgensen began gender reassignment surgery in Copenhagen on 24th September 1951. The New York Daily News later heralded the event with a headline splash - “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty!” - …
00:11:34 |
Fri 24 Sep 2021
See Facts? Ceefax!
The BBC’s teletext information service, Ceefax, launched on 23rd September, 1974 - providing the British public with a way to look up headlines, football results and TV listings, some twenty years be…
00:11:55 |
Thu 23 Sep 2021
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