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PODCAST

Today In History with The Retrospectors

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.

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All Episodes

10:02

Calling Andrew Sachs

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/10/18

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 encounters with Sachs's granddaughter, Georgina Baillie. The segment aired on Brand’s Radio 2 show on 18th October, 2008, and became the third most-complained about programme in recent BBC history.The presenters were suspended, the station controller resigned, and the BBC was fined £150,000. The event,

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10:11

How Lincoln Got His Beard

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/10/15

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 have yet got four brothers... and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin”, she wrote. “All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President.”When

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9:30

Mary, Queen of Plots

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/10/14

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 barrels, had been intercepted by Sir Francis Walsingham, who had deciphered and copied them and built a case against the former Scottish monarch.In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain how Mary had come to be exiled in not one, but two, palaces; consider her pleas of innocence, in the light of her

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9:40

Martin Monti - American Traitor

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/10/13

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 joined the Waffen-SS, was recaptured by the Americans, and then claimed to be a prisoner of War. His family petitioned his Senator to go lightly on his crimes, the full extent of which only became clear when he sensationally confessed to treason in court.In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly attempt to

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10:11

Playboy's Identity Crisis

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/10/12

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 change lasted for only one year.‘Reading it for the articles’ had, at one time, been a plausible option - the magazine had published stories by Margaret Atwood and interviews with Malcolm X, Vladimir Nabokov, Martin Luther King Jr., and Jimmy Carter. But, in the internet era, Playboy had become more

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9:26

Branson’s Cola Gamble

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/10/11

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 Independent: “Consumers consistently demonstrate, when given a free choice, that they prefer our product.”Despite an extensive publicity campaign - including a stunt in Times Square, a bottle shaped like Pamela Anderson, and product placement on ‘Friends’ - the beverage never took off internationally, but

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9:53

The Permanent Wave

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/10/08

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 eighty years later.Creating a long-lasting curl had been a goal for many stylists over the decades, but Nessler had hit upon a winning combination of technique and chemicals. He achieved this by subjecting his wife, Catherine, to a seemingly endless onslaught of painful and laborious experiments.In this

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10:25

TV’s Greatest Salesman

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/10/07

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 November, 1993.But the ‘Infomercial King’ had spun an enviable career from his talent for selling; from humble beginnings shilling vegetable choppers on the shop floor of Woolworth’s to establishing Ronco, a $55 million ‘As Seen On TV’ company that eventually went bankrupt.In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and

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9:36

The Play That Never Ends

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/10/06

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 months.Over 28,000 performances later, the show has become an iconic attraction in London’s West End - with a set that still includes the original mantelpiece clock present on stage on opening night nearly 70 years ago.In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly unpick the unconventional choices Christie

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10:10

To Versailles! To Versailles!

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/10/05

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 Versailles rule and lead to the execution of Louis XVI.Initially a reaction to the grain shortage that had left Parisians hungry as the aristocracy indulged in luxuries, the protest soon morphed into an angry mob demanding everything from the relocation of the monarchy to the murder of Marie Antoinette.In this

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9:46

Birth of the Breastaurant

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/10/04

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 by John Riggins, star fullback for the Washington Redskins - ensured the concept took off, spawning 425 outlets in 30 countries.However, more recently, Hooters was hit by rival ‘breastaurants’ Tilted Kilt and Twin Peaks, and a slow generational shift away from ‘male’ environments in which exclusively

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10:14

Postcards - The Poor Man's Telephone

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/10/01

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, the new medium was an instant sensation with the public - with three million postcards being sent in the first three months. But cultural conservatives felt it would lead to poor grammar, a capitulation of individuality, and a brash new form of self-expression...In this episode, Arion, Olly and Rebecca

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10:17

The Shipwrecked Mr. Crusoe

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/09/30

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 ensured that his fictional protagonist’s fate pre-dated the real-life estrangement of Royal Navy man Alexander Selkirk, who was stranded some 46 years later: 14 years prior to Defoe writing his novel.In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain how his story pioneered not only the English novel, but also

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10:29

The 33-Day Pope

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/09/29

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 unnatural.He had been Pope for just 33 days.An unconventional Pope - who had refused to wear the papal tiara, use the Royal 'we’, or sit on a ceremonial throne - he seemed to have had a weird premonition that he wouldn't be in office for long, famously responding to his elevation to Popehood by telling the

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10:08

Let's Get Metric

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/09/28

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 for the NEW universal measurement of distance: the metre.The calculation was painstakingly made by measuring a quarter of the meridian of the Earth - running from the North Pole to the Equator - and then dividing it into 10 million parts. Metal bars measuring exactly one metre were then distributed to

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9:46

When 3-D First Flopped

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/09/27

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 anaglyph system (meaning the 3-D glasses had two tinted lenses; one red, one green), viewers were told they could select a happy or sad ending - by closing one of their eyes.In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly consider if the costs of double-projector movies explains why first-gen 3-D never took off;

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10:04

America's Transgender Celebrity

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/09/24

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!” - thereby creating America's first transgender celebrity.Writing to friends, she said: “As you can see by the enclosed photos, taken just before the operation, I have changed a great deal. But it is the other changes that are so much more important. Remember the shy, miserable person who left America

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10:25

See Facts? Ceefax!

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/09/23

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 before the launch of Internet Explorer.Countless National Lottery winners discovered their victories via the analogue service, which was discontinued in 2012. To this day, devotees still share ancient samples of it by uploading old VHS tapes to the web.In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain why

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10:18

The All-Female Jury

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/09/22

Witchcraft and infanticide were the charges levelled against young maidservant Judith Catchpole at the General Provincial Court in Patuxent County, Maryland on September 22nd, 1656. Since the case hinged on whether she had been pregnant, an all-female jury was assembled -the first in colonial America.Seven married women and four single women physically examined her - and found her not guilty of the crimes.Which were pretty obviously B.S.In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly uncover the first and

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10:12

‘The Cod War’ Heats Up

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2021/09/21

‘The Fish Feud!’ - as the tabloids originally termed the standoff between Britain and Iceland over fishing rights - had escalated into a fully-fledged ‘Cod War’ by 21st September, 1958, when the destroyer H.M.S. Diana requested medical assistance for a Marine suffering appendicitis.The dispute arose when Iceland had unilaterally extended its fishing zone from 4 to 12 nautical miles. For centuries prior to this, boundaries were calculated via the ‘canon shot rule’ - i.e. the distance a canon could be

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1,261 results

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