x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

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.

history film history

All Episodes

10:36

Sexing Up Jane Austen

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/09/24

The ‘Austenmania’ craze of the mid-90s kicked off with the BBC’s production of ‘Pride and Prejudice’, which first aired on 24th September, 1995. Now primarily remembered for Colin Firth’s ‘wet shirt’ scene, Andrew Davies’s ‘sexed up’ adaptation also starred Firth’s real-life squeeze Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet, and was the first serialisation of the novel to be filmed on location, with picturesque country estates providing a ‘property porn’ backdrop to the plot’s central romance. In this

en

11:23

Richard II's Blowout Banquet

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/09/23

The most extravagant feast of the Middle Ages took place at the London home of the Bishop of Durham on September 23rd, 1387, in honour of King Richard II. The banquet featured dishes like broth, venison, roasted swan, and boar-heads… and 12,000 eggs. At just 20 years old, Richard had already developed a reputation for extravagant tastes, employing 2,000 cooks to feed his court. But, despite the abundant and luxurious menu, the atmosphere at the feast was likely solemn, given the churchy setting

en

11:42

Fonzie Jumps The Shark

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/09/20

Rerun: Henry Winkler, an accomplished water-skier, had asked the producers of ‘Happy Days’ if he could showcase his skills on the sitcom. On 20th September, 1977 his wish came true - in a shark-jumping sequence so absurd it would forever be linked with the irreversible artistic decline of long-running TV series.To ‘Jump the Shark’ was a phrase coined some eight years later by college roommates Sean Connolly and Jon Hein, and has since inspired other pop culture idioms including ‘growing the beard’

en

12:05

Let's Illuminate Blackpool

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/09/19

Rerun: Powered by steam engines, and positioned on 60ft poles along the seafront, the Blackpool illuminations were first shown to adoring public on 19th September, 1879.70,000 people came to see eight arc lamps, positioned 320 yards apart. Between them they provided illumination equal to 48,000 candles: an incredible spectacle considering it would still be another year before Thomas Edison patented the modern commercial lightbulb. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly recall some of the weirder

en

13:03

How the Paralympics Began

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/09/18

The first Paralympic Games - hosting 400 athletes from 23 countries - took place in Rome on 18th September, 1960. But it was only known by this name retrospectively: the day it took place, this festival of disabled sport was called The Ninth Annual International Stoke Mandeville Games. Sprung from a competition held at a hospital in Buckinghamshire, and pioneered by German-Jewish neurosurgeon Dr. Ludwig Guttman, the Games began as part of a physiotherapy programme for soldiers and civilians with

en

11:42

Mary, King of Hungary

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/09/17

Mary, ‘King’ of Hungary, was coronated today in history, on 17th September, 1382. The Hungarian nobility had never had a female monarch, and did not recognize the possibility of one in law, so decided to crown her as if she was male - but that was by no means the end of her problems. Before long, Charles of Naples was leading a rebellion to overthrow the child monarch. In this episode, The Retrospectors rank the numerous poor decisions of Mary’s mother, the Queen Regent Elizabeth; unearth the

en

12:00

The Oklahoma Land Grab

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/09/16

The largest land rush in history kicked off on 16th September, 1893 - on Oklahoma's Cherokee Strip. Tens of thousands of people—horseback riders, wagons, and even a passenger train—waited for a cannon’s boom to initiate a mad race for land. The term "Boomer" became synonymous with those waiting for that cannon's boom to charge in, while "Sooners" were the sneaky folks who snuck into the land early to claim it before the rush began. Officers were tasked with clearing out the opportunistic Sooners,

en

11:49

I'mma Let You Finish

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/09/13

Rerun: Kanye West was ejected from Radio City Music Hall at the MTV VMAs on 13th September, 2009, after drunkenly interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Female Video.Distraught that the country star’s ‘You Belong To Me’ video has beaten Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’ to the trophy, he memorably proclaimed: “Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’mma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!” In this episode, Arion, Rebecca

en

12:07

Meet The Monkees

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/09/12

Rerun: NBC premiered ‘Royal Flush’ - the pilot episode of iconic Sixties pop-comedy show The Monkees - on 12th September, 1966. And the Daydream Believers quickly found their way into America’s heart…The Beatles-a-like actors had never met or worked with each other ever before answering an ad seeking ‘four insane boys, aged 18-21’, placed by‘Five Easy Pieces’ producer Bob Rafelson. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain why each episode of the sitcom ended with a fourth wall-breaking

en

12:08

The Real Lord of the Flies

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/09/11

Captain Peter Warner and his crew made a startling discovery as they sailed past the uninhabited island of Atta in the Pacific on 11th September, 1966: six naked, shaggy-haired teenage boys, who had been stranded there for fifteen months. Sione, Stephen, Kolo, David, Luke, and Mano had escaped from their boarding school in Tonga's capital, Nuku'alofa, having "borrowed" a boat and embarked on a spontaneous adventure that went horribly wrong when a storm left them adrift at sea. For eight days, they

en

13:06

Leopold And Loeb: Life Plus 99 Years

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/09/10

Chicagoans gathered around their radio sets on 10th September, 1924 - to hear Judge John R. Caverly sentence wealthy teenagers and lovers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb to life in prison for the brutal murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks. The couple showed no remorse, exhibited a complete lack of empathy, and said they had committed their crime "because we damn well wanted to", but were nonetheless spared the death penalty following the passionate defense submitted by their attorney, the

en

13:05

OMG! From Churchill to Chatrooms

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/09/09

The viral phrase ‘OMG’ has a much longer history than you might think… first being recorded on 9th September, 1917, in a letter from Lord John Fisher, a 75-year-old retired admiral, to Winston Churchill. Fisher used it sarcastically, riffing on the idea of a new order of knighthood; playing off the similar-sounding "OM," the Order of Merit, which he himself had received. While his pun was witty, the abbreviation didn’t catch on at the time, and the acronym stayed buried in history until the Oxford

en

11:40

The Self Service Revolution

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/09/06

Rerun: Clarence Saunders opened the world’s first self-service supermarket, ‘Piggly Wiggly’, in Memphis, Tennessee on 6th September, 1916.Calculating that the revenues gained through impulse purchases would outweigh those lost from shoplifting, Saunders’ concept forever changed the world of shopping for groceries - but his business acumen did not last. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly review Saunders’ promotional hustles; weigh up the items in a shopping basket of the era; and reveal how

en

11:50

Bring On The Beard Tax

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/09/05

Rerun: Peter The Great levied a tax on facial hair on 5th September, 1698, requiring every man in Moscow to shave or stump up some cash - although there were exemptions for the Orthodox Church.The hare-brained scheme occurred to the eccentric Peter on his expeditions through Europe, where he came to see clean chins as symbolic of progress and sophistication. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly uncover Peter’s other ‘European rules of comportment’; convert the costs of Peter’s taxes into the

en

12:16

The Night The Earls Vanished

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/09/04

When 90 Irish nobles, led by the Earl of Tyrconnell and the Earl of Tyrone, fled for Normandy in the dead of night on 4th September, 1607, their intentions were not entirely clear. Their escape, which became known as the ‘Flight of the Earls’, was mainly a bid for freedom from the tightening grip of English Protestant rule - but did they intend to return, securing support for a rebellion against England en route? Or simply seek refuge in Rome, amidst an increasingly impossible situation for

en

12:03

Introducing eBay

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/09/03

In today’s episode Arion, Rebecca and Olly look into the founding of the massive multinational e-commerce company eBay. On the day it went live it was named AuctionWeb, and was just one project among many being built by its creator, Pierre Omidyar. In fact, a significant part of the site was dedicated to information about Ebola, which happened to be a pet interest of Omidyar. In this episode, The Retrospectors put to bed the myth that eBay was short for “EbolaBay”; list all the things that you

en

12:53

Australia's Bikie Shootout

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/09/02

Millperra, a quiet suburb in southwest Sydney, is now best known for a tragic event that took place on 2nd September, 1984: a violent shootout between two biker gangs, the Comancheros and the Bandidos, which became known as the ‘Father’s Day Massacre’. As 19 armed Comancheros ambushed the Bandidos in a car park during a motorcycle swap meet, the situation quickly spiralled out of control, with gunfire erupting and innocent bystanders, including an innocent 15 year-old girl, Leanne Walters, caught in

en

12:02

The Moscow-Washington Hotline

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/08/30

Rerun: After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviets and Americans agreed to install a ‘hot line’ between their Presidents. On 30th August, 1963, a 10,000 mile transatlantic Washington-Moscow cable went live from the Pentagon to Red Square.In the public imagination (in part thanks to Kubrik’s ‘Dr Strangelove’), it remains a red telephone - but it is, in fact, a pair of beige teletype machines that each required ten staff to operate. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain why, prior to this,

en

12:05

How Netflix Began

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/08/29

When Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Reed Hastings and Mark Randolph registered the website that would become Netflix on 29th August, 1997, they named it ‘Kibble’ after a previous idea they had for a dogfood company. But their new concept - mailing DVDs out in the post - would become one of the big success stories of the dotcom era.To test the model, they sent a Patsy Cline CD through the mail; within a year, they had 30 employees and a growing library of nearly 1,000 DVDs. Their first day saw them

en

13:38

The Dizzy Leap From Brooklyn Bridge

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2024/08/28

Larry Donovan made headlines by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge on 28th August, 1886: a daring feat that earned him the name of the ‘Champion Jumper of the World’ and a reputation for daredevil jumps that ultimately led to his early death.Donovan, who worked for the Police Gazette, an early men's magazine filled with sensational stories, prepared for the jump via a mix of practicality and showmanship, deploying weighted shoes to maintain his posture during the fall and padded leggings for

en

1,160 results

Similar Podcasts

The Old Front Line

Paul Reed

Today In History with The Retrospectors

The Retrospectors

جنود خلدهم التاريخ

ALSUMOOD PODCAST

Film History - Daily

Inception Point Ai

Madonna - Audio Biography

Inception Point Ai