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

10:32

McEnroe’s Wimbledon Meltdown

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/06/22

John McEnroe was once the world’s No.1 tennis player, winning seven major Grand Slams. But he’ll always be remembered for his extraordinary rant against umpire Edward James at Wimbledon on 22nd June, 1981.During his match with Tom Gullikson, James ruled that the New Yorker’s serve went out. McEnroe’s reaction – “You can’t be serious man, you cannot be serious!… You guys are the absolute pits of the world!” – staggered the genteel world of tennis.In this episode, Arion, Olly and Rebecca discover that

en

9:52

Righteous and Harmonious Fists

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/06/21

The Boxer Rebellion was an anti-foreign, anti-colonial, anti-Christian uprising in China, reaching Peking on 21st June, 1900, when Empress Dowager Cixi declared war on all foreign powers and demanded that they depart the country at once.The rebels were known as the “Boxers” in English, because many of its members practiced Chinese martial arts; in their native language they went by the more evocative title of “the [secret] Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists” (Yìhéquán).In this episode, Arion,

en

10:54

Inside The Black Hole of Calcutta

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/06/20

When the East India Company surrendered Fort William (in modern-day Kolkata) to the Nawab of Bengal on 20th June, 1756, dozens of British captives were imprisoned in a cell measuring only 18ft long and 14ft wide, with just two tiny windows - ‘the Black Hole of Calcutta’.Among the prisoners was John Zephaniah Holwell, whose pamphlet describing the terrors of the airless room caused a sensation back in Britain and became a cause célèbre in the idealization of imperialism in India. Holwell claimed 123

en

11:55

It's A Royal Cock-up

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/06/19

The Grand Knockout Tournament (also known as It’s a Royal Knockout) was a one-off charity event first shown on BBC1 on 19th June 1987, to an audience of 18 million gobsmacked viewers.The brainchild of the then 23 year old Prince Edward, the slapstick spectacle featured the Princess Royal and the Duke and Duchess of York captaining rival teams in a series of preposterous rounds involving celebrities including Rowan Atkinson, Tom Jones, Cliff Richard, John Travolta and Les Dawson.In this episode,

en

10:27

Humanity Dick and the RSPCA

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/06/16

The world’s first animal charity, the RSPCA, was set up on June 16th, 1824, by a small group of men who met in Old Slaughter’s Coffee House in St. Martin’s Lane, London.They had been brought together by Arthur Broome, a vicar and animal-welfare campaigner, but the main member of the group was Irish MP Richard Martin, widely known as “Humanity Dick” who had recently passed the first legislation of its kind against the mistreatment of horses and cattle.In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly look

en

10:02

Blackadder Begins

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/06/15

Rerun. Rowan Atkinson headed up the cast and writing team, yet the first series of ‘The Black Adder’ drew a decidedly mixed reaction from audiences and critics when it debuted on BBC TV on 15th June, 1983.Set in 1484, and filmed in castles across England, the series led some wags to quip that it ‘looks a million dollars, but cost a million quid’. It was only later, when Ben Elton joined Richard Curtis to write subsequent series, that its iconic comedy characters truly took shape.In this episode,

en

11:03

How Spiderman The Musical Lost $60m

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/06/14

The most expensive musical of all time, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, finally opened on June 14th, 2011, after completing a record-breaking run of 183 preview performances.The show had been plagued by disaster even from its very beginnings when Tony Adams, the theatre producer who had approached Marvel to buy the stage rights to Spider-Man, died of a stroke just as the team was about to sign the contracts.In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly look at how the original plot attempted to fuse

en

10:37

You Have The Right To Remain Silent

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/06/13

The famous US police warning to suspects that begins “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law” dates back to a landmark ruling by the US Supreme Court on June 13th, 1966.Known as the Miranda rights, or Miranda warnings, the case of Ernesto Miranda, who was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and rape, reached the highest court in the land because of his lawyers’ contention that he had not been properly made aware of his rights.In this

en

11:22

Marion Donovan: Housewife Inventor

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/06/12

Until the mid-20th century, putting nappies on babies involved folding and pinning cloth towelling, then pulling a pair of rubber pants over the top. That all began to change on June 12th, 1951, when the US inventor Marion Donovan patented a new kind of nappy, with an envelope-like plastic cover and an absorbent insert.Her invention ultimately netted her a million dollars (nearly $10 million in today’s money) and paved the way for the development of disposable nappies which have become ubiquitous in

en

11:02

The Day Nero Died

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/06/09

Nero, the final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, killed himself on 9th June AD 68. Having fled Rome to a suburban villa after being declared a ‘public enemy’ by the Senate, he stabbed himself through the throat. Probably.Within months of his death, rumours began that Nero still lived and would return in glory to reclaim his empire. Instead, the historians of the era - albeit never averse to embellishment to make an artistic point - documented the horrors of his reign, including his forced

en

9:31

The Hawaiian Pizza - A Legacy

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/06/08

Rerun. Sam Panopoulos, creator of the Hawaiian pizza, died on 8th June, 2017 at the age of 83. Originally Greek, he moved to Ontario, Canada at the age of 20 and opened a restaurant where he experimented with toppings far beyond the typical ‘60s triumvirate of mushroom/bacon/pepperoni.Alongside a Chinese-American chef, he kick-started an international appetite for ham and pineapple that grows to this day - the Hawaiian becoming America’s favourite delivery pizza topping in 2021.In this episode,

en

11:02

My Name Isn't Prince

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/06/07

When Prince announced he would no longer go by his birth name on June 7th, 1993, it took the public and his record label, Warner Brothers, by surprise. Henceforth he wanted to be known, he explained, as an unpronounceable ‘Love Symbol’; a bespoke mash-up of the Mars and Venus gender signs which wasn’t even available in font libraries.The dispute centred on the fact that ‘The Artist’ had 500 unreleased songs in his studio vault at Paisley Park, but Warner believed to put them out too quickly would

en

11:14

Digging Up Josef Mengele

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/06/06

Notorious Nazi doctor, ‘Angel of Death’ Josef Mengele, spent the last twenty years of his life on the run. His remains were recovered in São Paulo on 6th June, 1985, when Brazilian Police dug up the grave of a man named “Wolfgang Gerhard” - later proven to be Mengele, who’d drowned at a beach resort at the age of 68.Mengele, responsible for sending up to 400,000 Jews to their deaths at Auschwitz, was able to escape to Argentina via Italy after the War, even living freely under his real name for a

en

11:07

So I Acquitted An Axe Murderer

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/06/05

Lizzie Borden’s murder trial began on June 5, 1893 in New Bedford Courthouse, Massachusetts. The 32 year-old was accused of killing her father, wealthy magnate Andrew Borden, and his wife Abby, her stepmother, who had been crushed by the blows of a hatchet - 11 and 19 times, respectively.In attendance were three judges, Borden’s high-powered defense team (paid for from her late father’s estate), and reporters and onlookers keen to parse the lurid details of the shocking deaths in the Borden

en

10:37

Who Invented The Telephone?

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/06/02

Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson made an important discovery, by accident, on June 2, 1875. While working on their ‘harmonic telegraph’. Watson inadvertently plucked a reed that had been tightly wound around the pole of its electromagnet, producing a twang that Bell heard on a second device next door.Meanwhile, Elisha Gray, co-founder of Western Electric Company, was working on, as his patent put it, “Transmitting Vocal Sounds Telegraphically.” Gray had been using liquid transmitters in his

en

10:14

Heimlich’s Big Maneuver

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/06/01

‘Cafe coronaries’ were a fact of life until The Journal of Emergency Medicine published details of The Heimlich Manoeuvre on June 1, 1974.In so doing, they made a household name of thoracic surgeon Henry Heimlich, and saved countless diners from choking in restaurants.In this episode, Arion, Olly and Rebecca examine whether Heimlich’s notoriety was truly deserved; explain how his Hollywood connections helped him spread the word of his achievements; and revisit his misguided pursuit of malariotherapy

en

10:51

When Psy Broke The Internet

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/05/31

Viral megahit ‘Gangnam Style’, by South Korean pop star Psy, became the first video to reach 2 billion plays on YouTube, on May 31st, 2014.The EDM/K-Pop banger, released in 2012 as the lead single from Psy’s sixth studio album, parodied the nouveau riche lifestyles associated with the Gangnam region of Seoul. But it was the video, with its iconic horse dance, that became a cultural phenomenon, with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hailing it as a force for world peace.In this episode,

en

11:40

The Peasants Are Revolting

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/05/30

The most significant rebellion of the Medieval era, the so-called Peasant’s Revolt, kicked off in Brentwood, Essex on 30th May, 1381, when tax collector John Bampton attempted to collect unpaid poll tax.The protest triggered a violent confrontation, rapidly spreading across the south-east of the country. Within a month, the rebels were marching towards London, massacring merchants and razing the palace of the king’s uncle, John of Gaunt.In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly consider whether the

en

10:57

When Australia Said Sorry

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/05/26

A coalition of Australian community groups came together on May 26th, 1998 for the country’s first “National Sorry Day”, an annual day of atonement for the social-engineering policy that ripped an estimated 50,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families between 1910 and the 1970s.The first Sorry Day was marked with 300 events around the nation, and more than 1,000 people attended a ceremony in Parliament House, Canberra, but it took Australia’s government another decade to

en

10:13

Shakespeare Unbanned

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2023/05/25

Rerun. Chinese citizens were once again able to read and perform the works of William Shakespeare on 25th May, 1977.Chiang Ching, Chairman Mao’s wife, had instituted the ban eleven years earlier - amidst concerns that the Bard’s works could be reinterpreted to undermine the Party’s rule and ideology.In this episode, Rebecca, Olly and Arion ask why British Literature has enjoyed a reversal of fortune under President Xi; reveal how Shakespeare’s childhood home is connected to The Venetian, Las Vegas;

en

1,259 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 - Biography Flash

Inception Point Ai