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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

12:25

The Falcon Clause: Dividing Britain

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/25

Henry III of England and Alexander II of Scotland met in York to settle the whole "where does England end, and where does Scotland begin?" question on 25th September, 1237. The consequent ‘Treaty of York’ (mostly) settled the map of the borders right up to the present day.Alexander agreed to give up claims on northern English counties like Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland in return for a small chunk of land and the right to hand over one falcon a year as a symbolic payment. Yes, a

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11:35

America's Transgender Celebrity

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/24

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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11:57

See Facts? Ceefax!

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/23

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

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12:32

The Candy Bomber of Berlin

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/22

Operation Little Vittles" - an initiative during the Berlin Airlift to drop Allied sweets and chocolates from planes as a gift to the German children below - began on September 22, 1948. Lt. Gail Halvorsen, a 27-year-old U.S. pilot, had been moved to the gesture by a group of children he encountered one day near Tempelhof airport. After seeing their eagerness to share even the most meagre of resources, he decided to drop sweets for them during his next flight, signalling his arrival by waggling

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12:15

Discovering The Iceman

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/19

When German hikers Erika and Helmut Simon stumbled upon a dead body in the Oertzel Alps on 19th September, 1991, they believed it to be a recently fallen mountaineer, whose cadaver had been preserved in the ice. In fact, the specimen turned out to be 5,300 years old - older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids. The man, nicknamed ‘Ötzi’ by the press, had been struck down in mid-stride, and was discovered surrounded by his possessions, which included a copper axe. His remains are now on permanent

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11:28

Welcome To Tiffany's

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/18

Tiffany, now a $16 billion jewelry empire, opened their first store at 259 Broadway, New York, on 18th September, 1837. Their first day’s sales total was $4.98.Co-founded by 25 year-old Charles Lewis Tiffany (thanks to a $1,000 loan from his father), the ‘fancy goods emporium’ initially sold disparate luxury items including perfumes, dinner sets, and, er, dog whips - but eventually settled upon gems as their core offering, expanding the brand through collaborations with P. T. Barnum and ‘The Blue

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12:15

Vanessa Williams vs. Miss America

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/17

The first Black Miss America, Vanessa Williams, was crowned in Atlantic City on 17th September, 1983, with the usual fanfare. But within ten months, she had returned her crown, following a nude photo scandal.She had already received hate mail and even death threats - some from racist whites who hated seeing a Black Miss America, others from Black critics who felt her light skin and blue eyes played into white beauty standards. But then, without her consent, Penthouse announced it would publish

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11:59

The First Student Newspaper

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/16

The Cornell Daily Sun - the oldest continuously independent college daily newspaper in the United States - published its first issue on 16th September, 1880. It featured some campus sports reports, some horrible amateur poetry, and even some jokes. It wasn’t until seven years later that a British University caught up with its own equivalent: The Student, at Edinburgh University; although it did have celebrity founder Robert Louis Stevenson up its sleeve. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly

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12:02

Digging the Trenches

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/15

The start of World War I featured officers in white gloves, leading troops in neat lines, and cavalry charges complete with sabres and lances. But this changed on 15th September, 1914 - when soldiers began digging into the earth, laying the groundwork for the trench warfare that would come to define the conflict.By that November, trenches covered 400 miles along the Western Front, in two opposing lines that were often as close as 50 metres, with "No Man’s Land" in between—a deadly strip of land

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14:13

Barrett ❤️ Browning

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/12

The secret wedding of poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning on September 12th, 1846, was witnessed by just two people. Elizabeth was so nervous about the ceremony, held at Marylebone Parish Church, that she needed smelling salts to calm her. Barrett was already an acclaimed poet, while Browning was relatively unknown at the time. But their correspondence, comprising almost 600 letters exchanged over less than two years, is considered one of literature’s great romances. In this episode,

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11:10

Let's Build The Pentagon

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/11

Construction of the Virginia headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense began on September 11th, 1941 - spookily, the same date it was attacked by al-Qaeda six decades later. The massive five-sided building, a potent symbol of America’s military strength, became known as the Pentagon. Featuring 4 million square feet of office space, the building was designed by George Bergstrom under the supervision of Leslie R. Groves, who was later chosen to head the Manhattan Project and build the atomic

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12:56

France's Last Execution

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/10

The guillotine claimed its last victim on 10th September, 1977, when murderer Hamida Djandoubi was executed in Marseille, his grim end marking the closing chapter of nearly two centuries of clinical beheading, stretching back to the French Revolution. Overseen by France’s last official executioner Marcel Chevalier, the event was private and hushed - a far cry from the raucous public spectacles that had once drawn huge crowds. Witness accounts described Djandoubi drinking rum, smoking his final

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11:16

Laughter, Uncanned

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/09

'The Hank McCune Show' - an otherwise unremarkable footnote in American TV history - became the first single-camera sitcom to deploy a pre-recorded laugh track (aka ‘canned laughter’) on 9th September, 1950. The giggles and applause came courtesy of Charlie Douglass, who made a career of capturing audience reaction in his ‘laff box’, and then expertly sprinkling it across other shows, including Bewitched, The Munsters and The Flintstones. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly look back at Red

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12:03

Making Michelangelo's David

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/08

Now celebrated as the most famous statue in the world, Michelangelo's David was first unveiled in Florence's Piazza della Signoria on 8th September, 1504. Originally intended for the roofline of Florence's cathedral, David’s immense size and weight—over five meters tall and weighing more than five and a half tons—was relocated to the square. But its creation had been a tale of perseverance: the marble block Michelangelo used had been rejected by other sculptors for 35 years. In this episode The

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12:16

Welcome To Bavaria, U.S.A.

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/05

oday, the small town of Leavenworth in Washington is known for its Bavarian-themed hotels, restaurants, shops and festivals, but when it was incorporated on 5th September, 1906, its main claim to fame was that it had a train line and a fledgling logging industry. After the train hub that had put it on the map in the first place was moved, Leavenworth went into near terminal decline, until some savvy townspeople got together in the 1960s to give it a themed makeover. “Bavarian” was the chosen theme,

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12:27

The Quiz Show That Won The Jackpot

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/04

On 4th September, 1998, the debut episode of the world-conquering game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? aired in the UK. Initially titled Cash Mountain, the show format had been offered to nearly all the major UK networks with no success, but eventually it found its home on ITV after a legendary pitch that has gone down in television history. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly revisit the excitement in the crowd during the recording of the very first episode; discuss how the show went

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12:37

Who Invented The Air Fryer?

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/03

Fred van der Weij, a Dutch electronics engineer with a craving for healthier chips, spent years tinkering in his garage to create the “frit air” - launched by Philips as the “Air Fryer” at Berlin’s IFA technology trade show on 3rd September, 2010.The inventor’s prototypes were made from wood and chicken wire - and produced fries that were burnt on the outside and frozen in the middle. But, by the time its “Rapid Air Technology” had been perfected, this mini convection oven took over the world. In

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11:06

Queen Of The Cuban Sea

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/02

Endurance swimmer Diana Nyad was 64 years old when she became the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without the use of a shark cage for protection on 2nd September, 2013. Nyad completed the 110-mile swim from Havana to Key West in approximately 53 hours. It was her fifth attempt to swim through the jellyfish-and shark-infested waters of the Straits of Florida. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain how Nyad used music and recall to keep her focus; review the conspiracy theories

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11:34

Why Japan Loves Baseball

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/09/01

How come baseball, that most American of games, is even more popular in Japan than in its home country? It’s a story with roots into the nineteenth century, as Arion, Olly and Rebecca discover while they investigate the events of September 1st, 1964, when the San Francisco Giants introduced their newest player, Masanori Murakami, during a game against the New York Mets: the first Japanese player in Major League Baseball. His remarkable composure earned him a standing ovation at Shea Stadium

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11:44

The Last Of His Tribe

Today In History with The Retrospectors ·

2025/08/29

Ishi, a native American man who was widely acclaimed as the “last wild Indian” emerged from the wilderness on 29th August, 1911.His arrival came as a huge surprise to the people of Oroville, California, who had thought that his entire tribe had become extinct a good 40 years earlier. He was immediately taken to a jail cell and locked up, not because he had committed a crime but because authorities simply had no idea what to do with him. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explore the

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