Today In History with The Retrospectors

Rerun: he Production Code Administration - which policed standards of decency on all US cinema releases for twenty years - was established on 13th June, 1934, following a patch of unconvincing Hollywood self-censorship. ‘Excessive or lustful kissing’ and ‘sex perversion’ were no longer allowed - but nor was ‘depictions of safe-cracking’, ‘childbirth,’ and ‘dynamiting’. In this episode, Arion, Rebe...

Before McDonalds, there was the Horn & Hardart Automat - a chain restaurant featuring  coin-operated glass windows, which opened its first branch in Philadelphia on 12th June, 1902. The business would grow to serve 800,000 people per day. Customers exchanged nickels for dishes including meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and cherry pie. Beautifully designed with marble counters, stained glass, and chrome...

King George VI first tasted a hot dog on June 11th, 1939. The moment occurred during a picnic at the Hyde Park residence of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But behind the culinary first for the King, the famous American Royal Picnic would turn out to be an essential moment in the Special Relationship between the UK and the US. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly discuss how the event...

The renowned author of "War and Peace," Count Leo Tolstoy, set off on a pilgrimage to Optina Monastery on 10th June, 1881, disguised as a peasant. Accompanied by his valet, Sergei Arbuzov, Tolstoy traipsed 130 miles from his vast estate; his feet bleeding from blisters thanks to his insistence that he be dressed in authentically threadbare sandals. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly assess w...

Rerun: Edgy, gritty and sexy, the Broadway production of ‘Grease’ opened at the Broadhurst Theatre on 7th June, 1972, beginning what would become a record-breaking eight-year run.  Despite NOT featuring some of the most well-known hits from the movie - including ‘Grease Is The Word’, ‘You’re The One That I Want’ and ‘Hopelessly Devoted To You’ - the production attracted an unusually high proportio...

Rerun: George Williams, 22, created the Young Men’s Christian Association to provide somewhere for London’s young men to escape the vices and stress of rapid urbanization (translation: get yourself clean, hang out with all the boys). The group’s first meeting was above a draper’s shop in St Paul’s on 6th June, 1844. The mission aligned perfectly with the burgeoning movement for ‘muscular Christian...

When Lord Byron’s 17 year-old daughter, Ada Lovelace, attended a soirée at the home of academic Charles Babbage on 5th June, 1833, the pair hit it off immediately. He invited her to see his ‘Difference Engine’ - an early mechanical calculator - kicking off a correspondence that lasted throughout her life. Their lively, intellectual correspondence, and Ada's deep understanding of mathematics and sc...

On June 4, 1411, Charles VI of France granted the people of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon a monopoly to ripen his favourite cheese. Noted for its sharp, tangy, salty flavor and its rich, creamy texture, Roquefort is still under designation protected by French law, and sometimes called ‘le fromage des rois et des papes’ (“the cheese of kings and popes”). In this episode, The Retrospectors reveal Casanova’s...

Just 224 words long, Eric Carle’s classic children’s book, ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’, was first published on 3rd June, 1969. Initially conceived as a "bookworm" eating through the pages, Carle's editor suggested a caterpillar for the central character, leading to a timeless tome that has sold over 55 million copies in 70 languages.  Carle's journey to becoming a renowned children's author bega...

Rerun. John Harvey Kellogg believed his corn flakes had a future as a sexual suppressant when he filed a patent for "Flaked Cereals and Process of Preparing Same" on 31st May, 1895. What the Seventh Day Adventist and eugenicist hadn’t counted on was his brother Will - who combined his discovery with sugar; effectively creating the Kellogg company that still exists to this day.  In this episode, Ol...

Rerun. Hersheypark was created as a recreation ground for the workers and families who staffed the Hershey chocolate factory in Pennsylvania when it opened on 30th May, 1906. But visitors from across the State soon came to marvel at its playgrounds, boating lake and band-stand… and, before long, the environs began to morph into the chocolate-themed amusement park it remains to this day. Its succes...

Bing Crosby recorded the biggest-selling single of all time, ‘White Christmas’, on 29th May, 1942. The session took just 18 minutes, and the song was not considered the standout from the album: everyone thought the Valentine’s-themed ballad ‘Be Careful, It's My Heart’ had a better chance of chart success. The songwriter, Irving Berlin, was perhaps not an obvious person to pen the quintessential Am...

‘Miracle babies’ the Dionne Quintuplets - Yvonne, Annette, Cécile, Émilie, and Marie, the first known quintuplets to survive infancy - born on 28th May, 1934 in rural Canada. Fearing private exploitation, the Ontario government removed them from their parents and placed them in a specially built hospital under the care of Dr Allan Roy Dafoe, who had delivered them. Oliva Dionne fought a nine-year...

Rerun: Spectacle, camp and glamour were NOT on the agenda in Lugano, Switzerland on 24th May, 1956: the inaugural Eurovision Song Contest was broadcast mostly on the radio, and featured a whistling duo as its interval act. Who had to perform twice. Voting controversy, however, was enshrined in the institution right from the outset - as Judges were permitted to award points to their own nations, an...

Rerun: Throwing people out of windows might seem a peculiar way to protest, but it’s happened so often in history, it’s got a special name: defenestration. And perhaps the most significant of all - because it brought about the Thirty Years War - was the assault on three Habsburg officials by Bohemian malcontents in Prague on 23rd May, 1618. The dispute had kicked off when Ferdinand II refused perm...

When Jerry Lee Lewis landed at Heathrow Airport for his first UK tour on 22nd May, 1958, he was met with a flurry of journalists eager for a scoop. Yet just one question brought everything to a halt: "Who are you?".  A wide-eyed girl in Lewis's entourage answered: Myra Gale Brown, his wife. But she was only 13 years old. As if this wasn’t scandal enough… she was also his cousin, and their marriage...

The funeral for Jamaican reggae star Bob Marley was half religious ceremony, half rock concert on 21st May, 1981. An estimated 100,000 people are believed to have seen Marley’s body lying in state, and the announcement of Jamaica’s national budget was postponed by several days to accommodate his funeral. The casket contained his red Gibson Les Paul guitar, a Bible opened at Psalm 23, and a stalk o...

‘Protect and Survive’, the UK Government’s pamphlet offering Britons advice on how to navigate the aftermath of a nuclear explosion, was published on 20th May, 1980, following a campaign in The Times. Intended for distribution in times of imminent crisis - and only alongside the broadcast of a series of related public information films - the booklet’s earnest yet chilling tone, coupled with its pr...

Rerun: Gun totin’, horse ridin’ spectacular ‘Buffalo Bill’s Wild West’ opened in Omaha, Nebraska on 17th May, 1883 - the start of a multi-decade run. With a cast of hundreds, including Calamity Jane, Sitting Bull, and Annie ‘Get Your Gun’ Oakley, it toured the world - and forever shaped the way cowboys and Indians were represented in popular culture.  In this episode, Olly, Rebecca and Arion revea...

Rerun: The future Queen of France was accompanied by 57 carriages, 117 footmen and 376 horses on her journey from Austria to Versailles - but remarkably took only three hours to do her hair and makeup when she tied the knot with Louis-Auguste on 16th May, 1770. Only 15 at the time, Louis was perceived - even by his closest friends and family - to be timid, unforthcoming and bookish. In a further b...

George III narrowly dodged a bullet for the SECOND time in one day on 15th May, 1800, as he attended a performance at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.   The assassination attempt came from James Hadfield, a clinically insane former soldier, who rose from the pit and fired a pistol at the King, causing uproar in the audience. Despite the danger, George remained composed, even using his opera glasses...

The two minute silence can be traced back to 14th May, 1918, when it was first observed in Cape Town, South Africa.  Repeated daily for a year, and initiated by the firing of the noon day gun on Signal Hill, the ‘Two Minute Silent Pause of Remembrance’, as it was known, was instituted by Cape Town Mayor Sir Harry Hands and councillor Robert Rutherford Brydone, both of whom had lost sons at the Fro...

Disdain for bad table manners reportedly led 17th Century Machiavelli Cardinal Richelieu to insist that knives should be flattened at his table on 13th May, 1637 - revolutionising dining etiquette. While some Mediaeval habits such as spitting and urinating at the table had largely disappeared by this era, finger-licking and the use of knives as toothpicks had persisted, and Richelieu’s irritation...

As Annette Sorensen drank margaritas in a New York BBQ restaurant on May 10th, 1997, she left her 14 month-old daughter outside, in a stroller.  She spent two days in jail, was accused of child neglect, and was separated from her baby for four days. But Sorensen, a Danish visitor to the States, claimed she was following Scandinavian norms, and tried to sue for $20m. In this episode, Olly, Rebecca...

Rerun: Fugitive Thomas Blood sneaked his way into the Tower of London’s jewel room on 9th May, 1671 - bludgeoning the 77 year-old Keeper of the Jewels, Talbot Edwards, in the process.  Disguised as a parson, the Irish adventurer had cat-fished Edwards in an audacious and complex heist that involved multiple pairs of white gloves, a fake nephew and stuffing an orb down his trousers. In this episode...