Today In History with The Retrospectors

Rerun: When George W Bush flew to Baghdad for a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on 14th December, 2008, he had hoped the headlines would reflect his triumphant appraisal of his deployment of American troops. Instead, it became known as the day he got some shoes thrown at him. The man throwing the shoes was Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi, who yelled in Arabic: “This...

The undisputed viral hit of Christmas 1852 was the country dance ‘Pop Goes The Weasel’, still taught to children today. On 13th December, 1852, the craze was seen at a party in Ipswich, where it was declared “one of the most mirth-inspiring dances which can ever be well imagined”. The song was performed at the Palace and taught to the gentry but, within a few years, had gained a reputation as an i...

Inspired by a dream, Prince Charles of Provence ordered an excavation that uncovered a sarcophagus believed to contain the remains of Mary Magdalene on 12th December, 1279.  The evidence presented included a papyrus note, a sweet rose fragrance filling the air, a wax-covered tablet proclaiming Mary's identity, and even a piece of skin where Jesus supposedly touched her after his resurrection.  In...

On this day we recall the Police operation to ensnare prolific conman Victor Lustig.  The ‘Catch Me If You Can’-style manhunt intensified on 11th December, 1928, when Lustig made the mistake of robbing $16,000 from Massachusetts businessman Thomas Kearns, thereby triggering a chase that eventually saw Lustig sent to Alcatraz. Prior to this, he’d scarcely ever tripped up: scamming everyone from cou...

The Duke of Norfolk suffered a ‘Marie Antoinette Moment’ on 8th November, 1845, when, amidst the Irish Potato Famine, the Whig MP proposed a questionable solution to feed Ireland’s starving workers: curry powder soup. The Duke was met with derision, but the moment highlighted how woefully out-of-touch the English aristocracy were regarding what was about to befall the Irish people. Far worse was t...

Rerun: Oscar-winning conductor André Previn was an unlikely choice of celebrity guest for the Christmas special of ‘The Morcambe and Wise Show’ recorded on 7th December, 1971 - but the 13-minute sketch they taped together remains one of Britain’s all-time favourites. The music hall-style caper - which revolves around a comically catastrophic interpretation of Grieg’s Piano Concerto - was actually...

St Nicholas was a Greek bishop, known for his generosity. But he didn’t have a beard, and he didn’t drive a sleigh - so how did he morph into the Santa Claus the world knows and loves? The supposed date of his death - 3rd December, 343 - may have a lot to do with it… Then there’s the miracles. In the most famous story associated with St Nick, he anonymously leaves some gold coins in the house of a...

Queen Elizabeth II made Britain’s first long-distance automated phone call on 5th November, 1958 - when, from Bristol, she spoke directly to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, 300 miles away, without the need for an Operator.  Subscriber Trunk Dialing (STD) transformed the telephone network, but was not without its challenges: automation brought efficiency but also led to job losses, sparking some lab...

Today we discover the iconic jamming session that birthed ‘The Million Dollar Quartet’ - Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Carl ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ Perkins - who spent the day making music together at Sun Studios, Memphis on 4th December, 1956. Although the event began as an impromptu get-together, Sun’s Sam Phillips was quick to call a press photographer to document the troupe, which...

Lampy, Britain’s oldest surviving garden gnome, was insured for £1 million on 28th November, 1997. Imported from Germany, his human dad was Sir Charles Isham, an eccentric aristocrat who adorned his rockery in Northampton with a selection of gnomes, the rest of whom were later destroyed by his daughters. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly trace how gnomes have experienced moments of fashion...

Rerun. England played Scotland in a publicly-advertised game for the first time on 30th November, 1872 - kickstarting international football as we know it today. The English team included players drafted in from Oxford University. The Scottish team was entirely made up of teammates from Queen’s Park. The score was 0-0. Much of the game was yet to be codified - for example, that you couldn’t catch...

The first American mass marriage ceremony of the Unification Church - for 28,000 couples in matching garb, led by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon - took place at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, Washington, D.C. on 29th November, 1997.Newleyweds had to confirm their virginity and abstain from sexual relations for 40 days afterwards, but many participants were already legally married, and the ev...

In the annals of automotive innovation, November 28th, 2018 marked a peculiar milestone: the birth of the Lincoln Chimes. The brainchild of Jennifer Prescott, overseer of "Vehicle Harmony" at the motor company, this warning system replaced the synthetic sound of in-car emergency alerts with a blend of violin, viola, and marimba played by The Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Lincoln's endeavour followed...

We reveal how, on 27th November, 1809, a respectable house on the well-to-do Berners Street in London became ground zero for one of the most disruptive practical jokes in history: the Berners Street Hoax. First a chimney sweep turned up at the address, then another and another, then cake makers, surgeons, lawyers, physicians, obstetricians, butchers, priests and more. The archbishop of Canterbury...

The ‘Windsor Shower Companion’ ($11.49) was the first product sold on home shopping network QVC, which made its debut on 24th November, 1986, quickly becoming a cable TV phenomenon. Joe Segel, the channel’s founder, focussed on a ‘soft sell’ approach that emphasised authenticity and a friendly, neighbourly connection. The channel's anonymity factor allowed customers to indulge in, um, unusual purc...

With cutesy graphics and a female-focussed origin story, Tamagotchi was positioned as a ‘nurturing toy’ for Japanese girls when Bandai launched the brand on 23rd November, 1996. But the gadget's massive popularity soon transcended gender and nationality - shifting 40 million units globally in just three years. Users had to check in regularly with their virtual pets, which buzzed when they were hun...

Pope Clement V ordered the arrest of all Knights Templar and seizure of their properties on 22nd November, 1307: a day that sealed the fate of the once-celebrated Christian military order. They had attracted the ire of Philip IV of France, who began an international conspiracy to smear their name. Founded in 1118, the Knights Templar initially served as protectors for pilgrims travelling to the Ho...

When the Maccabees celebrated the recapture of Jerusalem from the Macedonian emperor Antiochus IV, they lit a menorah in the city's holy temple. The date, in the ancient Hebrew calendar, was the twenty-fifth day of the third month of Kislev 3597… the first Hanukkah.  Hanukkah's significance waned in some early Jewish texts due to the favourable portrayal of Romans in the Book of Maccabees, but gai...

The ill-fated whale-ship The Essex, was rammed by an 85-foot sperm whale on 20th November, 1820. The incident inspired Herman Melville’s sea-faring novel, Moby Dick. Left to fend for themselves in tiny whaling boats, the young crew had to make terrible choices in order to preserve their own survival - including how and when to eat each other. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain why it...

Rupert Murdoch, controversial owner of The Sun, launched "The Birthday Suit Girl", a topless photo feature, on 17th November, 1970. Within a year, the paper’s circulation had nearly doubled to 2.5 million. Editor Larry Lamb intended his ‘Page 3 girls’ to be wholesome and clean, skating on the edge of what was acceptable in a family newspaper. But by the 80s, Editor Kelvin Mackenzie had introduced...

Rerun. Disneyland Paris, now Europe’s most popular theme park, initially haemorrhaged money - at a rate of around $1 million per day. But, after three hard years, it returned its first annual profit on 16th November, 1995.  This change in the park’s fortunes can be attributed to the popularity of two trains: the opening of the Eurostar direct line from London, and the building of the world’s most...

Sir Anthony Blunt, esteemed art historian and a favourite of the Royal family, was publicly revealed as a Soviet spy on 15th November, 1979, when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher confirmed he had been part of the "Cambridge Five", a group of double agents who secretly passed sensitive information to the Soviet Union. Despite his confession to MI5 in 1964, Blunt continued his association with the r...

Workers involved in tomb construction in the Valley of the Kings staged the earliest recorded strike in history on 14th November, 1157 B.C. Having not been paid their ration of food for 18 days, they set about disrupting temple life and rituals, to the shock of Pharaoh Ramses III’s administration. The workers' struggle wasn't solely about wages; it reflected broader discontent, too, as they voiced...

In this episode we uncover the incredible story of Scottish surgeon James Braid, who entered the Manchester Athenaeum on 13th November, 1841 as a skeptic of what was then known as ‘mesmerism’, or ‘animal magnetism’ - and left as perhaps the most enthusiastic proponent in Britain of what he came to call ‘hypnosis’. The performance he saw, however, was not especially scientific: it consisted of Swis...

The French government introduced a new State religion on 10th November, 1793: the ‘Cult of Reason’, which attempted to reflect the anti-clerical attitudes of the French Revolution.  But - as with the new secular calendar that reset the year to zero and gave democratic names to the months - the general public did not take to their local Church becoming a ‘Temple of Reason’, and most of the men invo...