Today In History with The Retrospectors

The Day the Clown Cried, Jerry Lewis’s notorious, unreleased Holocaust movie, faced a crisis on 30th April, 1972, when the American actor-director found himself in an extraordinary predicament: the financing for his deeply personal film project had collapsed mid-shoot. Faced with abandoning the production or funding it himself, Lewis chose to press on, investing his own money despite mounting prac...

Peter Mark Roget waited until retirement to compile his personal collection of synonyms into a book for publication: the first edition of Roget’s Thesaurus, released on 29th April, 1852.  Despite initial scepticism from critics, who couldn't grasp its practical brilliance, the public embraced the new format - despite its unconventional organisation, in which synonyms were categorised by conceptual...

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown dealt his party’s reelection campaign a massive blow on 28th April 2010, when during a meet-and-greet in the marginal constituency of Rochdale, he was caught on microphone calling one of his own supporters, Gillian Duffy, a bigot. Duffy had engaged the PM in a long conversation about many things, including local concerns about the influx of migrants to the area...

Benito Mussolini was captured by partisans on 27th April, 1945, whilst attempting a hopeless escape to Switzerland, ‘disguised’ in a Luftwaffe coat and helmet alongside his much-younger mistress, Clara Petacci. Hiding in plain sight was never going to work for a man who had spent years building a cult of personality. He put up little resistance to his capture. That night, the couple spent their fi...

Two-time Oscar winner Jane Fonda expanded her repertoire beyond acting and activism into exercise videos on 24th April, 1982, with the release of her bestselling aerobics VHS, "Workout."  What seemed like a small venture at the time swiftly captivated the nation, revolutionising fitness trends and catapulting household VCR ownership. Extraordinarily, all profits from the enterprise went to her and...

Duke Wilhelm IV issued what later became known as the Reinheitsgebot - the decree setting out that Bavarian beer should be made using only water, barley and hops - on 23rd April, 1516.  Although the famous “purity” clause occupies only a small part of the original document, the law helped improve drink quality, and remains in place today as a powerful marketing tool, shaping global perceptions of...

Extracts from Adolf Hitler's long-lost diaries were brought to the world’s attention on 22nd April, 1983, provoking an international sensation - until they were quickly exposed for being a hoax.  Respected World War Two historian Hugh Trevor Roper had authenticated the diaries, leading Rupert Murdoch to personally negotiate a $1.2 million serialisation in The Sunday Times, which went to press as R...

Germany’s most famous fighter pilot, Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (aka ‘The Red Baron’) was shot down near the Somme River on the Western Front, on 21st April 1918. He had been credited with an incredible 80 air combat victories during World War I.  Originally a cavalryman, Richthofen transferred to the Imperial Air Service and downed 15 enemy planes by the end of 1916. He then headed...

The Houston Astrodome was a marvel of modern engineering: the world’s first fully covered sports stadium; a futuristic symbol of Houston’s rise as the home of NASA’s Mission Control. But, after its glorious see-through roof created a blinding glare that made it nearly impossible for baseball players to see the ball… on 20th April, 1965, the panels had to be painted over. And the grass on the pitch...

A 335-year-long ‘war’ (in which not a single shot was fired) officially ended on 17th April, 1986, when the UK’s Dutch ambassador landed on the Isles of Scilly and declared an end to hostilities between the Netherlands and this tiny archipelago off the coast of Cornwall.  The origins of this eccentric conflict date back to 1651, during the English Civil War, where the Dutch found themselves indire...

Queen Elizabeth II stood before 30,000 spectators at Clydebank to launch HMY Britannia on 16th April, 1953. The yacht’s name had been kept secret, and when the Queen finally declared it “Britannia”, the crowd responded with a surge of cheering applause.  Commissioned shortly before the death of her father, King George VI, the ship was intended to help the Royal family maintain personal ties across...

Tommy Cooper's unexpected death on stage at Her Majesty's Theatre on 15th April, 1984 remains one of the saddest and most surreal moments in UK comedy history.  Known for his slapstick humour and botched magic tricks, family favourite Cooper collapsed mid-act due to a massive heart attack.  The audience, initially assuming it was part of his act, roared with laughter as he lay on the stage emittin...

Jamie Oliver blasted on to British screens when his first TV series, ‘The Naked Chef’ premiered on BBC Two on 14th April, 1999.  Created by Pat Llewellyn for Optomen, the show was revolutionary for its use of jumpy, close-up camera work, and the presenter’s relaxed style and laddishness. The series and subsequent cookbook was credited with inspiring men to take to the kitchen, due to Oliver’s “blo...

Project MKUltra, a CIA program aimed at mastering mind control, secretly started on 13th April, 1953, supposedly to combat Soviet brainwashing. It soon evolved into a bizarre mix of government-sponsored LSD experiments and psychological torture. Led by Sidney Gottlieb, a chemist with a penchant for poisons, the program dosed often unwitting subjects—including CIA agents, prisoners and sex workers—...

Bananas, the world’s favourite fruit, were first displayed in London on 10th April, 1633, in the shop window of botanist Thomas Johnson, editor for Gerard’s Herball. Despite societal taboos surrounding the banana's suggestive shape, its journey from obscurity to ubiquity was later propelled by Minor Cooper Keith, whose entrepreneurial endeavours in Costa Rica transformed the fruit into a global co...

Spain began to expel Moriscos - the descendants of Muslims who had converted, often under pressure, to Christianity - on 9th April, 1609.  Although many had lived alongside Christian neighbours for generations, political suspicion lingered, and King Phillip III increasingly viewed them as a problem to be solved rather than a community to be integrated: expelling the Moriscos offered a way to asser...

Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler’s bestseller ‘Nudge’ was released on 8th April, 2008, catapulting a new method of behavioural economics into the public psyche - and the hands of policymakers, including David Cameron and Barack Obama. The book challenged the notion of humans as rational decision-makers, and explained how companies, governments and individuals can ‘nudge’ people towards healthier h...

Former First Lady Betty Ford quietly marked what she would later call her “sobriety birthday” on 7 April 1978: a deeply personal victory following years of dependence on prescription medication and alcohol.  Though the milestone itself was private, it came just days after a profoundly difficult family intervention at her home in Rancho Mirage, where her husband, former President Gerald Ford, and t...

3M scientist Spencer Silver created the adhesive that makes Post-It Notes sticky back in 1968 - but it wasn’t until 6th April, 1980 that the stationery product we all know and love was first released to consumers, in a promotional effort the company termed ‘The Boiasie Blitz’. The problem? His "invention" wasn’t what his company wanted. Rather than strong, industrial-grade glue, Silver had acciden...

Gottlieb Daimler's patent for his high-speed petrol engine (dubbed the "Grandfather Clock") on 3rd April, 1885, wasn't just a technological breakthrough—it inadvertently birthed the motorbike.  Teaming up with Wilhelm Maybach, the duo had crafted a compact engine featuring float-metered carburetors and mushroom intake valves, all powered by hot tube ignition. This engine found its way into their f...

With a single, deliberate shot, Roger Sharpe played pinball for the council of the New York City Council chamber on 2 April 1976, theatrically overturning a 34-year ban on the game by proving it could be a game of skill.  The city’s censorship of the game had its roots in the economic strain of the Great Depression and the moral recalibrations following Prohibition, when pinball machines, often fo...

One of the most famous hoaxes in broadcasting history aired on the BBC’s revered Panorama programme on April Fools Day, 1957: a segment purporting to show a “spaghetti harvest” taking place near Lake Lugano. According to the report, mild weather and the disappearance of a “spaghetti weevil” had resulted in trees unseasonably laden with strands of pasta.  The prank originated with Charles de Jaeger...

It became known as the ‘Skandalkonzert’: an evening of expressionist, experimental pieces at Vienna’s Great Hall of the Musikverein on March 31, 1913, which so disturbed the audience that rioting and slapping ensued, followed by a lawsuit.  In time, it established the reputations of The Second Viennese School - a group of composers like Shoenberg and Weber, who sought to break away from the tradit...

When Starbucks opened in Pike Place, Seattle, on March 30th, 1971, it was a simple shop selling whole coffee beans, tea, and spices - with no creamy macchiatos or pumpkin spice lattes in sight. Founders Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegel, and Gordon Bowker, mentored by Dutch coffee trader Alfred Peet, never intended the store to become a cafe. But then Howard Schultz joined as Marketing Manager. After a vi...

Julius Caesar intervened to put his lover and ally Cleopatra on the Egyptian throne on 27th March, 47 BC - cementing their position as the world’s premier Power Couple. But Cleo's ascent to power was not just a power play. Rather, it was a desperate bid for survival - as she had been ousted from the throne by her brother's advisors, and feared assassination.  In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Ol...