Today In History with The Retrospectors

King C. Gillette was granted a US patent for a “safety razor” on November 15th, 1904 - kickstarting both the disposable grooming industry, and the notorious ‘razor and blades’ business model. Prior to his invention, men who shaved at home would have to strop their blades on a big leather strap, and occasionally take their razors to a cutler to have them returned to their original sharpness. In thi...

The Royal Wedding between Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips on 14th November, 1973 was a lavish affair at Westminster Abbey, with an anticipated global audience of 500 million - but the 23 year-old daughter of the Queen was clearly awkward about being the centre of attention, and asked to be only filmed from behind. Labelled ‘Princess Sourpuss’ by some of the tabloids, the public had yet to...

Britain's first ‘New Town’, built to accommodate 60,000 residents, was Stevenage, Hertfordshire - designated on 11th November, 1946 by Lewis Silkin, Labour’s Minister for Town and Country Planning.  Inspired by the rush to accommodate Londoners displaced by the Nazi bombing of the capital, the construction of the concrete metropolis was heavily opposed by the 6,400 residents of ‘Old Stevenage’, th...

Rerun. In the early days of advertising, tyre company Goodyear sent a giant tyre on a coast-to-coast publicity trip. It was photographed on 42nd Street, New York on 10th November, 1930. Was this the birth of the ‘big things’ phenomenon that has lead us to roadside giant prawns, record-breaking sausages, and Instagrammable statues of Jeff Goldblum? Perhaps. We’ll go with it, anyway. In this episode...

Prince Tokugawa Yoshinobu (徳川 慶喜) was the 15th and last shōgun of the Tokugawa shōgunate of Japan. On November 9, 1867, Yoshinobu tendered his resignation to the Emperor. This restored traditional rule for the first time in over 250 years, yet also progressively reformed the country; ushering in the Meiji era, under an Emperor who was just 14 years old. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly...

Guy Fawkes has gone down in history as the most-remembered figure from the thwarted 17th century plot to blow up the House of Lords and kill King James I. But the ringleader of this attempted terror attack was actually Warwickshireman Robert Catesby, who was shot and killed in Staffordshire on 8th November, 1605. This Catholic extremist, who had seen his father imprisoned for practicing his religi...

Why are the Republican Party represented by an elephant, and the Democrats (unofficially) by a donkey? The answer lies in the work of revered political cartoonist Thomas Nast, whose picture ‘Third Term Panic’ was published in Harper's Weekly on 7th November, 1874 - the day before the mid-terms. His Aesop-style symbolism is rather tricky for modern readers to untangle, but the satiric thrust of thi...

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first big-screen adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s best-selling book series, had its premiere in London's Leicester Square on November 4th, 2001. Among the glittering guest list were Sting, Cliff Richard, and the Duchess of York, but Baby Spice spoke for all of us when she told reporters “I don’t know what to expect, but I'm really excited!” In this episode...

Rerun. Attending or producing raves was made illegal in Britain with the passing of the Criminal Justice Act on 3rd November, 1994. The government even legislated against electronic dance music, “wholly or predominantly characterized by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats” These unprecedented restrictions were partly in reaction to the moral panic caused after a 'free party' at Castle...

Publishing House Penguin Books was found unanimously not guilty of obscenity for printing an unexpurgated Lady Chatterley's Lover on November 2nd, 1960. The novel’s author, D.H. Lawrence, had died 30 years earlier, but the court’s landmark ruling had a significant impact on the publishing world, paving the way for greater freedom of the written word. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explor...

John Adams became the first US president to move into the White House on November 1st, 1800, even though construction work was still underway and most of the building was unfinished. There was a reason for his determination to get in as quickly as possible: he clearly wanted to be the first president to live in the White House and there was an election coming up just a week later – an election tha...

One of Giacomo Casanova's most famous deeds was his daring midnight, cross-rooftop escape from the dreaded “The Leads” prison in Venice on the night of October 31st, 1756. Key to his escape plan was a Bible, a large iron bar and an oversized bowl of pasta. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly discuss why Casanova wasn’t thrilled about being moved to a new jail cell with a better view; explain...

The life of Harvard University – the oldest institution of higher learning in the US – officially began on 28th October, 1636 when the Massachusetts Bay Colony appropriated £400 for its construction. It;s fair to say the first few years of Harvard’s existence were not a success, featuring whippings, poisonings, and way too little beef and beer for the students’ liking. In this episode, Arion, Rebe...

Rerun. Soviet naval officer Vasili Arkhipov may not have the name recognition of Castro, Kruschev and Kennedy - but his actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis on 27th October, 1962 almost certainly prevented World War Three from erupting.  On-board a sweltering Russian submarine, he talked Captain valentyn Savitsky down from firing a nuclear torpedo at the United States Navy, whom, Savitsky false...

The gunfight at the O.K. Corral – a 30-second shootout between lawmen and outlaws – occurred on October 26, 1881, in the small US mining town of Tombstone. When the smoke cleared, three people lay dead.  The gunfight might have remained little more than a minor footnote in the history of the Old West, except that it came to be romanticised, dramatised and exaggerated by countless books and movies...

On 25th October, 1668, Elizabeth Pepys walked in on her maid and her husband – the inveterate restoration shagger Samuel Pepys – in a position so compromising that Samuel himself could only bear to describe it using a mixture of French and Latin. And even though Pepys charted a period that included the Great Fire of London, wars, plagues and the triumphant return of Charles II, this unfortunate ep...

Mr Blobby made his anarchic television debut on 24th October, 1992, in a new segment called “Gotcha” on the hugely popular BBC show Noel’s House Party. The googly eyed, perma-grinning, yellow and pink character was an immediate hit, selling masses of merchandise to British kids and adults alike. At the height of Blobbymania, Mr Blobby released a No. 1 UK single and spawned four theme parks around...

Frank Lloyd Wright’s extraordinary Guggenheim building finally flung open its doors on 21st October, 1959, after a gestation period of two decades - during which time both Wright, and Solomon Guggenheim himself, had died. The reaction was mixed. Art critics panned the design, likening it to “a washing machine”, an “inverted oatmeal bowl”, and an “oversized and indigestible hot cross bun”. Even tho...

Rerun. William Alnutt tipped arsenic into the family sugar bowl on 20th October, 1847 - and five days later, the 12 year-old’s sweet-toothed grandfather, Samuel Nelme, was dead.  It was the second time the deeply troubled Alnutt had attempt to murder to his grandfather, after a failed plot to shoot him with a pistol in their garden. His trial caused a media sensation. In this episode, Arion, Rebec...

Richard Bacon was sacked from Blue Peter after The News of the World revealed he had taken cocaine; an event which was explained to the show’s young viewers by Lorraine Heggessy, then head of Children’s BBC, on 19th October, 1998. The escapade came to light after Bacon’s best friend sold the story via Max Clifford; the tabloid had then waited to publish the news to coincide with the 60th anniversa...

The East Java Ninja Scare - an outbreak of mass hysteria in East Java, Indonesia that led to hundreds of deaths - reached its peak with a massacre of suspected ‘sorcerers’ on 18th October, 1998. Essentially a witch-hunt in which vulnerable misfits were targeted for slaughter by superstitious vigilante mobs, the violence nonetheless had its roots in the very real murder of some Muslim clerics by un...

The London Beer Flood, which created a 15ft-high wave of booze, and claimed the lives of eight people, began on 17th October, 1814 - when an iron hoop came loose on a giant barrel at Meux’s famous Horse Shoe Brewery. The barrel, in which over a million pints of fermenting porter were brewing, exploded - triggering a chain reaction that effectively blew up the factory and caused bricks to rain down...

Henry Blair, the only inventor ever denoted as a ‘colored man’ in the records of US Patent Office, received a patent for his invention of a mechanical corn planter on 14th October, 1834. For decades, it was believed this was the first example of an African-American inventor receiving a US patent. The truth turns out to be more complex, and is touched by the legacy of slavery, legal reform, and bla...

Rerun. The first ever U.S. officer to be convicted of treason, Army Lieutenant Martin J. Monti Jr., defected from the Air Service to the Nazis on 13th October, 1944. After a stint in radio propaganda, he joined the Waffen-SS, was recaptured by the Americans, and then claimed to be a prisoner of War. His family petitioned his Senator to go lightly on his crimes, the full extent of which only became...

Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ opened at New York’s Mark Hellinger Theater on 12th October, 1971. The Guardian summarized the show as “the work of two young Englishmen, from an original story by God.” The production was the first to be mounted in a traditional venue - but was far from being the first live performance of the rock opera, which had been staged in a series...