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Best Daily Podcast (British Podcast Awards 2023 nominee). Ten minute daily episodes bringing you curious moments from this day in history, with Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina and Arion McNicoll: The Retrospectors. It's history, but not as you know it! New eps Mon-Wed; reruns Thurs/Fri; Sunday exclusives at Patreon.com/Retrospectors and for Apple Subscribers.
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Arion, Rebecca and Olly pore over the astonishing career of football legend Pelé, who (by his own count, if not FIFA’s) scored his 1,000th goal on 19th November, 1969. Smashing racial barriers, Pelé was the first black player to grace the cover of LIFE magazine; played a pivotal role in Brazil's triumphs at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, the 1962 Wo…
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King Louis XIV underwent risky surgery to remove a painful anal fistula on 18th November, 1686: an event that created a sensation at court, leading to 1686 being declared the ‘year of the fistula’. Louis’s choice to undergo such a dangeous procedure signalled an unspoken endorsement of surgery, bringing it a semblance of respectability - though the…
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Rerun: Anne Bonny and Mary Read - the most notorious women to swashbuckle and plunder in the ‘golden age of piracy’ - were captured near Jamaica by pirate-hunter Jonathan Barnet on 8th November, 1720. Disguised as men for most of their careers, they sailed (and cavorted) with Pirate Captain ‘Calico Jack’. But, when their crimes came to trial, they …
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Rerun: 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 …
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Amityville is synonymous with horror movies, but that’s because of a real-life tragedy that happened on 13th November, 1974, when Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered his parents and his four younger siblings. Initially, he claimed a mob hitman was responsible, but later confessed to the crimes. After the murders, newlyweds George and Kathy Lutz moved in to t…
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Arion, Rebecca and Olly recall the events of 12th November, 1970, when the coastal town of Florence, Oregon faced a dilemma: the 8-ton dead sperm whale washed up on its shores, emitting a putrid stench that had become unbearable for residents. George Thornton, a Department of Transportation engineer, proposed an unconventional solution: detonating …
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Joseph "Blueskin" Blake was hanged on 11th November, 1724. His notoriety as a highwayman was due in large part to his network of criminal associates, including ‘London’s most glamorous rogue’ Jack Sheppard (who inspired Gay’s Beggars Opera) and ‘Thief-Taker General’, Jonathan Wilde. Under the guise of law enforcement, Wilde had charged victims for …
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Rerun: Kylie Minogue and Jason Donavan’s characters in hit soap opera ‘Neighbours’ were wed in 1988, causing a shopping mall riot in Australia, and attracting an astonishing 20 million viewers to the UK transmission on 8th November. Soundtracked entirely by Angry Anderson’s surging power ballad ‘Suddenly’, the ceremony quickly became an iconic mome…
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Rerun: 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 …
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Catherine the Great of Russia died on 6th November, 1796 - but, contrary to rumours which still persist to this day, the event did not involve an intimate act with a horse. In reality, she collapsed in her washroom, fell into a coma, and died in bed. Born as Princess Sophie in Prussia, she was groomed for marriage, and eventually wed Peter, who wou…
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Arion, Rebecca and Olly unearth the origins of iconic board-game Monopoly, marketed across the United States by Parker Brothers on 5th November, 1935. Its roots lay in a game designed by Quaker feminist Lizzie Magie in 1902, intended to illustrate the theories of political economist Henry George. Her concept, called "The Landlord's Game," intended …
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The Fashion Fête, a three-day event at the Ritz Carlton in New York, began on 4th November, 1914, offering New Yorkers their first glimpse of what we would now understand as a fashion show. With Parisian ateliers shut down due to the First World War, the U.S. editor of Vogue, Edna Woolman Chase, had proposed the event as a way to showcase the work …
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Rerun: The first ever emoji set, including the earliest incarnations of 🍷, ❤️, and 💩, was released in Japan on 1st November, 1997. But the only users could send and receive them were owners of a now-forgotten ‘SkyWalker’ handset made by J-Phone. ☹️ Emoji didn’t truly transform written communication in the West until some fourteen years later, when …
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Rerun: 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 be…
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Martians invaded New Jersey on CBS Radio on 30th October, 1938, when Orson Welles' War of the Worlds delighted and confused a generation of Americans. The fictional news bulletins sounded terrifyingly real, and many listeners missed the disclaimer stating it was just a play. But radio was a burgeoning medium, and Americans were still feeling the st…
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The ‘jewel heist of the Century’ occurred at the American Museum of Natural History, New York on 29th October, 1964. Florida surfer ‘Murph the Surf’ and his accomplices, Allan Kuhn and Roger Clark, stole priceless gems, including the Star of India, worth over $3 million today. The lax security at the institution, along with non-functional alarms an…
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Jonathan Swift’s enduring satire Gulliver’s Travels was first published on October 28, 1726 - though the true identity of the book’s author was concealed from readers. A spoof of Daniel Defoe’s popular Robinson Crusoe, the novel bleakly satirised British society, colonialism, and the monarchy, shocking as many readers as it entertained. In this epi…
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Rerun: The ‘Teapot Dome scandal’ reached its climax when Senator Albert Fall was found guilty of bribery, fined $100,000 and sent to jail on 25th October, 1929. During the Presidency of Warren G Harding, Fall had been offering private companies the chance to drill for oil on state land, without competitive bidding, in return for bags cash. And some…
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rerun: 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 releas…
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When Steve Jobs took to the stage in Cupertino on 23rd October, 2001, he unveiled Apple’s first portable device: the iPod. As ever, his pitch was simple and on-point: "1,000 songs in your pocket." But the iPod wasn't Jobs’s creation. Its concept came from Tony Fadell, an amateur DJ who’d grown frustrated by lugging his music collection to gigs. App…
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Arion, Rebecca and Olly investigate the story of Dr. Hawley Crippen, convicted of murdering his wife, music hall performer Cora Crippen, on 22nd October, 1910. Cora’s corpse had been discovered in their Holloway cellar - but homoeopath Crippen had fled to America with his lover Ethel Lenev dressed as a boy. However, the Captain of the SS Montrose b…
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The Battle of Sekigahara, on 21st October, 1600, was the largest in Japanese feudal history, with over 160,000 troops involved. And stakes were high: the victor, Tokugawa Ieyasu, became the Shōgun of Japan, initiating the Edo period; whilst the leader of the losing Western army, Ishida Mitsunari, was beheaded. The battle itself was chaotic, partly …
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Rerun: When Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross failed to reach their celebrity guest, 78 year-old ‘Fawlty Towers’ star Andrew Sachs, they instead left him a series of answerphone messages, joking about sexual encounters with Sachs's granddaughter, Georgina Baillie. The segment aired on Brand’s Radio 2 show on 18th October, 2008, and became the third m…
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Rerun: 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 effec…
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Wu Zetian became China's first and only female Emperor on 16th October, 655 - cementing an extraordinary rise from Concubine to Secretary to Consort to Queen. On the day of her coronation in 690, a massive earthquake rocked China, a supposed sign of divine disapproval. But Wu flipped the narrative, declaring that the upheaval was a blessing, a symb…
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