Today In History with The Retrospectors
Curious, funny, surprising daily history - with Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina and Arion McNicoll. From the invention of the Game Boy to the Mancunian beer-poisoning of 1900, from Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain to America's Nazi summer schools... each day we uncover an unexpected story for the ages. In just ten minutes! Best Daily Podcast (British Podcast Awards 2023 nominee). Get early access and ad-free listening at Patreon.com/Retrospectors or subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
Episodes
July 22, 2025 • 11 mins
Margaret "Mother" Clap stood before a London court on 23rd July, 1726, accused of running a “Molly house” - a social club for gay men that was part-brothel, part-safe haven.
She argued, perhaps naively, that as a woman she couldn’t possibly be involved in such "unnatural" practices, but the jury was unconvinced: she was fined, sentenced to two years in prison, and subjected to public humiliation on the pillory, where the crowd’s ...
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July 21, 2025 • 11 mins
Billed as a concours for ‘horseless carriages’, the Paris–Rouen competition which took place on 22nd July, 1894, is now widely considered the world’s first motor race.
Only 21 vehicles qualified. Some of them had solid iron tyres. One was an eight passenger wagonette that weighed four tonnes. The car that came in first - a 20 horsepower steam tractor - was ruled ineligible.
In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly consider the w...
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July 20, 2025 • 11 mins
New York City's iconic green space, Central Park - larger than Monaco and Vatican City combined - was legislated for on 21st July, 1853. Over 750 acres of Manhattan were allocated for America's first major landscaped public park; a grand plan which aimed to rival European cities.
Rocky and swampy land, previously home to small farms and settlements, was bulldozed - at a cost that exceeded the purchase of Alaska. A competition prod...
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July 17, 2025 • 10 mins
Tim Berners-Lee uploaded a photo of parody doo-wop group Les Horrible Cernettes on 18th July 1992 - the first image to be shared online.
The photograph was taken at the CERN Hardronic Festival by Silvano de Gennaro, an analyst in the Computer Science department. The girlband were striking a pose for their forthcoming CD cover, little realising their comedy love songs about colliders, quarks, liquid nitrogen, microwaves, and antima...
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July 16, 2025 • 11 mins
Windsor became the official surname of the British Royal family on 17th July 1917, when King George V issued a proclamation declaring that “The Name of Windsor is to be borne by His Royal House and Family and Relinquishing the Use of All German Titles and Dignities.”
The decision to change the family name came amid strong anti-German feeling following air raids over London, and in particular the bombing of a school in the East End...
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July 15, 2025 • 13 mins
John F. Kennedy Jr., son of JFK and Jackie Onassis, disappeared off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard on July 16th, 1999. He had crashed his private plane, killing his wife, his sister-in-law and himself.
President Bill Clinton called it “a very sad time,” and for good reason — it was déjà vu for America. The Kennedy legacy was playing out once more, not with gunshots in Dallas or Los Angeles, but in slow, quiet dread over a radar bl...
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July 14, 2025 • 11 mins
The first images of Mars found their way back to Earth from NASA’s Mariner 4 mission on 15th July, 1965 - and were simultaneously revelatory and disappointing.
Delivered as binary code, rendered in black and white, and revealing only 1% of the planet, the photos were coloured in by hand and showed no evidence of life. But they played a significant part in the scientific understanding of the Red Planet for years to come.
In this e...
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July 13, 2025 • 12 mins
Cold-blooded killer? Folk hero? Petty thief? Billy The Kid, who met his end on 14th July, 1881, was all of the above. His luck finally ran out in a dark bedroom in New Mexico, where his old friend, Sheriff Pat Garrett, ensured that he would be the one to live to tell the tale.
Born Henry McCarty but also known by numerous aliases like William H. Bonny and Kid Antrim, ‘The Kid’ was just 21 when he died, having killed at least four ...
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July 10, 2025 • 12 mins
Mary Whitehouse successfully sued Gay News and publisher Denis Lemon at the Old Bailey in a trial that began on 11th July, 1977 - Britain’s last conviction for blasphemy.
What had ired the notorious Christian campaigner was the magazine’s publication of “The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name”, a poem by James Kirkup written from the perspective of a Roman centurion who graphically describes having sex with Jesus after his crucifix...
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July 9, 2025 • 12 mins
The ‘Abernathy Boys’, Temple and Louis, were aged just 5 and 8 respectively when they departed Guthrie, Oklahoma for a 1,300-mile horseback trip to Roswell, New Mexico on July 10th, 1909. Alone.
Sons of widower John Abernathy, himself the youngest-ever U.S. Marshal, the boys encountered wolves, outlaws and vast stretches of untamed plains on their journey - but survived the trip and became national celebrities and friends with Ted...
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July 8, 2025 • 13 mins
Rock Around The Clock was a moderately successful B-side - until its inclusion in the teen rebellion movie Blackboard Jungle - following which, on 9th July, 1955, Bill Haley and the Comets’ earworm became the first rock n’roll song to hit US No.1.
But Haley was no teenage rebel. He was already in his late 30s, balding, and rocking a curl on his forehead that screamed “respectable uncle”. But he was smart. He had rebranded his coun...
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July 8, 2025 • 11 mins
‘Our Lady of Kazan’, a painting of the Virgin and Child, was discovered in the ashes of a fire in the Russian town of Kazan on 8th July, 1579. The icon quickly became associated with miracles after two blind men were said to have their sight restored by standing in front of it.
The original was stolen in 1904, but the copies still represent one of Russia’s most important pieces of religious art - credited by some with thwarting Na...
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July 6, 2025 • 11 mins
Samantha Smith, an 11 year-old from Maine, New England, left for the USSR on 7th July, 1983, as the personal guest of Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov.
Her adventure began with a letter she wrote him, bluntly asking if he intended to start a war or conquer the United States. After the letter was published in Pravda, Andropov invited her to visit Russia, attending the Bolshoi Ballet, touring Lenin's Tomb, and staying at the Artek summ...
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July 3, 2025 • 12 mins
Jack Johnson, the first Black world heavyweight champion, and Jim Jeffries, the so-called "Great White Hope", slugged it out in Reno, Nevada on 4th July, 1910 - in one of the most explosive sporting events in American sports history.
Literally billed as a battle for racial supremacy, the fight attracted 20,000 paying fans - and sparked the biggest race riots in the United States until the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Jeffrie...
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July 2, 2025 • 12 mins
David Bowie retired his alter-ego Ziggy Stardust live on stage at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on 3rd July, 1973. To the surprise of most of his band, the Spiders From Mars, he announced to a devastated crowd that the gig was “the last show we’ll ever do.”
Bowie’s management company had plans to take Ziggy on an international tour, but being Ziggy Stardust had taken a mental and physical toll on the singer. “I really did want it al...
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July 1, 2025 • 12 mins
Minnesotan dentist Walter Palmer killed Cecil The Lion on 2nd July, 2015; ending the life of a beloved and photogenic big cat, and kickstarting his career as the internet’s most vilified trophy hunter.
Cecil, who lived in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, wasn’t just any lion - he was being tracked by Oxford scientists, and was a hit with tourists, known for his majestic black mane and his chill attitude toward safari vehicles. Pal...
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June 30, 2025 • 11 mins
Sony’s revolutionary cassette player, the Walkman, debuted in the USA on 1st July, 1979, costing $150. It went on to shift a staggering 450m units.
Boasting a classy aluminium chassis, audio splitter, and novelty ‘Hotline’ button for dance parties, the device took off after an advertising campaign featuring sexy models and an elderly Japanese monk.
In this episode, Olly, Arion and Rebecca reveal the genesis of the Walkman’s brand...
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June 29, 2025 • 12 mins
Margaret Mitchell’s first and only novel, Gone With The Wind, was released on 30th June, 1936, and delighted readers and critics alike, shifting millions of copies and scooping the Pulitzer Prize.
But its romanticised tales of life in the South - complete with glorified depictions of slave labour and the Confederate Army - was divisive for African-Americans at the time, and is now recognised as overtly racist.
Mitchell, a ‘f...
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June 26, 2025 • 12 mins
The deadly fight between Patrick Farrell and James Donnelly on 27th June 1857 kickstarted one of the longest-lasting and most violent feuds in Canadian history.
The property the Donnellys had been squatting on had been previously leased by Farrell. A judge had ruled that the lot be split 50/50, but, at a barn raising bee, Donnelly chucked a handspike at Farrell, who died two days later. Decades later, the Donnelly family’s homeste...
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June 26, 2025 • 12 mins
At a Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio, a packet of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum became the first ever product to have its barcode scanned - at 8:01 a.m. on June 26th, 1974.
Inspired by the morse code training of his Boy Scout days, Norman Joseph Woodland first sketched out a barcode on a Florida beach in 1948, drawing dots and dashes in the sand. Together with fellow Drexel Institute graduate student Bernard Silver, he received a U.S....
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