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
June 17, 2025 • 13 mins
Aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart became the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air on June 18th, 1928… but on this occasion didn’t actually fly the plane; she was a passenger aboard the Friendship, a three-engine seaplane piloted by Wilmer Stultz and co-piloted by Louis Gordon.
Originally, a wealthy heiress was meant to take the flight, but her family vetoed it as too dangerous. So Earhart, smart, skilled, and camera-ready, was ...
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June 16, 2025 • 10 mins
Still the tallest statue in the USA, the Statue of Liberty arrived from France - in no less than 214 crates - in New York City on 17th June, 1885.
Costing just $10m in today’s money, the Lady went on to symbolise the immigrant journey - even though the designers and engineers behind it had no such intention. And it wasn’t supposed to be green, either - that’s because it’s oxidized.
In this episode, Olly, Rebecca and Arion conside...
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June 15, 2025 • 10 mins
Russia’s brightest ballet star, Rudolf Nureyev, evaded his KGB minders and defected from the USSR on 16th June, 1961.
According to feverish newspaper reports, the dancer dashed towards the barrier, proclaiming in English, "I want to be free," and was swiftly escorted to the airport police station, marking the start of his life in the West.
His defection, while fraught with personal sacrifice - including a potential permanent...
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June 11, 2025 • 12 mins
Until the mid-20th century, putting nappies on babies involved folding and pinning cloth towelling, then pulling a pair of rubber pants over the top. That all began to change on June 12th, 1951, when the US inventor Marion Donovan patented a new kind of nappy, with an envelope-like plastic cover and an absorbent insert.
Her invention ultimately netted her a million dollars (nearly $10 million in today’s money) and paved the way fo...
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June 10, 2025 • 12 mins
Paul McCartney married Heather Mills in an extravagant ceremony at Castle Leslie in County Monaghan, Ireland, on 11th June, 2002.
300 VIP guests were in attendance, including Elton John, Eric Clapton, and Ringo Starr, but only one official photo was ever released - so local teens with disposable cameras became unlikely paparazzi for hire.
The couple’s doomed love story began in 1999 at the Pride of Britain Awards, but when the ...
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June 9, 2025 • 11 mins
The Oxford v Cambridge Men’s Boat Race has been an annual tradition since 1856 - but the first one was the result of a light-hearted bet between two friends called Charles on 10th June, 1829.
When Wordsworth (Christ Church College, Oxford) and Merivale (St. John’s, Cambridge) challenged each other to race up the Thames in Henley, they never could have known their schoolboy jape would attract 20,000 spectators, nor that it would go...
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June 8, 2025 • 11 mins
The Wise Little Hen’, the Silly Symphonies short from was released on 9th June, 1934 and introduced a new Disney character: Donald Duck.
With his distinctive strangled quacking (born from the unique talents of Clarence Nash - a man who’d spent his childhood mimicking barnyard sounds), Donald's hot-tempered, accident-prone slapstick sensibilities brought a welcome unpredictability to the sanitised world the studio had constructed...
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June 5, 2025 • 12 mins
Notorious Nazi doctor, ‘Angel of Death’ Josef Mengele, spent the last twenty years of his life on the run. His remains were recovered in São Paulo on 6th June, 1985, when Brazilian Police dug up the grave of a man named “Wolfgang Gerhard” - later proven to be Mengele, who’d drowned at a beach resort at the age of 68.
Mengele, responsible for sending up to 400,000 Jews to their deaths at Auschwitz, was able to escape to Argentina v...
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June 4, 2025 • 12 mins
Lizzie Borden’s murder trial began on June 5, 1893 in New Bedford Courthouse, Massachusetts. The 32 year-old was accused of killing her father, wealthy magnate Andrew Borden, and his wife Abby, her stepmother, who had been crushed by the blows of a hatchet - 11 and 19 times, respectively.
In attendance were three judges, Borden’s high-powered defense team (paid for from her late father’s estate), and reporters and onlookers keen t...
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June 3, 2025 • 12 mins
Twice the usual crowd turned up to see the Cleveland Indians take on the Texas Rangers on June 4th, 1974 - drawn in not by the baseball match, but by an innovative promotion: for just 10 cents, fans could grab 10 ounces of beer. The lines never stopped, as fans circled back, drank in line, and kept the buzz going.
Tensions were high, as this was a rematch with the Texas Rangers following a brawl. Fans cheered when a Rangers player...
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June 2, 2025 • 11 mins
Radical playwright Valerie Solanas, author of the SCUM Manifesto (for the ‘Society of Cutting Up Men’) attempted to assassinate pop artist Andy Warhol at The Factory on 3rd June, 1968.
As a result, Warhol wore a corset for the rest of his life; security had to be introduced at the previously open-door environment of The Factory; and Solanas’ name went down in infamy.
In this episode, Olly, Arion and Rebecca ask whether her femini...
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June 1, 2025 • 12 mins
Arion, Rebecca and Olly recall the shocking events of the Heysel Stadium disaster, which lead to all English football clubs being banned from European competitions for five years from 2nd June, 1985.
The tragedy occurred during the European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus, when hooligans from both clubs had infiltrated the neutral sections. The policing was inadequate, with officers diverted by minor thefts, and the stad...
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May 29, 2025 • 13 mins
The most significant rebellion of the Medieval era, the so-called Peasant’s Revolt, kicked off in Brentwood, Essex on 30th May, 1381, when tax collector John Bampton attempted to collect unpaid poll tax.
The protest triggered a violent confrontation, rapidly spreading across the south-east of the country. Within a month, the rebels were marching towards London, massacring merchants and razing the palace of the king’s uncle, John o...
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May 28, 2025 • 12 mins
Whit Monday became the first of the new ‘Bank Holidays’ on 29th May, 1871, as millions of Britons got an officially-sanctioned paid day off.
The brainchild of eccentric polymath (and former banker) Sir John Lubbock, the Bank Holidays Act of 1871 created four official days off, cleverly packaged as innocuous financial regulation so as to sneak through Parliament without incurring moral panic. So admired was the innovation that the...
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May 27, 2025 • 12 mins
A naval juggernaut of 137 ships, 10,000 sailors, 2,500 guns, and 20,000 soldiers was launched at England by Philip II of Spain on May 28th, 1588: the Spanish Armada. Their goal? A full-scale invasion to dethrone Queen Elizabeth I and restore Catholicism, no less.
Unfortunately, their commander, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, had no naval experience. And the English got wind of the "secret" invasion months in advance. When they final...
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May 26, 2025 • 11 mins
Microwave cookery was first demonstrated by Ross Kilgore of Westinghouse at the Chicago World’s Fair, which opened on 27th May, 1933. But the event was deemed to be a side-show of little scientific significance, and was forgotten until microwaves were ‘discovered’ two decades later.
Incredibly also on display at the Chicago World’s Fair were incubated premature babies; people with dwarfism paraded in ‘midget’s village’; and, most ...
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May 25, 2025 • 12 mins
The major political upheaval that befell Italy happened on 26th May, 1981, when Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani and his entire cabinet resigned.
This followed the exposure of a secretive Masonic lodge, known as P2 or Propaganda Due, intent on creating a shadowy state-within-a-state. Its 962 elite members included high-ranking military officers, civil servants, bankers, and a certain Silvio Berlusconi.
The mastermind behind the s...
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May 22, 2025 • 12 mins
Hanged for piracy and murder, sea captain William Kidd was executed in Wapping on 23rd May, 1701. From the gallows he proclaimed to the large assembled crowd that he was innocent of the crimes, as he was a licensed privateer.
The vessel he’d captured, the Quedagh Merchant, was indeed sailing under a ‘French pass’ - though the documents that prove this lay unearthed until the 20th century. His trial was used by the governing Tory ...
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May 21, 2025 • 12 mins
Namco’s ground-breaking arcade game Pac-Man had its first focus test in a Tokyo cinema foyer on May 22nd, 1980. Created by 24 year-old Toru Iwatani, it was originally called ‘Puck-Man’ and designed to appeal to women as well as men.
Each of the ghosts - Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde - was programmed to have its own personality using AI routines, creating a sense of ‘character’ despite the pixelated rendering. Atari declined the op...
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May 20, 2025 • 12 mins
Labour leader Ed Miliband awkwardly ate a bacon sandwich at New Covent Garden Market on 21st May, 2014. Mid-bite, eyes squinting, lips oddly parted, and fingers clumsily gripping the sandwich - it was an instantly meme-able moment.
The British press pounced. The photo became a viral sensation, with endless edits, spoofs, and headlines suggesting Miliband wasn’t “human enough” to relate to the average voter. It was a perfect stor...
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