))
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.
…
continue reading
Rerun: Howard Hawks’ film noir ‘The Big Sleep’ finally hit cinemas on 23rd August, 1946, after extra crowd-pleasing repartee had been inserted, featuring real life couple Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. But more flirtation meant less exposition - making the plot of the detective story notoriously difficult to follow, even to the extent that the …
…
continue reading
Rerun: The world’s first notable air raid occurred on 22nd August, 1849, when the Austrian Army attacked Venice using a fleet of 200 miniature hot air balloons, each delivering a 33lb pound bomb. Following a disastrous first attempt - when the balloons blew back on to their own men - this time the Austrians equipped each balloon with a long copper …
…
continue reading
The creation of Haiti was the culmination of a slave revolt that began on a stormy night in the dense woods of Bois Caïman in Saint-Domingue, on 21st September, 1791, when a Voodoo ceremony led by the Jamaican-born priest Dutty Boukman called upon the enslaved Africans to reject their masters and embrace freedom in a bloody uprising. Saint-Domingue…
…
continue reading
Winston Churchill had only been Prime Minister for three months when, on 20th August, 1940, he delivered ‘The Few’ - one of his most iconic speeches - in the House of Commons. Arion, Rebecca and Olly consider how and why Churchill’s paean to the courage of RAF pilots during the Battle of Britain has been so well-remembered - albeit mainly for a quo…
…
continue reading
A whopping 40,000 spectators gathered at Burkhart Hill in Dayton, Ohio, to witness the first-ever All American Soapbox Derby on August 19th, 1934. Hundreds of kids, aged 10 to 15, raced in homemade cars built from recycled materials and old pram and bike wheels, all powered solely by gravity. The event originated in 1933 when young William Condit a…
…
continue reading
Rerun: Conjoined teenagers Chang and Eng Bunker began their world tour in Boston, Massachusetts on 16th August, 1829. ‘Discovered’ by Scotsman Robert Hunter in Siam (now Thailand), the boys inspired the term ‘Siamese Twins’, despite being ethnically Chinese. Chang was a heavy drinker, and Eng was a teetotaller - yet they shared a liver. They had fa…
…
continue reading
Rerun: Camp Siegfried hosted a ‘Nazi Camp Fete’ for 40,000 attendees on 15th August, 1938. The Summer resort, on Yaphank, Long Island, was the epicentre of the German-American Bund: an organisation devoted to establishing a Nazi stronghold across the United States. Alongside campfire building and swimming lessons, young attendees were taught to emu…
…
continue reading
The Stanford Prison Experiment, created by Philip Zimbardo, began on 14th August, 1971. 24 male college students volunteered to be assigned roles as either ‘guard’ or ‘prisoner’ in a mock jail: the ‘prisoners’ were ‘arrested’ by real cops outside their family homes and marched down to a Police Station before being transferred to their imitation inc…
…
continue reading
The ‘mock’ battle of Manila took place on 13th August, 1898, when the Spanish Army attempted to save face by staging a low-impact fight with the Americans, handing over the territory of the Philippines without seeming weak. The pseudo engagement aimed for a bloodless resolution, but unintentional shots fired from both sides disrupted the facade. Ho…
…
continue reading
Isaac Singer's iteration of a mechanised sewing machine received US Patent Number 8294 on 12th August, 1851. By refining an existing design by Elias Howe, and improving it with a straight-line shuttle and straight needle, Singer’s prototype produced 900 stitches a minute, compared to 40 stitches by hand, drastically reducing the time it took to mak…
…
continue reading
Rerun: Black Rock - a 200-yard strip of pebbly beach in Brighton - was first set aside for naked bathers on 9th August, 1979. It came after a campaign by the Central Council For British Naturism, who had previously petitioned 140 local authorities. When Conservative councillor Eileen Jakes responded positively to the call, she was accused of pander…
…
continue reading
Rerun: Abbey Road was a street known only to North Londoners until The Beatles posed on the zebra crossing outside EMI Studios on 8th August, 1969. Photographer Iain MacMillan took just six snaps, one of which graced the front cover of their penultimate album, ‘Abbey Road’. The image became instantly iconic, partly due to the decision not to name t…
…
continue reading
Jonathan Jackson, teenage brother of imprisoned black power activist George Jackson, entered the Marin County Courthouse concealing three guns under his raincoat on 7th August, 1970. In the middle of a trial, he took Judge Harold Haley hostage in a bid to secure his brother's release. The previous year had seen a landmark incident at San Quentin Co…
…
continue reading
The Addams Family debuted as a one-panel cartoon in The New Yorker on 6th August, 1938. Created by Charles Addams, the family (who for decades were essentially archetypes, without character names) were a satirical inversion of the ideal postwar American middle-class nuclear family, delighting in the macabre, and seemingly unaware or unconcerned tha…
…
continue reading
Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Nationalist Party, was founded on 5th August, 1925, with a principal mission to revive the Welsh language. Despite boasting a history of over 1,400 years - evolving from the Celtic language spoken by ancient Britons - Welsh was on the decline in the 20th century, following significant suppression dating back to the 1536 Act o…
…
continue reading
Rerun: William II, son of William The Conqueror, took a hunting trip to the New Forest on 2nd August, 1100 - and was shot dead by an arrow, which punctured his lung. But, whodunnit? Chroniclers laid the blame at the door of Walter Tirel, who quickly fled to France. But could it have really been fratricide, orchestrated by William’s younger brother …
…
continue reading
Rerun: Chubby Checker's "The Twist", the most popular single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, was released on 1st August, 1960. It was just a cover version of a B-side which had already been released by its writer, Hank Ballard - but after it appeared on The Dick Clark Show, the world slowly became obsessed with the catchy tune and simple l…
…
continue reading
Nine year-old ‘Little Hugh’ went missing in Lincoln on 31st July, 1255. A popular narrative emerged that local Jews (in fact gathering for a wedding) had kidnapped, tortured, and crucified him, perhaps even eating his blood; an antisemitic myth that persisted for centuries, only called out by the Church of England in 1955. A local Jewish man called…
…
continue reading
The final episode of ‘Top Of The Pops’ aired on 30th July, 2006. Co-hosted by necrophiliac paedophile Jimmy Savile, the BBC institution ended after 42 years with little fanfare and no live performances. In this episode, The Retospectors consider whether TOTP could or should have survived longer into the 21st century; unpick what lay behind its enor…
…
continue reading
King Louis Philippe unveiled an iconic Parisian monument, the Arc De Triomphe, on 29th July, 1836. But, due to fears of an attack, only 11 people attended the event - six of whom were soldiers. Originally commissioned by Napoleon in 1806 after his victory at Austerlitz, the Arc was inspired by the ancient Roman triumphal arches. But progress was sl…
…
continue reading
Rerun: Linguist L. L. Zamenhof published ‘Dr. Esperanto's International Language’ on 26th July, 1887 - and in so doing launched Esperanto, the most popular ‘constructed language’ on Earth. Thanks to apps like Duolingo, there are still around 2 million esperantists today. It was once even proposed as the official language of the incipient League of …
…
continue reading
Rerun: Chairman Mao Zedong swam in the Yangtze River on 25th July, 1966. Despite being in his Seventies, the leader was said by party propagandists (and hence every newspaper in China) to have set a world-record pace of nearly 15 km in 65 min. This piece of political theatre showed the world that the public face of the Chinese Communist party was i…
…
continue reading
American professor Hiram Bingham "discovered" Machu Picchu on 24th July, 1911 - though he initially misidentified it as Vilcabamba, the last stronghold of the Inca civilization during the Spanish conquest. Unlike Vilcabamba, Machu Picchu was built at the peak of the Inca Empire's glory. Believed to have been a winter retreat for the Inca elite, its…
…
continue reading
The world’s first ice cream cone - credited by thousands of thrilled visitors was said to have occurred at the St Louis World’s Fair, on July 23rd, 1904. What’s less clear is which of the fair’s vendors first concocted the viral treat: Charles E. Menches, Ernest Hamwi, Abe Doumar, Albert and Nick Kabbaz, Arnold Fornachou and David Avayou have all b…
…
continue reading
What happened to the ‘Lost Colony’ at Roanoke? It’s a mystery that’s intrigued American historians for centuries - and one that began on 22nd July, 1587, when the settlers, led by John White, first landed there; only to discover that a previous colony had been wiped out by hostile tribespeople. This new settlement, however, was under immense pressu…
…
continue reading
