Episodes

Can ‘mesmeric’ mental powers harm you from afar? Well, no. But that didn’t stop Lucretia L. S. Brown accusing fellow Christian Scientist Daniel H. Spofford of ‘malicious animal magnetism’ in court; a case that concluded on 14th May, 1878. No doubt bolstered by the fact it took place in Salem, Massachusetts – home of the […]

Pope John Paul II was shot in St. Peter’s Square on 13th May 1981, in front of thousands of pilgrims attending his weekly general audience. Struck multiple times at close range, he collapsed in his Fiat Popemobile, as panic swept through the square. The gunman was Mehmet Ali Ağca, a 23-year-old Turkish national with a

With big hair, big drama, and even bigger shoulder pads, Aaron Spelling’s primetime soap-opera ‘Dynasty’ defined the 1980s. But, by May 11th, 1989, the show’s popularity was waning – and, even though the showrunners didn’t know it, ABC broadcast what was to be its final episode. The nine-season saga chronicled the jaw-dropping lives of the

The theft of Edvard Munch’s iconic painting ‘The Scream’ sullied the opening day of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer – but, on 7th May, 1994, the iconic work was recovered. The painting, which has been stolen multiple times, was returned on this occasion thanks to the involvement of Britain’s Metropolitan Police – and the comic

A View To A Kill by Duran Duran was released on 6th May, 1985. It remains the only James Bond theme to reach Number One on the Billboard Hot 100.  To get the gig, bassist John Taylor reportedly approached Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli at a party and bluntly asked him why the series had

The Day the Clown Cried, Jerry Lewis’s notorious, unreleased Holocaust movie, faced a crisis on 30th April, 1972, when the American actor-director found himself in an extraordinary predicament: the financing for his deeply personal film project had collapsed mid-shoot. Faced with abandoning the production or funding it himself, Lewis chose to press on, investing his

Benito Mussolini was captured by partisans on 27th April, 1945, whilst attempting a hopeless escape to Switzerland, ‘disguised’ in a Luftwaffe coat and helmet alongside his much-younger mistress, Clara Petacci. Hiding in plain sight was never going to work for a man who had spent years building a cult of personality. He put up little

Duke Wilhelm IV issued what later became known as the Reinheitsgebot – the decree setting out that Bavarian beer should be made using only water, barley and hops – on 23rd April, 1516.  Although the famous “purity” clause occupies only a small part of the original document, the law helped improve drink quality, and remains

The Houston Astrodome was a marvel of modern engineering: the world’s first fully covered sports stadium; a futuristic symbol of Houston’s rise as the home of NASA’s Mission Control. But, after its glorious see-through roof created a blinding glare that made it nearly impossible for baseball players to see the ball… on 20th April, 1965,

Queen Elizabeth II stood before 30,000 spectators at Clydebank to launch HMY Britannia on 16th April, 1953. The yacht’s name had been kept secret, and when the Queen finally declared it “Britannia”, the crowd responded with a surge of cheering applause.  Commissioned shortly before the death of her father, King George VI, the ship was