Episodes

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 episode, Arion, […]

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

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

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 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

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 most-complained

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

The Secret of Monkey Island, one of the best loved video games of the point-and-click era, was released on the 15th October, 1990, without, it must be said, a great deal of fanfare. Inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland and the novel On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, the game was

Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, published on 14th October, 1892, was the collection of 12 stories that took his much-loved titular detective from the pages of magazine serials and on to the world’s bookshelves. The inspiration for Holmes, who solves crimes through science rather than chance, came from Dr. Joseph Bell, a

Rerun: Virgin Cola, Sir Richard Branson’s ultimately flawed contender in the Cola Wars, was certainly taken seriously by the competition. On 11th October 1994, a pokerfaced Coca-Cola spokesperson told The Independent: “Consumers consistently demonstrate, when given a free choice, that they prefer our product. ”Despite an extensive publicity campaign – including a stunt in Times