Episodes
TV’s Greatest Salesman
RETRO
Ron Popeil, inventor of The Pocket Fisherman, the Amazing Smokeless Ashtray, and the Inside-The-Shell Egg Scrambler, was (satirically) awarded an Ignoble Award for Consumer Engineering on 7th November, 1993. But the ‘Infomercial King’ had spun an enviable career from his talent for selling; from humble beginnings shilling vegetable choppers on the shop floor of Woolworth’s …
The Play That Never Ends
RETRO
Agatha Christie’s ‘The Mousetrap’, the world’s longest-running play, opened at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham on 6th October, 1952. Producer, Peter Saunders predicted the production would run for 14 months. Over 28,000 performances later, the show has become an iconic attraction in London’s West End – with a set that still includes the original mantelpiece clock …
To Versailles! To Versailles!
RETRO
The ‘Women’s March’ of 1789 began spontaneously, when a market trader banged a drum in a Parisian square on 5th October – launching a chain of events which would eventually end a century of Versailles rule and lead to the execution of Louis XVI. Initially a reaction to the grain shortage that had left Parisians …
Birth of the Breastaurant
RETRO
Hooters, the beach bar chain famous for its flirtatious waitresses, first flung open its doors in Clearwater, Florida on 4th October, 1983. Its publicity-friendly ‘Hooters Girls’ – and a chance visit by John Riggins, star fullback for the Washington Redskins – ensured the concept took off, spawning 425 outlets in 30 countries. However, more recently, …
Postcards – The Poor Man’s Telephone
RETRO
A 12 x 8.5cm ‘Correspondenzkarte’, the earliest progenitor of the modern-day postcard, was created by the Austrian Post on 1st October, 1869. Cheaper and more practical than sending long-form letters, the new medium was an instant sensation with the public – with three million postcards being sent in the first three months. But cultural conservatives …
The Shipwrecked Mr. Crusoe
RETRO
Literature’s most famous castaway, Robinson Crusoe, was washed up on a desert island – where he would remain for 28 years – on 30th September, 1659. By selecting this date, author Daniel Defoe ensured that his fictional protagonist’s fate pre-dated the real-life estrangement of Royal Navy man Alexander Selkirk, who was stranded some 46 years …
The 33-Day Pope
RETRO
The corpse of John Paul I was discovered by a nun in the early hours of 29th September, 1978. His body was embalmed within 24 hours, heightening suspicions that the cause of death may have been unnatural. He had been Pope for just 33 days. An unconventional Pope – who had refused to wear the papal …
Let’s Get Metric
RETRO
Feet, inches, palms, cubits, rods… all were SWEPT ASIDE on 28th September, 1889, when the first General Conference of the Weights and Measures Commission met in Sèvres, France to refine a definition for the NEW universal measurement of distance: the metre. The calculation was painstakingly made by measuring a quarter of the meridian of the …
When 3-D First Flopped
RETRO
Journalists, exhibitors and producers packed the Ambassador Hotel Theater, Los Angeles on 27th September, 1922 – to see the first ever paid-for screening of a 3-D film, ‘The Power Of Love’. Using an anaglyph system (meaning the 3-D glasses had two tinted lenses; one red, one green), viewers were told they could select a happy …
America’s Transgender Celebrity
RETRO
Christine Jorgensen began gender reassignment surgery in Copenhagen on 24th September 1951. The New York Daily News later heralded the event with a headline splash – “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty!” – thereby creating America’s first transgender celebrity. Writing to friends, she said: “As you can see by the enclosed photos, taken just before the operation, …