Episodes

Future poetic powerhouse Dante Alighieri was enshrined as one of Florence’s six priors on 15th June, 1300: a top political gig in the city’s complex guild-based government. But his beloved hometown was a powder keg, split between rival factions: the Guelphs and the Ghibellines; and the Guelphs themselves were split into “white” and “black” camps. […]

It was the THIRD time behind bars for legendary rock n’ roller Chuck Berry when he was found to have dodged $110,000 in income tax on 11th June, 1979. He insisted on being paid cash-in-hand for his sometimes shambolic personal appearances, and his propensity for stashing it was so well-known that in Australia the authorities

Benjamin Franklin’s legendary ‘kite experiment’ supposedly took place on 10th June, 1752, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to the traditional account, the future Founding Father flew a kite fitted with a metal key into a storm cloud to prove that it contained electricity, leading to the creation of the lightning rod ⚡ Historians, however, point out

‘Ghostbusters’ opened in US cinemas on 8th June, 1984, quickly becoming the highest-grossing comedy of all time.  The brainchild of SNL’s Dan Aykroyd – whose great-grandfather was a 19th-century psychic investigator – the film was pitched and delivered within 13 months. Drawing inspiration from 1930s ghost comedies, the wisecracking ensemble comedy smashed the Hollywood wisdom

‘The Annoying Thing’ is how the begenitaled amphibian animated by Erik Wernquist was first described; but by the time he released his first single ‘Axel F’ he was universally known as The Crazy Frog, and beat Coldplay’s ‘Speed of Sound’ to UK #1 on 4th June, 2005. The tale of how this possibly could have

Los Angeles erupted in racist violence on 3rd June, 1943 in a week of riots that exposed deep tensions in wartime America. California’s Mexican-American “Pachuco” youth had adopted the zoot suit style from African-American jazz culture. But to many white Americans the fashion appeared rebellious, unpatriotic and even threatening at a time when wartime rationing

Crown Prince Dipendra opened fire on his whole family at a family dinner at Kathmandu’s Narayanhiti Palace on 1st June, 2001. He killed nine royals, including his father, King Birendra, his mother, Queen Aishwarya, and his siblings; then reportedly turned the gun on himself. In a bizarre twist of constitutional formality, Dipendra — though in

Before ‘Tomb Raider’, before ‘Mortal Kombat’, before ‘Street Fighter’, there was something even WORSE. ‘Super Mario Bros’ – which opened in the United States on 28th May, 1993 – was such a critical and commercial failure that for years afterwards Nintendo kept their franchises out of Hollywood hands. Relocating the action to ‘Dinohattan’, the film

William Pitt the Younger was Prime Minister when he and opposition MP George Tierney fought a duel on Sunday, 27th May 1798 on London’s Putney Heath.  Standing twelve paces apart, the two politicians prepared to exchange gunfire. Both men missed with their first shots. On the second round, Pitt deliberately fired away from his opponent,

Hands Across America, a human chain from New York to California was formed on 25th May, 1986, in an attempt to raise awareness and funds for domestic poverty. The brainchild of advertising executive Jeffrey Nightingale and We Are the World producer Ken Kragen, the kooky concept gained traction once corporate sponsors Coca-Cola and Citibank jumped