Episodes

Jack The Ripper’s ‘letters’ can mostly be dismissed as hoaxes. The possible exception is the letter sent to George Lusk, the President of Mile End Vigilance Committee, on 16th October, 1888. It was marked, “From Hell”. And it had half a human kidney attached to it. “Sor I send you half the Kidne I took […]

On October 13th, 1881, the linguist and grammarian Eliezer Ben-Yehuda held what is thought to have been the first modern conversation in Hebrew with two friends at a Paris café. The conversation would have had some serious stumbling blocks, given that the language was still missing numerous modern words including bicycle, towel, and – crucially

The world’s most famous adult magazine went ‘SFW’ on 12th October, 2015 – when Scott Flanders, then Playboy’s chief executive, announced that future editions would no longer contain full nudity. The change lasted for only one year. ‘Reading it for the articles’ had, at one time, been a plausible option – the magazine had published

Triggering a national and international outcry, the San Francisco school board issued an order on October 11th, 1906, requiring all Japanese and Korean children to attend a separate “Oriental School” where Chinese pupils were already segregated.  The move came as a huge embarrassment to President Theodore Roosevelt, who was trying to build relations with Japan,

On 10th October, 1967 a treaty went into force that has gone on to become the backbone for all international space law – a United Nations-approved agreement known as the The Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, but

Scandal beset baseball’s biggest contest on 9th October, 1919, when members of the Chicago White Sox conspired to lose the World Series to underdogs the Cincinnati Reds, in return for a slice of gambling profits. There had been numerous attempts to fix high-profile games before, but the ‘Black Sox’ affair was the first time America

The world’s most famous cabaret, the Moulin Rouge, opened its doors in Paris on 6th October, 1889. Founded by Joseph Oller and Charles Zidler, the club was originally called the Jardin de Paris and featured everything from art galleries to operettas, live tableau and an opium den. In the era of the Belle Epoque, however,

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

Sculptor Gutzon Borglum began chiseling the rockface of Mount Rushmore on 4th October, 1927 – the start of a 14 year project to carve Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and Roosevelt into the South Dakotan summit. A team of up to 400 workers used dynamite, jackhammers, and chisels to shape the mountain into the iconic presidential

Irish popstar Sinéad O’Connor tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II during her performance of Bob Marley’s ‘War’ on NBC’s TV show ‘Saturday Night Live’ on 3rd October, 1992. The unexpected act was meticulously planned by O’Connor; a protest against child abuse within the Catholic Church.  The performance left the audience almost silent,