Episodes

When German hikers Erika and Helmut Simon stumbled upon a dead body in the Oertzel Alps on 19th September, 1991, they believed it to be a recently fallen mountaineer, whose cadaver had been preserved in the ice. In fact, the specimen turned out to be 5,300 years old – older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids. […]

Tiffany, now a $16 billion jewelry empire, opened their first store at 259 Broadway, New York, on 18th September, 1837. Their first day’s sales total was $4.98. Co-founded by 25 year-old Charles Lewis Tiffany (thanks to a $1,000 loan from his father), the ‘fancy goods emporium’ initially sold disparate luxury items including perfumes, dinner sets,

As a symbol over 7,000 years old, the swastika had a long, diverse history before becoming the official flag of Nazi Germany on 15th September, 1935. It had been considered a sacred symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Odinism – and appeared on artifacts from pre-Christian European cultures.  It had even featured as part of U.S.

Rerun. ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is now well-known as the USA’s national anthem – but when Francis Scott Key wrote the words on 14th September, 1814, it was merely the latest in a series of patriotic poems he’d penned; this one concerning the British assault on the coastal fortification of Fort McHenry.It was only when –

The ‘High Priest of LSD’, Timothy Leary, made a daring escape from the California Men’s Colony on September 13th, 1970. A prominent counterculture figure and advocate for psychedelic substances, Leary had been incarcerated for possession of marijuana – and was labeled ‘The Most Dangerous Man in America’ by Richard Nixon. His escape was orchestrated by

The secret wedding of poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning on September 12th, 1846, was witnessed by just two people. Elizabeth was so nervous about the ceremony, held at Marylebone Parish Church, that she needed smelling salts to calm her.  Barrett was already an acclaimed poet, while Browning was relatively unknown at the time. But

Construction of the Virginia headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense began on September 11th, 1941 – spookily, the same date it was attacked by al-Qaeda six decades later.  The massive five-sided building, a potent symbol of America’s military strength, became known as the Pentagon. Featuring 4 million square feet of office space, the building

The last known Tasmanian tiger to be held in captivity was found dead at Hobart’s Beaumaris zoo on 8th September, 1936. The critically endangered marsupial was accidentally locked out of its shelter overnight and succumbed to the frigid temperatures. With the animal’s death, a species that had once roamed across Australia for thousands of years

The Nao Victoria, the first ship to circumnavigate the globe, arrived back to its starting point in Spain on 6th September, 1522, with one person notably missing: Ferdinand Magellan, the man who had initiated the audacious voyage. Through a mixture of hubris and misfortune Magellan had come to a rather sticky end just before reaching

Today, the small town of Leavenworth in Washington is known for its Bavarian-themed hotels, restaurants, shops and festivals, but when it was incorporated on 5th September, 1906, its main claim to fame was that it had a train line and a fledgling logging industry. After the train hub that had put it on the map