Episodes

Rerun. Eyebrows were raised when Dave Manning – a previously unknown film critic – was suddenly receiving star billing on Hollywood movie posters. He turned out to be fictional. This climaxed with a lawsuit, settled by Sony on 3rd August, 2005. Manning had been created by Columbia Pictures executive Matthew Kramer, who’d co-opted the name […]

It’s rare to find a politician behaving as heroically as John F. Kennedy did on 2nd August, 1943. After his torpedo boat was exploded by a Japanese destroyer in the South Pacific, he swam more than three miles to the nearest island, towing along with him all the way an injured crew member – using

Andre and Edouard Michelin published their first Guide on 1st August, 1900. Now recognised as  the gold standard in luxury restaurant reviews, the original guide was primarily created to encourage demand for automobiles – and, therefore, Michelin tyres. At the time, there were fewer than 3,000 cars on French roads. Nearly 35,000 copies of this

The Royal Navy were issued with their final daily ration of rum – ending a tradition of more than 300 years – on July 31, 1970. The day became known as ‘Black Tot Day’. The demise of the long-standing tradition was mainly due to safety concerns, following fears surrounding the more complex technology now in

Independent horror film ‘White Zombie’, starring Bela Lugosi, premiered in New York City’s Rivoli Theatre on July 28th, 1932. It marked the first time that zombies had featured in a Hollywood picture – albeit as the result of an evil voodoo master in Haiti rather than a condition passed on through bites, as in later

Rerun. Sir Walter Raleigh brought tobacco back to Britain from Virginia on 27th July 1586 – and, in so doing, triggered a craze for smoking, which at the time was considered a tonic for halitosis, and even a cure for cancer. Despite Queen Elizabeth I being an advocate for the new drug, it didn’t take

Following a successful early career, Rembrandt van Rijn filed for ‘cessie van goede’ (insolvency) on July 26th, 1656. The poor management of his finances magnified other difficulties that he had with family, friends, neighbours, and patrons.  Although Rembrandt’s bankruptcy was part of a scheme that purported to shield his house from his creditors, and pass

The Hovercraft SR-N1, piloted by Captain Peter Lamb, sailed from Calais to Dover on 25th July 1959, fifty years to the day after Louis Blériot made the first crossing of the English Channel. It took 2 hours, 3 minutes.  The brainchild of British engineer and inventor Christopher Cockerell, Hovercraft was described as a cross between

The ‘Quietly Confident Quartet’ of Mark Tonelli (backstroke), Peter Evans (breaststroke), Mark Kerry (butterfly), and Neil Brooks (freestyle) won Gold in the 4 × 100 metres medley relay at the Summer Olympics in Moscow on 24th July, 1980: the only time the United States had not won the event. It was Australia’s first Gold medal

The fire that destroyed the second Temple of Artemis – one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world – was supposedly set on the day Alexander the Great was born: 21st July, 356 BC. The story goes that the arsonist, Herosratus, was simply seeking notoriety. Herostratus was captured and tortured on the rack, where