Episodes

Léon Gambetta took to the skies above Paris in a hot air balloon on October 7th, 1870, soaring over the enemy German soldiers that surrounded the city on his way to raise new armies to swing the Franco-Prussian war back in France’s favour. Perhaps ill-advisedly, the charismatic statesman shouted “Vive la République!” as he went, […]

Rerun. Agatha Christie’s ‘The Mousetrap’, the world’s longest-running play, opened at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham on 6th October, 1952, with a cast including Richard Attenborough. The producer, Peter Saunders, predicted the production would run for 14 months.   More than 28,000 performances later, the show has become an iconic attraction in London’s West End, with

American Apparel, the company founded by charismatic weirdo Dov Charney, first filed for bankruptcy protection on October 5th, 2015. It amounted to a fall from grace from just three years earlier when Charney had told ABC news that American apparel would live beyond his own lifetime. What he neglected to mention was that its ongoing

The first ever Orient Express set off from Paris on October 4th, 1883, immediately becoming a byword for extreme luxury. With its wood panelling, silk sheets and gourmet menus, the train quickly became a favourite of kings, aristocrats, artists and even spies. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explore why the train neither went

The Roy half of Siegfried and Roy was mauled on October 3rd, 2003, by a 380-pound white tiger live on stage in Las Vegas. Roy lived, but was partially paralysed, which spelled the end for the wildly successful double act, which had performed more than 30,000 shows for 50 million people and generated well over

The first ever episode of Thunderbirds, the revolutionary British TV show starring puppets, aired on September 30th, 1965. It was instantly a hit in Britain, and elsewhere in the world, but its failure to captivate a US audience led to its untimely demise after just two seasons. The show used a system, coined by its

Rerun. 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

Gilbert Bourgeaud, better known by his nom de guerre “Bob Denard” was shot in the head at least twice, married seven times and had at least three religious conversions. And on September 28th, 1995, he launched his fourth and final attempt to take control of the Comoros islands with his own private army. In fact,

The trend for “Arkeology” was kickstarted on September 27th, 1829, when the German explorer Friedrich Parrot ascended to the top of Mount Ararat in Armenia, which was believed at the time to be the final resting place of Noah’s Ark. This was actually Parrot’s third attempt to climb to the top of Ararat. One of

Jean Bernadotte’s dad, a local prosecutor in the southwestern French city of Pau, ​​intended for his son to follow in his footsteps as a lawyer. Instead, Jean became heir to the Swedish Crown on September 26th, 1810, and his descendants still sit on the Swedish throne to this day. Shortly after he moved to Sweden,