Episodes

Rerun. It took over three million years to find her. But palaeontologists Donald Johanson and Tom Gray uncovered the remains of ‘the Lucy Fossil’ – a previously undiscovered species of pre-human – in Hadar, Ethiopia on 24th November, 1974. Despite the find’s massive significance, the event was not greeted with untrammelled joy by all their […]

The ‘Nickel In The Slot Player’ – the world’s first jukebox – made its debut at the Palais Royale Saloon bar in San Francisco on 23rd November, 1889. Created by Louis Glass and William S. Arnold, the contraption was an Edison Class M wax cylinder phonograph fitted with a coin mechanism and four stethoscope-like listening

History’s most notorious pirate, Edward ‘Blackbeard’ Teach, was killed and decapitated by lieutenant Robert Maynard, who besieged Blackbeard’s boats in Ocracoke on 22nd November, 1718.  Now recalled as a fearsome and gratuitous murderer, Blackbeard’s demonic character is not documented in contemporary sources. In fact, very little is truly known about Teach (even, indeed, whether that

La Ronde, the USA’s first revolving restaurant, opened on 21st November, 1961, at the Ala Moana Center in Honolulu. On the menu in the 298ft-tall tower was shrimp cocktail, mahi-mahi, and ‘the Queen of beefdom’. It had a predecessor, though, in perhaps an unlikely city: post-war Dortmund, Germany.  In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly

The official trailer for ‘The Phantom Menace’ was uploaded to the Star Wars website on 18th November, 1998 – a reaction to the franchise’s rabid fans leaking their own camcorder footage to the web. It was the first time that an online preview of a movie trailer became a significant event in its own right.

Rerun. Mehmet VI stepped on to a British warship to seek refuge in Malta on 17th November, 1922 – thereby becoming the last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, a dynasty stretching back to the 14th Century.  He was accompanied by his first Chamberlain, his doctor, two secretaries, a velt, a barber, two eunuchs, and a

Why did Ivan The Terrible kill his son, Ivan? Ever since the day he supposedly brought a sceptre crashing down upon his head – 16th November, 1581 – this question has divided people. Did he suspect his son of a plot to overthrow him? Was he sexually assaulting his daughter-in-law? Was the whole tale dreamt

King C. Gillette was granted a US patent for a “safety razor” on November 15th, 1904 – kickstarting both the disposable grooming industry, and the notorious ‘razor and blades’ business model. Prior to his invention, men who shaved at home would have to strop their blades on a big leather strap, and occasionally take their

The Royal Wedding between Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips on 14th November, 1973 was a lavish affair at Westminster Abbey, with an anticipated global audience of 500 million – but the 23 year-old daughter of the Queen was clearly awkward about being the centre of attention, and asked to be only filmed from behind.

Britain’s first ‘New Town’, built to accommodate 60,000 residents, was Stevenage, Hertfordshire – designated on 11th November, 1946 by Lewis Silkin, Labour’s Minister for Town and Country Planning.  Inspired by the rush to accommodate Londoners displaced by the Nazi bombing of the capital, the construction of the concrete metropolis was heavily opposed by the 6,400