Episodes

The first purpose-built cruise ship in history, the Prinzessin Victoria Luise, was launched by Albert Ballin’s Hamburg-America Line on 29th June, 1900. Luxuriously appointed, she was kitted out with entirely first-class cabins, a hotel-quality kitchen, and an innovative dark room – at the behest of the Kaiser himself. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly […]

When Jacobite heir Bonnie Prince Charlie made his escape from the British Army on 28th June, 1746, he did so in bizarre style – disguised in drag as Irish spinning-maid ‘Betty Burke’. With a £30,000 bounty on his head, Charles had to rely on the support of strangers – in this case 24 year-old Flora

It was the sex scandal of the year: British rom-com star Hugh Grant procuring the services of hitherto unknown L.A. streetwalker Divine Brown on Sunset Boulevard on 27th June, 1995. When their in-car liaison went public the following morning (following their arrest for lewd behaviour), Grant embarked upon what has become seen as a textbook

With breast meat so chunky it could feed the whole family, and drumsticks so small you could carve straight past the bone, the ‘chicken of tomorrow’ envisaged by U.S. retailer A&P inspired a national competition that reached its culmination on 24th June, 1948 – and changed the way that the world ate chicken forever. Entrants

The Glidden-Sholes prototype for “the writing of ordinary communications with types instead of a pen” was granted a patent on 23rd June, 1868. It wasn’t the first typewriter, but it became the first to be mass-produced, and gave the world a new way to write things down. But it only typed out in uppercase, didn’t

John Dillinger, infamous 1930s gangster, jail breaker, bank robber and brawler, earned himself a new title on 22nd June, 1934 – when he became the FBI’s first ever ‘Public Enemy Number One’. The authorities were intent on disabusing Americans of their love affair with the ‘Robin Hood’-style gangsters as portrayed in the movies. But the

Why are spectacles so expensive? The sheer scale of EssilorLuxottica, the world’s biggest maker of eyewear and lenses, might have something to do with it. On 21st September, 2007, they paid $2.1 billion for the last major designer brand they didn’t already own: Oakley. Their empire now includes Dolce and Gabbana, Versace, Burberry, Ralph Lauren,

Congo, pet chimp of science writer and TV personality Desmond Morris, was considered a novelty in the art world when his paintings were displayed in the 1950’s. But, on 20th June, 2005, three of his works went under the hammer at prestigious London auction house Bonham’s – and sold for £12,000. Morris – zoologist, surrealist

When Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen abandoned his epic, but failed, attempt to reach the North Pole, he was not expecting to hitch a ride home with a Brit.  But, on 17th June, 1896, in the remote wilderness of Franz Joseph Land, he and colleague Hjalmar Johansen – replete with long shaggy beards and frozen

Dutch patriots are now regularly spotted sporting orange wigs, orange clothes, orange banners and orange face paint. But, on 16th June, 1784, they were BANNED from wearing anything orange.  The intention was to silence supporters of the ‘stadtholders’. And the colour – descending, in the public imagination, from William of Orange – had become so