Episodes

The ‘broadcasting ban’ on 11 Northern Irish organizations including Sinn Fein was finally lifted by Prime Minister John Major on 16th September, 1994, one fortnight after an IRA ceasefire had been achieved. The regulations, implemented six years earlier by Margaret Thatcher and her Home Secretary Douglas Hurd, prevented British TV networks from broadcasting interviews with

Rerun. BMW unveiled its redesigned MINI for the first time, on 15th September, 1997; the eve of the Frankfurt Motor Show. Its predecessor had been in production for 41 years. Reborn as a ‘city’ car, rather than a micro compact, and with Union flags painted on its roof, this was the moment the iconic brand

The USSR pulled ahead in the Space Race on 14th September, 1959 – when they became the first nation to successfully crash a man-made object into the Moon. Luna II was carrying a metal sphere bearing Soviet symbols, a replica of which was pettily presented to President Eisenhower by a jubilant Nikita Khrushchev. In this

Phineas Gage, a foreman on the New England railroads, was pierced through the head with a 13-pound tamping iron on 13th September, 1848. The rod went straight through his skull and landed several yards away. Despite this, Gage was able to present himself at a physician, and anticipated being back at work in a couple

NBC premiered ‘Royal Flush’ – the pilot episode of iconic Sixties pop-comedy show The Monkees – on 12th September, 1966. And the Daydream Believers quickly found their way into America’s heart… The Beatles-a-like actors had never met or worked with each other ever before answering an ad seeking ‘four insane boys, aged 18-21’, placed by‘Five

High-speed collisions between locomotives became mainstream entertainment on 9th September, 1896, when Joe Connolly – AKA “Head-On Joe” – staged the first of the 70 deliberate trainwrecks with which he entered the record books. The trend lasted until the 1930s and attracted tens of thousands of spectators to state fairs across the United States. The

Margaret Gorman, a schoolgirl from Washington DC, was crowned ‘Miss Intercity Beauty’ at the “Fall Frolic” in Atlantic City on 8th September, 1921 – an event that would eventually become known as Miss America, and watched by 75% of American households. She and her fellow competitors took part in an early incarnation of the swimsuit

Rerun. Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov was shot by a poisoned pellet whilst walking on Waterloo Bridge on 7th September, 1978. Four days later, he was dead. He believed the bullet – believed to be filled with ricin – had emanated from the umbrella of a Soviet secret agent. The British press labelled his assasination the

Peter The Great levied a tax on facial hair on 5th September, 1698, requiring every man in Moscow to shave or stump up some cash – although there were exemptions for the Orthodox Church. The hare-brained scheme occurred to the eccentric Peter on his expeditions through Europe, where he came to see clean chins as