Episodes

Louis XIV was among the V.I.P. guests at Nicolas Fouquet’s lavish houseparty on 17th August, 1661 – and was supposedly so consumed with jealousy that he had Fouquet arrested for treason. Although not entirely true, the story adds to the mystique of Vaux-le-Vicomte, the opulent chateau Fouquet created with the design team who later went […]

Aviation in the 1920s could be a lethal business, as proven on 16th August 1927, when only 2 of the 15 planes that entered The Dole Derby – a $35,000 contest to fly from California to Hawaii – successfully reached their destination.  The brainchild of pineapple magnate James D. Dole, the competition inspired the public

Camp Siegfried hosted a ‘Nazi Camp Fete’ for 40,000 attendees on 15th August, 1938. The Summer resort, on Yaphank, Long Island, was the epicentre of the German-American Bund: an organisation devoted to establishing a Nazi stronghold across the United States.  Alongside campfire building and swimming lessons, young attendees were taught to emulate the Hitler Youth

When 42 bodies buried near Liverpool Street Station in London were dug up as part of the works on Crossrail on 12th August, 2015, they were thought to be victims of the Great Plague of 1665. The incident shone a light on the cemetery in which they were buried – a pauper’s grave at Bethlem

Rerun. The 7,885 year-long calendar that the Mayan people used to measure long stretches of time, ‘The Long Count’, began on 11th August, 3114 B.C. The combination of a Haabʼ and a Tzolkʼin date identifies a day in a combination which does not occur again for 18,980 days (52 Haabʼ cycles of 365 days equals

Rin Tin Tin, the German Shepherd who starred in more than 27 Hollywood films, died on 10th August, 1932 at the age of 13. Radio stations around the country interrupted programming to announce his death and then broadcast an hour long tribute to him.  Discovered in war-torn France by American corporal Lee Duncan, he was

Construction began on a white marble bell tower for Pisa’s new Cathedral complex on 9th August, 1173. Little did the engineers working on the project know that their building would become famous all over the world, because of its principal flaw: it wasn’t straight. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is now one of Europe’s biggest

Abbey Road was a street known only to North Londoners until The Beatles posed on the zebra crossing outside EMI Studios on 8th August, 1969. Photographer Iain MacMillan took just six snaps, one of which graced the front cover of their penultimate album, ‘Abbey Road’. The image became instantly iconic, partly due to the decision

Little Orphan Annie, Harold Gray’s plucky heroine, made her newspaper debut on 5th August, 1924. The iconic comic strip then ran for an astonishing 86 years. Although now most associated with the saccharine musical it inspired, ‘Annie’ was MUCH edgier in comic form – gangsters and Nazis made an appearance, and Daddy Warbucks was so

Rerun. Benedictine monk Dom Perignon is said to have discovered champagne on 4th August, 1693. 200 million bottles are now produced and sold every year. The sparkliness was originally considered a defect – because carbonated wine caused the fragile bottles of the era to burst. Until stronger glass was developed in the mid-19th century, mass-produced