Episodes

California had virtually no reputation as an international wine-growing region until 24th May, 1976 – when 11 wine experts gathered at a Parisian hotel and decided, in a blind taste-test, that wines from Napa Valley were indeed more quaffable than France’s most famous varieties: a decision that shook up the world of wine, and became

Throwing people out of windows might seem a peculiar way to protest, but it’s happened so often in history, it’s got a special name: defenestration. And perhaps the most significant of all – because it brought about the Thirty Years War – was the assault on three Habsburg officials by Bohemian malcontents in Prague on

Motorcycling daredevil Evel Knievel had been keen on jumping the Grand Canyon since 1968, but never staged an actual attempt. On May 20th, 1999, however, his son Robbie performed the feat on live television – and lived to tell the tale. “I’m wiped out in the head a little”, he said, before being examined by

Over 100 million Rubik’s Cubes were sold in just a few short years at the onset of the 1980s – a phenomenon kickstarted on 19th May, 1974, when Hungarian Professor of Architecture Ernő Rubik supposedly created the prototype for his ‘Magic Cube’. It took him a month to solve himself – a feat which seems

Atheist, homosexual, heretic… the slurs levelled at popular playwright Christopher Marlowe came thick and fast after he was arrested on 18th May, 1593. Just twelve days later, he was murdered in a London tavern. His former roomate, Thomas Kyd, pointed the finger at Marlowe after being tortured following the discovery of a ‘treasonous’ pamphlet in

The Buttonwood Agreement, as it came to be known, effectively launched the New York Stock Exchange. Signed by 24 stockbrokers on 17th May, 1792, it promised two things – that they would trade exclusively and directly with each other, and that they wouldn’t undercut each other’s commission. But they had no permanent building, and only

The future Queen of France was accompanied by 57 carriages, 117 footmen and 376 horses on her journey from Austria to Versailles – but remarkably took only three hours to do her hair and makeup when she tied the knot with Louis-Auguste on 16th May, 1770. Only 15 at the time, Louis was perceived –

When three young kids in Fatima, Portugal reported that the Virgin Mary had appeared to them on 13th May, 1917, the incident sparked hysteria across their rural, intensely Catholic community. The ‘three secrets’ supposedly revealed that day – and the much-attended ‘Miracle of the Sun’ event prophesied that Autumn – gave a long-lasting boost to

Ridley Scott’s ‘Gladiator’ opened in the UK on 12th May, 2000 – and was widely credited with resurrecting the ‘swords-and-sandals’ genre, sparking an interest in Roman history, and achieving that rare combination of critical praise and humongous box office success. But the epic production was problematic – not least because supporting star Ollie Reed died

IBM’s Deep Blue conquered Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov on 11th May, 1997 – in a man v machine clash Newsweek brazenly baptised ‘The Brain’s Last Stand’. Despite the incredible achievement of having created a program able to calculate 200 billion positions in three minutes, the IBM engineers were advised by their PR team not