Episodes

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 became […]

‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is now well-known as the USA’s national anthem – but when Francis Scott Key wrote the words on 14th September, 1814, it was merely the latest in a series of patriotic poems he’d penned; this one concerning the British assault on the coastal fortification of Fort McHenry. It was only when –

Kanye West was ejected from Radio City Music Hall at the MTV VMAs on 13th September, 2009, after drunkenly interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Female Video. Distraught that the country star’s ‘You Belong To Me’ video has beaten Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’ to the trophy, he memorably proclaimed: “Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for

London cab driver George Smith became the first person ever arrested for drunk driving after slamming his cab into a building on 10th September, 1897. He was fined 20 shillings (around £130 in today’s money) – but was not banned from the road. The vehicle he was driving only had a top speed of 12

‘The Hank McCune Show’ – an otherwise unremarkable footnote in American TV history – became the first single-camera sitcom to deploy a pre-recorded laugh track (aka ‘canned laughter’) on 9th September, 1950. The giggles and applause came courtesy of Charlie Douglass, who made a career of capturing audience reaction in his ‘laff box’, and then

When U2’s new album, Songs Of Innocence, was rumoured to be bundled in with the iPhone 6 on 8th September, 2014, the band’s official spokespeople denied any involvement with Apple’s product launch. But the following day, U2 did indeed turn up at Tim Cook’s keynote – with an initiative to ‘gift’ the album, for free,

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 thought the bullet – believed to be filled with ricin – had emanated from the umbrella of a Soviet secret agent, and the British press labelled his assassination the

Clarence Saunders opened the world’s first self-service supermarket, ‘Piggly Wiggly’, in Memphis, Tennessee on 6th September, 1916. Calculating that the revenues gained through impulse purchases would outweigh those lost from shoplifting, Saunders’ concept forever changed the world of shopping for groceries – but his business acumen did not last. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and

Posing as a sailor, with a borrowed ‘Protection Pass’ in his pocket, Frederick Douglass boarded a train from Baltimore to Philadelphia on 3rd September, 1838 – and escaped the slavery into which he had been born.  To formalise the process, he had to dodge slave-catchers, change his name and pay for his freedom. He then

Endurance swimmer Diana Nyad was 64 years old when she became the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without the use of a shark cage for protection on 2nd September, 2013. Nyad completed the 110-mile swim from Havana to Key West in approximately 53 hours. It was her fifth attempt to swim through