HistoryPod
A daily podcast that explores historical events that happened on each day of the year, covering topics from the Roman Empire to the World Wide Web. Written and presented by Scott Allsop, creator of the award-winning educational website mrallsophistory.com.
Episodes
4th July 1776: United States Declaration of Independence adopted unanimously by the Second Continental Congress
The Declaration of Independence announced that the thirteen American colonies regarded themselves as “free and independent States”, marking the birth of the United States as a political entity with a set of principles upon which the new nation claimed ...
3rd July 1938: World speed record for steam locomotives set by Number 4468 Mallard at just under 126mph
Mallard set the record of 125.88mph on a stretch of slightly downhill railway track at Stoke Band, south of the town of ...
2nd July 1964: Civil Rights Act signed into law by US President Lyndon B. Johnson
The Act outlawed discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex, or national origin and is consequently viewed as a landmark piece of civil rights ...
1st July 1569: Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth created with the signing of the Union of Lublin
Agreed at the city of Lublin after months of negotiation, the union joined the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into a single political entity with a single elected monarch and a joint parliament responsible for matters affecting the Commonwealth as a ...
30th June 1934: Hitler purges the Nazi party in the Night of the Long Knives
Although the popular name suggests the purge lasted for one night, the executions went on throughout the ...
29th June 2008: Apple release the iPhone
The 29th June 2008 shaped the technological landscape we live in today, when Apple released the very first ...
28th June 1838: Queen Victoria crowned at Westminster Abbey following the death of her uncle, William IV
For many observers, Victoria’s appearance and behaviour during the coronation ceremony contributed positively to perceptions of the monarchy as her youth and visibility contrasted with the image of earlier Hanoverian ...
27th June 1905: Mutiny on board the Russian battleship Potemkin
Seven of the ship’s eighteen officers, including Giliarovsky and the Captain, were killed in the mutiny before the Tsar's forces launched a crackdown at the Odessa ...
26th June 1974: World’s first barcode scanned on a pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum
Sharon Buchanan, a cashier at the Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio, scanned the world’s first Universal Product Code (better known as a barcode) on a 10-pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit ...
25th June 1967: Our World, live global television production, broadcast using satellite technology
Organised by the BBC in cooperation with broadcasters from around the world, the Our World programme connected participants in Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia using satellite ...
24th June 1374: Dancing Plague breaks out in the German city of Aachen and continues for many weeks
Known variously as St John's Dance, St Vitus' Dance, or the ‘dancing plague’, the occurrence in Aachen was neither the first nor the last outbreak but is one of the best ...
23rd June 1314: The Battle of Bannockburn begins, resulting in a victory for Robert the Bruce against Edward II
Bannockburn was unusual for a medieval battle in that it lasted for two days, with the first day being notable for Bruce single-handedly killing the young English knight Sir Henry de Bohun with an axe blow to the head after he tried to charge him with a ...
22nd June 1941: Operation Barbarossa begins as German forces and their allies invade the Soviet Union during the Second World War
By the end of 1940 Hitler had authorised the invasion of the USSR, with the intention of securing agricultural land and raw materials, alongside the eradication of ...
21st June 1919: German High Seas naval fleet scuttled in Scapa Flow, resulting in 52 ships being sunk
Concerned that the entire fleet might be shared out between the victors as the spoils of war Admiral von Reuter, the German officer in charge of the interned fleet, decided to purposely sink the ...
20th June 1789: Tennis Court Oath sworn by the French National Assembly in which they vowed not to separate until a written constitution had been established
The Deputies of the French Third Estate swore not to separate until a written constitution had been established for the ...
19th June 1846: First officially recorded baseball game takes place in Hoboken, New Jersey
On 19 June 1846, the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club travelled across the Hudson River to play against the New York Nine at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New ...
18th June 1815: Battle of Waterloo heralds the final defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte
Combined British and Prussian military forces defeated the French, but Wellington himself said that the battle was ‘the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your ...
17th June 1885: Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbour on board the French steamship Isère
The statue arrived disassembled, and remained in its 210 separate crates for 10 months while construction of the enormous pedestal it was to stand on was ...
16th June 1824: Reformers meet in London to establish what becomes the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
The meeting in Old Slaughter’s Coffee House formalised the organisation’s structure and objectives. Early activities included bringing prosecutions against individuals accused of mistreating animals, distributing pamphlets, and encouraging more humane standards in markets, transport, and ...
15th June 1215: Magna Carta approved by King John at Runnymede near Windsor in England
Magna Carta, which is Latin for ‘the Great Charter’, confirmed the principle that everyone including the king was subject to the law of the land and gave all free men the right to justice and a fair ...
14th June 1645: The Battle of Naseby fought in the English Civil War
The Battle of Naseby, a decisive engagement of the English Civil War, was fought between the Royalist army of King Charles I and the Parliamentarian New Model ...
13th June 1917: The deadliest air raid on London of the First World War conducted by German Gotha bombers
162 people were killed and over 400 were injured, including at a school in Upper North Street School in Poplar where a bomb struck during school ...
12th June 1987: Ronald Reagan calls on Mikhail Gorbachev to ‘Tear down this wall!’
US President Ronald Reagan made a speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in which he called on the USSR’s leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to ‘Tear down this ...
11th June 1837: Broad Street Riot takes place in Boston, Massachusetts, between Irish immigrants and existing American citizens
The violence grew to involve around 1,000 people on both sides who also broke into houses and destroyed ...
10th June 1605: False Dmitry I enters Moscow and is recognised as tsar following the death of Boris Godunov
False Dmitry asserted that he was Dmitry Ivanovich, the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible. With support from Polish nobles, mercenaries, and anti-Godunov factions, he entered Russian territory from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in ...
9th June 1815: ‘Final Act’ of the Congress of Vienna signed, nine days before Napoleon’s final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo
The Final Act of the Congress set in place a map of Europe that remained largely unchanged for the next forty years, and which laid the foundations for the First World ...
8th June 793: Viking raiders attack Lindisfarne in Northumbria
Norse raiders attacked the holy island of Lindisfarne off the Northumbrian coast in an event that is generally accepted as the start of the ‘Viking’ period of British ...
7th June 1788: Day of the Tiles breaks out in the French city of Grenoble, serving as an early precursor to the French Revolution
Royal troops entered Grenoble to dissolve the parlement and remove magistrates from the city. Crowds of townspeople gathered in response, and protesters climbed onto rooftops from where they threw roof tiles at the troops ...
6th June 1944: D-Day landings launched by the Allied forces of the Second World War in Normandy
The amphibious landings in Normandy are still the largest seaborne invasion ever to be staged, and marked the start of the Allied invasion of Nazi-held Western ...
5th June 1967: Start of the Six Day War as Israel launches air strikes against the Egyptian air force
By the time a final ceasefire was signed on 10 June, Israel’s territorial gains had put around a million Arabs under their control, signalling the start of a new phase in Arab-Israeli ...
4th June 1916: Russian Army begins the Brusilov Offensive on the Eastern Front of the First World War
The Brusilov Offensive is regarded as one of the most effective operations of the war in terms of tactical innovation and initial results as it involved simultaneous attacks across a broad front to prevent Austro-Hungarian forces from concentrating ...
3rd June 1989: Tiananmen Square protesters fired on by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army
Official figures reported 241 deaths as a result of the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests but unofficial estimates, including one by the US Ambassador at the time, place the figure at more than twice ...
2nd June 1946: Italians vote in a referendum to abolish the monarchy and turn their country into a republic
More than 89% of eligible Italian citizens voted in the referendum, with 54.3% voting in favour of turning the country into a ...
1st June 1980: CNN begins broadcasting as the first 24-hour news channel
Media entrepreneur Ted Turner assembled a newsroom capable of operating at all hours, recruiting journalists, and establishing technical systems for live reporting of events, supplemented by analysis, interviews, and repeated ...
31st May 1981: Jaffna Public Library in Sri Lanka burnt down during a violent attack
The Jaffna Public Library in Sri Lanka was burnt down during a violent rampage by an organised mob of ethnic ...
30th May 1431: Joan of Arc executed in the French city of Rouen for heresy
Joan was accused of being a witch and a heretic due to the voices she heard and visions she witnessed, but the crime that condemned her to death was that of wearing men’s ...
29th May 1854: Paddington Station opens as the London terminus of the Great Western Railway
The completed station was formally opened for use on 29 May 1854 to link London with the west of England and South Wales, reflecting the broader growth of rail transport during the mid-nineteenth ...
28th May 1987: Mathias Rust, an 18-year-old amateur pilot from West Germany, illegally landed a private aircraft near Moscow’s Red Square
Rust approached Moscow in the early evening and, after passing the city's ‘Ring of Steel’ anti-aircraft defences, touched down on a bridge next to St Basil’s Cathedral and taxied his aircraft into Red ...
27th May 1199: King John of England crowned at Westminster Abbey in London
John ruled for seventeen years before contracting dysentery while in Kings Lynn, an illness from which he later ...
26th May 1972: The United States and the Soviet Union sign the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty at the Moscow Summit
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was intended to limit the development and deployment of missile defence systems during the Cold War to avoid further offensive build-up or create incentives for a first ...
25th May 1961: US President John F. Kennedy announces his plans for a manned moon landing before the end of the decade
Kennedy's $24 billion of investment did work, and Apollo 11 achieved Kennedy's goal by landing on the moon on 20 July ...
24th May 1956: First Eurovision Song Contest takes place in Lugano, Switzerland
The first Eurovision Song Contest featured only seven countries, and was broadcast across Europe using a terrestrial microwave relay network that linked the countries of Europe together like an invisible spider’s ...
23rd May 1701: Captain Kidd, the Scottish privateer, executed in London after being convicted of piracy and murder
Kidd was executed for piracy and murder at Execution Dock on the River Thames, and his body was subsequently placed in gibbet and displayed over the River Thames at Tilbury ...
22nd May 1455: Wars of the Roses begin at the First Battle of St Albans between Richard, Duke of York, and King Henry VI
The Wars of the Roses were fought between the Houses of Lancaster and York, both of whom had claims to the ...
21st May 1972: Laszlo Toth attacks and seriously damages Michelangelo’s Pietà statue
Hungarian-born geologist Laszlo Toth attacked and seriously damaged Michelangelo’s Pietà statue with a ...
20th May 325: First Council of Nicaea brings together bishops from across the early Christian world
Several hundred bishops came from regions including Asia Minor, the eastern Mediterranean, and parts of the Latin West where they formulated the Nicene Creed, which affirmed that the Son was “of the same substance” as the ...
19th May 1536: The execution of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife and mother of the future Elizabeth I
Although found unanimously guilty by a jury of 27 peers, the evidence against Anne was questionable. Only the Flemish musician Mark Smeaton admitted to having an affair with her, and this confession is reputed to have been extracted under ...
18th May 1291: The Siege of Acre saw the Muslim forces of the Mamluk Sultan Al-Ashraf Khalil seize control of the Crusader-controlled city
The Siege of Acre, sometimes known in Christendom as the Fall of Acre, marked the last attempt to exert Crusader influence in the Holy ...
17th May 1954: U.S. Supreme Court rules in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional
The unanimous opinion of the Court said that segregated public schools were inherently unequal and therefore ...
16th May 1966: Start of the Cultural Revolution in China when Mao releases the ‘May 16th Notification’
By the time the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976 an estimated minimum of 400,000 people had died through torture, execution, or ...
15th May 1928: Mickey and Minnie Mouse appear in their first cartoon to be shown to a cinema audience
Mickey Mouse's first animated appearance was in a silent short called Plane Crazy, but the cartoon failed to secure a distributor until a soundtrack was added a year ...
14th May 1932: “We Want Beer” parade takes place in New York City to protest against prohibition
New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker led an estimated 100,000 people on the Beer for Taxation march in favour of legalising beer, framing it as both a cultural issue as well as a practical economic measure to increase tax ...
13th May 1950: First #Formula1 World Championship Grand Prix race at Silverstone
The first Formula One World Championship Grand Prix race took place at the Silverstone circuit in ...
12th May 1949: The Soviet Union ends its blockade of West Berlin
Instigated on 24 June the previous year, the Soviet blockade prevented all rail, road, and water transport between Berlin and the West of the ...
11th May 1981: The musical Cats opens at the New London Theatre in London’s West End
Unlike traditional musicals with a clear linear plot, Cats relied on a sequence of musical numbers linked by theme and atmosphere. Nevertheless, the production attracted strong public interest and went on to become one of the longest-running musicals in theatre ...
10th May 1941: Rudolf Hess, Deputy Führer of the German Nazi Party, flew from Germany to Scotland on a mission to strike a peace deal with the British government
Hess landed twelve miles away from his intended destination of Dungavel House, the home of the Duke of Hamilton, with whom he hoped to open peace ...
9th May 1887: Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show opened in London at the American Exhibition in West Brompton
This was the first time Buffalo Bill had travelled to Britain, and also marked the first time that many Europeans had seen the fabled ‘Cowboys and ...
8th May 1429: Siege of Orléans lifted by French forces, marking a turning point in the Hundred Years’ War
A major engagement on 7 May resulted in the capture of the English stronghold known as Les Tourelles and, the following day, English forces abandoned the siege of Orleans and ...
7th May 1915: RMS Lusitania sunk by the German U-Boat, U-20
The British ship RMS Lusitania sank after being attacked by the German U-boat U-20 off the coast of ...
6th May 1937: Hindenburg Disaster sees the German passenger airship LZ 129 engulfed in flames following a mid-air explosion
The landing ropes were dropped at 7.21pm, and shortly afterwards the Hindenburg was engulfed by ...
5th May 1862: Mexican forces defeat a French army at the Battle of Puebla, commemorated annually as Cinco de Mayo
Despite expectations of a rapid French victory in the Battle of Puebla, the Mexican troops repelled repeated attacks aided by the terrain and defensive ...
4th May 1932: Al Capone begins life as a convict in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary
Capone was found guilty on 17 October 1931 of Federal Income Tax Evasion and was sentenced to eleven years imprisonment by Judge James Herbert ...
3rd May 1830: World’s first steam-powered passenger service begins operating on the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway
Built by George and Robert Stevenson in Newcastle, and transported to Whitstable by sea, Invicta was the first steam locomotive to haul passengers on a public ...
2nd May 1982: Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano sunk by British submarine HMS Conqueror during the Falklands War
Acting on orders authorised by the Strategic Command, HMS Conqueror fired torpedoes at the Belgrano, killing over 200 crewmembers and causing severe ...
1st May 1952: The first Mr Potato Head ‘funny face toy’ goes on sale
The day before Mr Potato Head was released by Hasbro he featured in the first ever television advert for a toy that was aimed directly at ...
30th April 1963: The Bristol Bus Boycott against discriminatory recruitment begins
A boycott against the Bristol Omnibus Company in England was launched due to their racist employment ...
29th April 1992: Los Angeles riots begin following the acquittal of four police officers charged with the beating of Rodney King
The jury in the trial of four police officers charged in the beating of Rodney King acquitted the defendants, prompting protests that soon escalated into violence. The riots led to the deaths of 63 people, the injury of over two thousand, and more than $1 billion of ...
28th April 1923: Wembley Stadium in London opens with the ‘White Horse Final’ of the FA Cup between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United
Official figures placed attendance at 126,000 people – 1,000 more than the stadium’s capacity – but estimates suggest that the crowd was probably twice that ...
27th April 1906: The Russian Empire’s State Duma meets for the first time
The Russian Empire’s State Duma met for the first time at the Taurida Palace in St. ...
26th April 1925: Paul von Hindenburg elected President of the Weimar Republic
As president, Hindenburg possessed significant constitutional powers, including the authority to appoint governments and, under certain conditions, to rule by emergency ...
25th April 404 BCE: Sparta defeats Athens in the Peloponnesian War
The Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta, defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian ...
24th April 1916: Sir Ernest Shackleton and five companions set off in James Caird, a recovered lifeboat, to sail from Elephant Island to South Georgia in the southern Atlantic Ocean
Despite all the odds stacked against them, the crew of the tiny boat reached South Georgia in 16 days and then crossed to the whaling station at ...
23rd April 2005: “Me at the zoo” is the first video to be uploaded to YouTube
The video of co-founder Jawed Karim shows him speaking in front of the elephant enclosure at the San Diego Zoo in San Diego, California, and lasts approximately eighteen ...
22nd April 1884: Thomas Stevens begins the first round-the-world cycle ride
Thomas Stevens departed San Francisco on a large-wheeled Ordinary, also known as a penny-farthing, to become the first person to cycle around the ...
21st April 1918: Manfred von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, shot down and killed
The German fighter pilot Baron Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen, better known as the Red Baron, was shot down and ...
20th April 1968: Enoch Powell delivers his controversial “Rivers of Blood” speech on immigration
Powell argued that continued immigration would create social tension in Britain, illustrating his argument with a quotation from the Roman poet Virgil describing a vision of “the River Tiber foaming with much ...
19th April 1839: The Treaty of London establishes an independent Belgium
The Treaty of London was signed, which recognised and guaranteed the independence and neutrality of ...
18th April 1506: Construction begins on Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome
Pope Julius II laid the cornerstone of the current St. Peter's Basilica, one of Catholicism’s most sacred ...
17th April 1951: Peak District in northern England formally designated the United Kingdom’s first National Park
The Peak District was selected as the first area to receive this status because of its landscape and its proximity to large populations covering approximately 555 square miles across parts of Derbyshire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, and ...
16th April 1922: Former WW1 enemies Germany and Russia sign the Treaty of Rapallo
The Treaty of Rapallo meant the two countries ended all territorial and financial arguments stemming from the previous Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and agreed to ‘co-operate in a spirit of mutual goodwill in meeting the economic needs of both ...
Recommended
Tom Talks Junior Cricket Coaching Podcast
SONIC TALK - Inside Music Technology
Brief Account of the Bahai Movement
The Gargle
Canny Crystals: Manifestation, mindset and spirituality, with Mart Tweedy
The Clifford Chance Podcast
Legal updates | Simmons & Simmons
Securitisation Insights
THE Profit First Podcast
Flavour
On The Sofa with Colson, Jack and Ben
The Overend-Knight Medical History Podcast
