Rerun: 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 Olly review Saunders’ promotional hustles; weigh up the items in a shopping basket of the era; and reveal how ‘Piggly Wiggly’ (almost certainly) gained its distinctive name...Further Reading:• ‘The Untold Truth Of Piggly Wiggly’ (Mashed, 2021):https://www.mashed.com/426197/the-untold-truth-of-piggly-wiggly/• ‘America's First Supermarket at 100: How It Changed the World’ (Time, 2016): https://time.com/4480303/supermarkets-history/• ‘Piggly Wiggly, the first true grocery store - Life in America’ (Recollection Road, 2021): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVvgAd_5vpo'Why am I hearing a rerun?’Each Thursday and Friday we repeat stories from our archive of 800+ episodes, so we can maintain the quality of our independent podcast and bring you fresh, free content every Monday-Wednesday… … But 🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴members get an additional full-length episode each Sunday! Join now with a free trial on Apple Podcasts or Patreon and support our show ❤️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rerun: 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 symbolic of progress and sophistication.In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly uncover Peter’s other ‘European rules of comportment’; convert the costs of Peter’s taxes into the highly-relatable metric of ‘sturgeon from North’; and reveal how a similar tax was proposed in New Jersey as recently as 1907… Further Reading:• ‘Russia: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present’ (Mauricio Borrero, 2009):https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Russia/dhm0cGdrTOIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=beard+tax+1698&pg=PA83&printsec=frontcover• ‘10 terrible taxes in history’ (HistoryExtra, 2018): https://www.historyextra.com/period/general-history/10-terrible-taxes/• ‘Ten Minute History - Peter the Great and the Russian Empire’ (History Matters, 2019): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tBNr2gjAA0Why am I hearing a rerun?’Each Thursday and Friday we repeat stories from our archive of 800+ episodes, so we can maintain the quality of our independent podcast and bring you fresh, free content every Monday-Wednesday… … But 🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴members get an additional full-length episode each Sunday! Join now with a free trial on Apple Podcasts or Patreon and support our show ❤️The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Emma Corsham.Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When 90 Irish nobles, led by the Earl of Tyrconnell and the Earl of Tyrone, fled for Normandy in the dead of night on 4th September, 1607, their intentions were not entirely clear. Their escape, which became known as the ‘Flight of the Earls’, was mainly a bid for freedom from the tightening grip of English Protestant rule - but did they intend to return, securing support for a rebellion against England en route? Or simply seek refuge in Rome, amidst an increasingly impossible situation for Catholics after the Nine Years’ War?In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly reveal how the slow deterioration of the Irish lords’ status - giving up their titles, language, religion and private armies - led to this moment; consider why other European nations were not keen to support their cause militarily; and explain how one of their progeny ended up in Eton after being abandoned in Ireland…Further Reading:• ‘The Flight of the Earls’ (History Today, 2007): https://www.historytoday.com/archive/flight-earls• ’Rome to mark Flight of the Earls’ (The Irish Times, 2008): https://www.irishtimes.com/news/rome-to-mark-flight-of-the-earls-1.911911• ’The Flight of the Earls - Dr Hiram Morgan’ (Hill of The O'Neill & Ranfurly House, 2022): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38QJXROmRVkLove the show? Support us! Join  🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode each SUNDAY… … Plus, get weekly bonus bits, and unlock over 100 bits of extra content. Join now with a free trial on Apple Podcasts or Patreon and support our show ❤️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In today’s episode Arion, Rebecca and Olly look into the founding of the massive multinational e-commerce company eBay.On the day it went live it was named AuctionWeb, and was just one project among many being built by its creator, Pierre Omidyar. In fact, a significant part of the site was dedicated to information about Ebola, which happened to be a pet interest of Omidyar.In this episode, The Retrospectors put to bed the myth that eBay was short for “EbolaBay”; list all the things that you cannot sell on the site; and reveal Olly’s first ever eBay purchase… Further Reading:‘The Small-Scale Story Behind eBay's Big Bucks’ (Time magazine, 2015): https://time.com/4013672/ebay-founded-story/ ‘25 years on since the birth of eBay, a true giant of modern computing’ (The National, 2020): https://www.thenational.scot/news/18693304.25-years-since-birth-ebay-true-giant-modern-computing/ ‘eBay - How It Started’ (Company Man; 2020): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkEorxAxFXo This episode first premiered in 2023, for members of 🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴 - where you can also DITCH THE ADS and get weekly bonus bits, unlock over 100 bits of extra content and support our independent podcast. Join now via Apple Podcasts or Patreon. Thanks! We'll be back tomorrow! Follow us wherever you get your podcasts: podfollow.com/retrospectors The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart.Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Millperra, a quiet suburb in southwest Sydney, is now best known for a tragic event that took place on 2nd September, 1984: a violent shootout between two biker gangs, the Comancheros and the Bandidos, which became known as the ‘Father’s Day Massacre’.As 19 armed Comancheros ambushed the Bandidos in a car park during a motorcycle swap meet, the situation quickly spiralled out of control, with gunfire erupting and innocent bystanders, including an innocent 15 year-old girl, Leanne Walters, caught in the crossfire. The brutality of the event shocked the nation, with eyewitnesses describing a scene of unimaginable horror, with bikers and bystanders alike caught in a bloody battle.In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain what Rule 4 of the gang - "No screwing another member's old lady" - had to do with the battle; marvel at the composure of the bikies who paused their fighting to go and get beers; and reveal what Jock Ross, the man at the centre of the conflict, went on to do next… Further Reading:• ’The Milperra bikie massacre’ (Sydney Morning Herald, 1984): https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/from-the-archives-1984-the-milperra-bikie-massacre-20190826-p52kvb.html• ‘Witnesses recall the Milperra massacre 30 years on’ (ABC News, 2014): https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-02/30th-anniversary-of-the-milperra-massacre-brings-back-bad-memor/5712522• ‘The Father's Day Massacre: The worst bikie violence in the world’ (60 Minutes Australia, 2018): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6G38Lbrn9QLove the show? Support us! Join  🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode each SUNDAY… … Plus, get weekly bonus bits, and unlock over 100 bits of extra content. Join now with a free trial on Apple Podcasts or Patreon and support our show ❤️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rerun: After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviets and Americans agreed to install a ‘hot line’ between their Presidents. On 30th August, 1963, a 10,000 mile transatlantic Washington-Moscow cable went live from the Pentagon to Red Square.In the public imagination (in part thanks to Kubrik’s ‘Dr Strangelove’), it remains a red telephone - but it is, in fact, a pair of beige teletype machines that each required ten staff to operate.In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain why, prior to this, diplomacy was often being skipped altogether in favour of inflammatory radio broadcasts; consider what the messages the two nations send each other can tell us about their cultural differences; and marvel at just how much geopolitics hinges on whether two particular world leaders like each other… Further Reading:• 'Hot line' between Washington and Moscow to be opened’ (The Guardian, 1963): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/31/hot-line-between-washington-and-moscow-1963-archive• ‘There Never Was Such a Thing as a Red Phone in the White House’ (Smithsonian Magazine, 2013):https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/there-never-was-such-a-thing-as-a-red-phone-in-the-white-house-1129598/?no-ist• ‘History Of The Moscow-Washington ‘Red Phone’’ (NBC News, 2017): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR5Z8jYRyFoWhy am I hearing a rerun?’Each Thursday and Friday we repeat stories from our archive of 800+ episodes, so we can maintain the quality of our independent podcast and bring you fresh, free content every Monday-Wednesday… … But 🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴members get an additional full-length episode each Sunday! Join now with a free trial on Apple Podcasts or Patreon and support our show ❤️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Reed Hastings and Mark Randolph registered the website that would become Netflix on 29th August, 1997, they named it ‘Kibble’ after a previous idea they had for a dogfood company. But their new concept - mailing DVDs out in the post - would become one of the big success stories of the dotcom era.To test the model, they sent a Patsy Cline CD through the mail; within a year, they had 30 employees and a growing library of nearly 1,000 DVDs. Their first day saw them ship 137 DVDs, crashing their servers from unexpected demand. Despite the challenges, by 2005, they were mailing out a million DVDs a day, making Netflix a significant player in the DVD rental market - and positioning them perfectly to revolutionise the industry all over again with online streaming.In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain why Blockbuster (the then-giant in movie rentals) turned down the opportunity to buy up Netflix for just $50 million; consider Hastings’ apocryphal origin story; and reveal how the founders created not one, but two game-changing TV companies… Further Reading:• ‘Netflix: Did one late video really bring down Blockbuster empire? (News.com.au, 2020): https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/other-industries/true-story-behind-netflixs-rise-and-the-downfall-of-blockbuster/news-story/407f8f2305d2800125b3cc9329c48bc4• ‘Netflix's 20th Anniversary Is Nice, But It Doesn't Matter’ (WIRED, 2017): https://www.wired.com/story/netflix-20th-anniversary/• ‘Netflix ad’ (Netflix, 1998): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akWxRqObbEMLove the show? Support us! Join  🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode each SUNDAY… … Plus, get weekly bonus bits, and unlock over 100 bits of extra content. Join now with a free trial on Apple Podcasts or Patreon and support our show ❤️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Larry Donovan made headlines by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge on 28th August, 1886: a daring feat that earned him the name of the ‘Champion Jumper of the World’ and a reputation for daredevil jumps that ultimately led to his early death.Donovan, who worked for the Police Gazette, an early men's magazine filled with sensational stories, prepared for the jump via a mix of practicality and showmanship, deploying weighted shoes to maintain his posture during the fall and padded leggings for protection, but also a black derby hat for style. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly discover the 1880s meme for jumping off bridges; consider why Donovan never attracted the devoted following in Britain he had managed to achieve in America; and reveal how a drunken bet brought the story of this early viral star to a tragic end… CONTENT WARNING: reference to suicide, death by jumpingFurther Reading:• ‘Larry Donovan, 1880s Bridge Jumper, Lived Too Soon’ (Atlas Obscura, 2017): https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/larry-donovan-bridge-jumper• ’Steve Brodie and the Brooklyn Bridge’ (ThoughtCo, 2017): https://www.thoughtco.com/steve-brodie-and-the-brooklyn-bridge-1773925• ‘The Infamous Eiffel Tower Death Jump of 1912’ (Content Warning: Death) (Bailey James, 2020): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDUYPrKKM5M Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The awesome, brutal power of the Krakatoa eruption, which had the explosive force of a 200-megatonne bomb, killed more than 36,000 people and cooled the entire Earth by an average of 0.6°C.Curiously, Krakatoa is not the most powerful volcanic eruption in history, but it is perhaps the most famous because it became one of the first global catastrophes, due in large part to the newly installed worldwide telegraphic network that allowed newspapers to broadcast news of the eruption all over the globe.In this episode, The Retrospectors discuss how Krakatoa’s eruption may have inspired Edvard Munch’s The Scream; reveal why, instead of fleeing, locals held festivals when the volcano began to smoke; and explain why, if you are ever find yourself captaining a large ship during a tsunami, you may want to consider sailing towards the wave rather than away from it…Further Reading:‘Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded’ (Penguin, 2004): https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Krakatoa/Qmz4HFv-IeoC?hl=en&gbpv=0 ‘Krakatoa is still active, and we are not ready for the tsunamis another eruption would generate’ (The Conversation, 2020): https://theconversation.com/krakatoa-is-still-active-and-we-are-not-ready-for-the-tsunamis-another-eruption-would-generate-147250 ‘Krakatoa: The Volcanic Eruption That Shook The World’ (Our World, 2021): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrFm3HtL8_M Thanks so much for supporting the show! We massively appreciate it.The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill. Edit producer: Ollie PeartTheme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders.Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rerun: Howard Hawks’ film noir ‘The Big Sleep’ finally hit cinemas on 23rd August, 1946, after extra crowd-pleasing repartee had been inserted, featuring real life couple Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.But more flirtation meant less exposition - making the plot of the detective story notoriously difficult to follow, even to the extent that the filmmakers had to call author Raymond Chandler to ask him who had killed one of the characters. In this episode, Rebecca, Arion and Olly explain why the Hays censorship code compounded an already confusing script; reveal William Faulkner’s left-field approach to WFH; and consider why - on the silver screen, anyway - women appeared to fall at Bogart’s feet…Further Reading:• ‘The Big Sleep: Proof That Plot Doesn’t Matter’ (Den of Geek, 2019): https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/the-big-sleep-proof-that-plot-doesn-t-matter/• ‘Homosexuality and the Production Code –The Big Sleep’ (Sophie Hagberg, 2014): https://sophiehagbergscrn131.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/homosexuality-and-the-production-code-the-big-sleep-1946/• ‘They’re Together Again!’ (Official Trailer, 1946): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-K49CUaetoThanks so much for supporting the show! We massively appreciate it.The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill. Edit producer: Ollie PeartTheme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders.Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices