Today In History... with The Retrospectors

The Inquiry Office

Henry Robinson opened the Office of Addresses and Encounters on Threadneedle Street, London on 29th September, 1650. The centre provided a forward-looking, unusual mix of services ranging from job placements, money lending, and property deal…

Let's Get Metric

Rerun. Feet, inches, palms, cubits, rods… all were SWEPT ASIDE on 28th September, 1889, when the first General Conference of the Weights and Measures Commission met in Sèvres, France to refine a definition for the NEW un…

Let's Catch A Steam Train

George Stephenson drove Britain’s first-ever steam-powered passenger train, the Locomotion Number One, on 27th September, 1825, from Darlington to Stockton on Tees.The Cambridge Chronicle and Journal reported, wi…

Yves Rossy: Rocketman

Pushing the boundaries of human flight to hitherto unknown extremes, Swiss aviator Yves Rossy entered the record books on 26th September, 2008, becoming the first person ever to cross the English channel using a jet-propelled wing strapped t…

Thank You For Not Smoking

The world did NOT wake up to the dangers of smoking on September 25th, 1878, despite the efforts of Dr. Charles R. Drysdale, who had a letter published in The Times warning that smoking is a practice “deleterious to health and vitality,” not…

Welcome to Downing St

Robert Walpole, first Lord of the Treasury, moved into 10 Downing Street on 22nd September, 1735, after three years of renovations. Although initially given to him as a personal gift from the King, the house became the official residence for…

The 'Cod War' Heats Up

Rerun. ‘The Fish Feud!’ - as the tabloids originally termed the standoff between Britain and Iceland over fishing rights - had escalated into a fully-fledged ‘Cod War’ by 21st September, 1958, when the destroyer H.M.S. D…

The Pope, the Antipope and the Other Pope

Robert of Geneva was elected Pope Clement VII on 20th September, 1378. Inconveniently, there was already a pope: Urban VI. Cue three decades of confusion and division, as citizens and nations had to choose which pope to support - the one in …

Discovering The Iceman

When German hikers Erika and Helmut Simon stumbled upon a dead body in the Oertzel Alps on 19th September, 1991, they believed it to be a recently fallen mountaineer, whose cadaver had been preserved in the ice. In fact, the specimen turned …

Welcome To Tiffany's

Tiffany, now a $16 billion jewelry empire, opened their first store at 259 Broadway, New York, on 18th September, 1837. Their first day’s sales total was $4.98.Co-founded by 25 year-old Charles Lewis Tiffany (tha…