Today In History with The Retrospectors

John Stewart was elected MP for Lymington, Hampshire on 8th January, 1833.  On paper, he seemed a textbook member of Britain’s elite: wealthy, well-connected, educated in England, and a plantation owner.  But Stewart’s mother was an enslaved woman, making him considered by many to be Britain’s first Black MP. Yet Stewart did not enter Parliament to challenge slavery or injustice. Rather, he was an unapologetic defender of the plantation system, opposed the abolition of slavery, fought taxes on sugar, and later resisted ending the exploitative “apprenticeship” system that replaced slavery after 1833.  In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly discover how Stewart campaigned to benefit financially from the ending of slavery; uncover the other mixed-race MPs who could qualify as Britain’s ‘first’ non-white Parliamentarians; and consider how it wasn’t until 1987 that Parliament truly became more racially representative…   Further Reading: • ‘Who were the first MPs from ethnic minority backgrounds?’ (Commons Library, 2020): https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/who-were-the-first-mps-from-ethnic-minority-backgrounds/ • ‘John Stewart, politician’ (They Did, I Can Too) : https://theydidicantoo.org/john-stewart-politician • ‘Black British History - the Labour black sections and Britain's first black MPs’ (Simeon Brown, 2018): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEMnQs1quNo #Black #Politics #Victorian #Person Love 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 ❤️ 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 2026 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All-Black basketball team the Harlem Globetrotters travelled to Hinckley, Illinois on 7th January, 1927 - setting them on a barnstorming journey through the Midwest, the nation, and eventually the world…  Their manager, Abe Saperstein, was obsessed with basketball, stitching together tours at a time when Black athletes were locked out of most professional leagues. His re-brand of the team to the “Harlem Globetrotters” symbolised Black culture and creativity at a time of sports segregation, even though the team were actually from Chicago. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly compare contrasting stories of how ‘the Savoy Big Five’ evolved into the Globetrotters; explain why showboating, humour and spectacle were always part of the group’s demonstrations, despite their immense talent; and examine how the team helped introduce America to Black sporting excellence…   Further Reading: • ‘The Harlem Globetrotters: 99 years of basketball, variety and ‘Showtime’’ (The Athletic, 2025): https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6118506/2025/02/10/harlem-globetrotters-black-history-month-99-years/ • ‘How Harlem Globetrotters founder Abe Saperstein shaped basketball as we know it today’  (The Times of Israel, 2024): https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-harlem-globetrotters-founder-abe-saperstein-shaped-basketball-as-we-know-it-today/ • ‘Best of the Harlem Globetrotters’ (Guinness World Records, 2020): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDQLhK-flVE #Sport #20s #Black #Racism #US Love 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 ❤️ 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 2026 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Roller skates, most readily associated with the 1970s, were actually first patented in the US on 6th January, 1863, by New York furniture salesman James Plimpton. Plimpton developed the shoes after being advised by his doctor to take up ice skating, yet finding himself with nowhere to skate in the Spring and Summer months. He guarded his innovation zealously, and created a leasing model for the novelty boots in specially sanctioned roller parks. America’s first ‘rinking’ craze - dubbed by the press “Rink-O-Mania!” - was born. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly learn about an earlier skate-maker, who literally ‘crashed the party’ in 1760s London; explain why roller-skating found a market in the prudish Victorian dating scene; and recall how the first ‘Roller Derbies’ would test their participants to grim exhaustion…  Further Reading: • ‘Wonderful Things: Roller Skates, 1880’ (Science Museum, 2015): https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/wonderful-things-roller-skates-1880/ • ‘Roller Skating in the 1900s - Hilarious Photos of Humanity on Wheels’ (The Vintage News, 2018): https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/10/03/photos-of-roller-skating-1900s/?edg-c=1 • ‘Charlie Chaplin in “The Rink”’ (Mutual Film Corporation, 1916):  https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx9i4KwCz0Sz1pmewu_KA5fA8YdPEmoM4O #1800s #inventions This episode first aired in 2023 Love 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 ❤️ 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 2026 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An angry crowd hurled abuse and antisemitic slurs at Captain Alfred Dreyfus on 5th January, 1895, as he stood in the courtyard of the École Militaire in Paris to have his insignia torn away and his sword ceremonially snapped. He had been falsely convicted of treason. The case against him rested almost entirely on a memorandum - the bordereau - found torn up in a German embassy waste-paper basket. Investigators claimed the handwriting resembled Dreyfus’s, and his trial was held behind closed doors, shielding the weakness of their case.  Dreyfus was sent to Devil’s Island in French Guiana, where he was kept in near-total isolation, confined to a small hut, shackled at night, poorly fed, and forbidden meaningful human contact.  In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain how evidence quietly emerged pointing to the real author of the bordereau: Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy; discover how public outrage finally broke through after Émile Zola’s famous open letter, “J’Accuse…!”; and consider how smears about Dreyfus’s sexuality were also used against him…  Further Reading: • ‘The Dreyfus affair: 100 years on’ (BBC News, 2006): https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5166904.stm • ‘The Dreyfus Affair: The Scandal And Anti-Semitism That Divided France’ (HistoryExtra, 2022): https://www.historyextra.com/period/modern/dreyfus-affair-what-happened-france-scandal-anti-semitism/ • ‘J'ACCUSE - Trailer’ (Gaumont, 2019): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iwqFo1B7nM #Scandal #France #Jewish #Racism #1800s Love 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 ❤️ 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 2026 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rebecca’s favourite episode of 2025 is “The 'Ten Cent Beer Night' Riot”. Twice the usual crowd turned up to see the Cleveland Indians take on the Texas Rangers on June 4th, 1974 - drawn in not by the baseball match, but by an innovative promotion: for just 10 cents, fans could grab 10 ounces of beer. The lines never stopped, as fans circled back, drank in line, and kept the buzz going. Tensions were high, as this was a rematch with the Texas Rangers following a brawl. Fans cheered when a Rangers player got injured, and started throwing trash, rocks, and batteries onto the field. Then came a full-on invasion: around 200 fans, some armed with chains and chunks of stadium seats, rushed the pitch. Players fought to protect each other. The umpire, bleeding from a thrown rock and narrowly missed by a knife, finally called it: game over. Cleveland forfeited. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain how Cleveland’s ill-advised 10 cent beer promotion came to be; unpick what the baseball players were thinking, as they were dashed back to a hotel for their safety; and marvel at the gratuitous nudity on the pitch, in the golden age of 70s streaking… Further Reading: • ‘A mistake by the lake: Remembering the 10-cent Beer Night riot’ (Sports Illustrated, 2013): https://www.si.com/mlb/2013/06/04/mistake-lake-remembering-10-cent-beer-night-riot • ‘10 Cent Beer Night: An Oral History of Cleveland Baseball's Most Infamous Night’ (Cleveland Magazine, 2024): https://clevelandmagazine.com/in-the-cle/sports/articles/10-cent-beer-night-an-oral-history-of-cleveland-baseball's-most-infamous-night • ‘10-Cent Beer Night: A look back’ (Sports & Extras Network, 2014): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFtR38Mlscc #Sport #Mistakes #70s #Strange Love 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 ❤️ 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 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices