Today is the 85th anniversary of that triumph of history, the Munich Agreement, which allowed Hitler to keep a chunk of Czechoslovakia in return for a promise not to invade anywhere else. Here’s how Chips Channon greeted the news in his diary Remarkably, even though dictators are known for their…

Today would have been the 81st birthday of Bernard William Jewry, had he not sadly died in 2014 at the relatively young age of 72. This wouldn’t be especially remarkable had he not spent the previous 40 years going by the name Alvin Stardust. You may have heard some or…

Well, if you can think of a better way to celebrate the 36th anniversary of the (US) release of The Princess Bride than Cary Elwes’ story about Andre the Giant and the enormous fart, I’d love to hear it. We got to the moment where I wake up from being…

Well, if it’s 23 September… yes, of course: the 69th anniversary of the hunt for the Gorbals Vampire, in which hundreds of children aged 4–14, armed with dogs, knives and sharpened sticks went looking for an urban myth. This is not to be confused with the invasion of Highgate Cemetery…

Alas! It is the 425th anniversary of the demise of (admittedly quarrelsome) actor Gabriel Spenser at the hands of playwright Ben Jonson, armed “with a certain sword of iron and steel called a Rapiour of the price 3s.” in a duel. No one seems to know why they were fighting…

It’s the 108th anniversary today of the last time Stonehenge was sold by one private owner to another. Wealthy local barrister Cecil Chubb went along to a property sale in the Palace Theatre in Salisbury on 21 September 1915 and bought the monument on impulse for £6,600. There are lots…

Ah, 20th September: 109th anniversary of the birth of Kenneth More, beloved, solid, silver-screen embodiment of British heroism — and a man whose first job in showbusiness was stopping people wanking in a nudie theatre. He started work in the early 1930s as a stagehand at the Windmill Theatre in…

As it’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day, here are some things you didn’t know* about pirates. (*unless you already did) 1. Pirate ships were democracies with a pretty flat management structure According to economist Peter Leeson in The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates, captains on other ships could be tyrants, but under the skull and crossbones, it was…

Alas! It’s the 844th anniversary of the demise of Hildegard of Bingen, a woman who once saw a Gruffalo popping out of the Bride of Christ’s… um A Gruffal-OH, if you will, or St. Hildegard had had visions since childhood, and Pope Eugenius III suggested she write them down…