Histories Of The Unexpected

In this bonus episode, the Histories of the Unexpected duo, James and Sam, take a FURTHER MEATY bite out of the UTTERLY BIZARRE history of SHARKS! Which is all about power and status in ancient China, Pompeii, education, irrational fear, the Spanish Americas in the sixteenth century, and much much more…. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, the Histories of the Unexpected duo, James and Sam, take another bite out of the frankly fascinating history of SHARKS! Which is all about power and status in ancient China, Pompeii, education, irrational fear, the Spanish Americas in the sixteenth century, and much much more…. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this latest episode, the Unexpected duo, Professor James Daybell and Dr Sam Willis don the bling of the past to explore the unexpected history of JEWELLERY! Which is all about amulets, magical powers and animal protection (via native Americans, Tudor caul lockets and unicorn horns) and eighteenth-century lockets. It's also all about the Mughals, courtesans and female power, the Queen's jewels and the Cullinan Diamond! Who knew! Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this latest episode, the Unexpected duo, Professor James Daybell and Dr Sam Willis head outdoors and pitch camp in order to savour the unexpected history of TENTS! Which is all about ancient Rome and the Dacian campaign recorded on Trajan’s Column in Rome, the Industrial Revolution, nomadism, and the American Civil War. It's also all about Tudor glamping, Henry VIII and the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and Roald Amundsen and the journeying to the South Pole (and the current location of his expedition, the Fram)! Who knew! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this latest episode, the Unexpected duo, Professor James Daybell and Dr Sam Willis scratch their collective heads really hard and blink their collective eyes many times to grabble with befuddlement the unexpected history of DISBELIEF! Which is all about abortion rights and the overturning of Roe Verses Wade by the US Supreme Court; it's about the first use of poisoned gas in the trenches and first-hand witness accounts of people not being able to believe their eyes; and it's also about atheism and disbelief in god in the past. Who knew! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this latest episode, the Unexpected duo, Professor James Daybell and Dr Sam Willis carefully roll out the pastry of the past, fill it with meat of memory and tuck in to devour the unexpected history of PASTIES! Which is all about Cornish diaspora (via Michigan, Australia and elsewhere around the globe where this tasty foodstuff has travelled), myth busting, and 3D scanning and printing of one of the last pasties that a Plymouth woman ever made! It's also all about Tudor recipes passed down the generations, and a material reading of a radical pasty recipe! Yes, you heard it here - a radical pasty recipe! Who knew! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this latest episode, the Unexpected duo, Professor James Daybell and Dr Sam Willis walk very carefully down the pathway of the past to stumble upon the unexpected history of FOOTSTEPS! Which is all about Roman civilisation, animal prints frozen in time, and treading in the footsteps of the past! It's also all about the history of religion, pilgrims and pilgrimages, and the religious routes mapped across the world from ancient times to the present. Who knew! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this latest episode, the Unexpected duo, Professor James Daybell and Dr Sam Willis bring out the paper plates and plastic cups and reach into the decorations box of the past to celebrate in jubilant fashion the unexpected history of BUNTING! Which is all about celebrations, pageantry and of course the Queen's Platinum Jubilee! It’s also all about pennants and naval history, southern pride and the making of the US flag! Who knew! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this latest episode, the Unexpected duo, Professor James Daybell and Dr Sam Willis bring out the paper plates and plastic cups of the past to celebrate in jubilant fashion the unexpected history of STREET PARTIES! Which is all about celebrations, peace, the coming together of communities and of course the Queen's Platinum Jubilee! It’s also all about town planning, block parties, riots and protests against Vietnam in 1969 during the Mifflin Street Block Party in Madison Wisconsin! Who knew! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this latest episode, the Unexpected duo, Professor James Daybell and Dr Sam Willis tip of the condiment bottle of the past and pour out the unexpected history of KETCHUP! Which is all about eighteenth-century housewives, cookery and medicine; it's about crime and poisoning and Jonathan Swift's poetry! It’s also all about US nationalism, geopolitics and trade wars (including McDonalds pulling out of Russia in 2022), spaghetti westerns, and who could forget Mr Henry J. Heinz! Who knew! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this latest episode, the Unexpected duo, Professor James Daybell and Dr Sam Willis peel back the layers to uncover the unexpected history of BANANAS! Which is all the quest for the lost perfect tasting banana, the development of the Cavendish banana at Chatsworth House, and the first time a banana appeared in a British shop window! It’s also all banana republics, colonialism and the United Fruit Company and the 1928 Columbian massacre of workers, and the 1954 coup that saw the overthrow of the democratically elected president of Guatemala Jacobo Árbenz! Who knew! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this latest episode, the Unexpected duo, Professor James Daybell and Dr Sam Willis inspired by real life events uncover the unexpected history of THE THUMB! Which is all torture, extraction of confessions and leaning on people (via slave owners, witches, the Gestapo, mobsters and early modern Scotland), and gladiatorial combat! It’s also all about hitchhiking, hand gestures and the folklore tale of Tom Thumb and Charles Sherwood Stratton, AKA "General Tom Thumb" the US stage performer discovered by P.T. Barnum,! Who knew! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this latest episode, the Unexpected duo, Professor James Daybell and Dr Sam Willis swing through the trees of the past to uncover the unexpected history of MONKEYS! Which is all Shakespeare and the infinite monkey theorem, monkeys (and dogs!) in space, and Dutch art! It’s also all about the history of racism and ancient Egypt! Who knew! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

James and Sam tackle the humbling history of RIBBONS! From the use of ribbons for commemoration, mourning, decoration and gifting, Sam and James rampage around history of ribbons before settling on the tragic history of the eighteenth-century Foundling Hospital, established by the philanthropist Thomas Coram (c. 1668-1751), the plight of Georgian and Victorian children parted from their mothers, the tokens left to identify the 'foundlings', and the social problems connected with the Industrial Revolution. Who knew? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this latest episode, the Unexpected duo, Professor James Daybell and Dr Sam Willis explore the UNEXPECTED history of CORRIDORS! Which is all about the history of humanitarian corridors, it's about Victorian hierarchy, French social planning, madness, crime and social control, and the anti-corridic (yes, that is a term!) world of the open space. It is also all about diplomacy and corridors of power (via C.P. Snow), as well as war and new corridors! Who knew! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

RE-RELEASE: THE UNEXPECTED HISTORY OF MOTHERS! A boy’s best friend is his mother’   (Norman Bates – Psycho, written and directed by Joseph Stefano and Alfred Hitchcock, 1960). Welcome to Histories of the Unexpected where you will discover the history of things you did not know even had a history, like the history of nonsense or the history of the itch. For this episode let us join the Abbott of historical action, Dr Sam Willis, and the Marconi of long distance historical communication, Professor James Daybell, as they bring forth the unexpected history of mothers.Join the very well preserved and embalmed historical adventurers as they take you on a journey of nurturing and sometimes less than tender care, from Freud’s controversially proposed Oedipus complex to the archaeological site of Banpo, China, discovered in 1953, from the Cross of Honour handed out to mothers in Nazi Germany to Stalin’s Order of Maternal Glory, and from the maternal conflict and violence evidenced wi

In this latest episode, the Unexpected duo, Professor James Daybell and Dr Sam Willis explore the UNEXPECTED history of HUNGER! Which is all about the history of free school meals (which meanders from the 1941 free school meals policy via 'Maggie Thatcher Milk Snatcher' to Marcus Rashford and Jamie Oliver in more modern history) and Ernesto Che Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries. It is also all about famine and ancient manuscripts of Timbuktu, hungry ghosts and hunger strike in Northern Ireland during the Troubles! Who knew! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this latest episode, the Unexpected duo, Professor James Daybell and Dr Sam Willis bid a heartfelt goodbye to the UNEXPECTED history of FAREWELLS! Which is all about the history of separation, WWI and the trenches, letters to loved ones thrown from a train in a matchbox, and love letters to the dead in sixteenth-century Korea. It is also all about unexpected history of ancient tombs, travel and shipwrecks! Who knew! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this latest episode, the Unexpected duo, Professor James Daybell and Dr Sam Willis hide behind the hedge of the past and jump out with the UNEXPECTED history of SURPRISES! Which is all about the history of Jack-in-the-Boxes, the remarkable finds uncovered by the archaeological excavations of Britain’s stone age culture at Orkney's Ness of Brodgar, the Schifferstadt gold hat, and ambushes and surprise attacks (including the Trojan Horse). It is also all about unexpected political victories and surprise election votes, ghosts and booing out! Who knew! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this latest episode, the Unexpected duo, Professor James Daybell and Dr Sam Willis take a deep drink from the glass of the past to deliver to you the UNEXPECTED history of THIRST! Which is all about the history of California and access to water, and a global history of drinking water. It is also about the Pablo Valencia's extraordinary trek through the Arizona desert and the scientific study of dehydration; the history of teetotalism, and the discovery of five crates of liquor under Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic hut and historical cocktails! Who knew! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.