Today In History with The Retrospectors

• Marie Stopes' "Mother's Clinic"

  Marie Stopes’ “Mother’s Clinic” opened its doors in Holloway, on March 17th, 1826. Stopes was a trailblazer, her birth control clinic providing working-class women with access to contraception and advice for the first time. However, her organisation's full name - "The Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress" - reveals her disturbing underlying belief in selective breeding for racial progress; a commitment that only strengthened as time went on, and she corresponded with Hitler. In this episode, The Retrospectors consider Stopes’s pioneering work on female desire and sexual health in her bestselling book, "Married Love,"; explain how she pivoted from paleobotany to reproductive health and racism; and ask why Marie Stopes International waited until the 21st century to rebrand itself… Further Reading: • ‘Family planning in the 1920s: Marie Stopes and the ‘wise precaution of delay’’ (The National Archives blog, 2022): https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20speople-family-planning-in-the-1920s-marie-stopes-and-the-wise-precaution-of-delay/ • ‘Marie Stopes: a turbo-Darwinist ranter, but right about birth control’ (The Guardian, 2011): https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/sep/02/marie-stopes-right-birth-control • ‘Marie Stopes’ Eugenics, Feminism and Birth Control’ (Wellcome Collection, 2022): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPqog-EV9jI This episode originally aired in 2024 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

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• Making The Mikado

  The Mikado opened on March 14, 1885 to immediate acclaim, and went on to become W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s most famous and best-loved operetta, despite its tortured genesis.  Due to growing creative tensions and their previous show flopping, Gilbert and Sullivan’s partnership was on the rocks, so The Mikado’s success took both completely by surprise.  In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly look at why the setting of The Mikado is really Japan in name only; discuss how Gilbert found inspiration in a sword hanging on his wall; and explain why Gilbert and Sullivan almost parted ways because of a magical love lozenge…  Further Reading: • ‘A big day in history: Gilbert and Sullivan unveil 'The Mikado'’ (History Extra, 2012): https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/a-big-day-in-history-gilbert-and-sullivan-unveil-the-mikado/  • ‘Arthur Sullivan - A Victorian Musician’ (Taylor & Francis, 2018): https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Arthur_Sullivan_A_Victorian_Musician/VXt_DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0  • ‘The Mikado’ (BBC, 1987): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkOWxcbzn0&t=561s  This episode originally 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 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• Mata Hari: Showgirl, Seductress, Spy

  Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod, better known to the world as Mata Hari, set the Paris stage ablaze on March 13, 1905, with a scandalous dance routine that turned her into an overnight success.  Sporting a gold jeweled breastplate and bracelets, Mata Hari’s performance was a striptease that left little to the imagination. But even the wildest imagination couldn’t envisage what lay ahead for the exotic dancer, courtesan, traitor and spy whose name became synonymous with the femme fatale. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca, and Olly discuss how she played both sides of the First World War for fools; uncover how she met her husband through a newspaper ad; and explain why she always wore a breastplate during sex… Further Reading: • ‘Mata Hari: exotic dancer, femme fatale, traitor and spy’ (History Extra, 2019): https://www.historyextra.com/period/first-world-war/mata-hari-exotic-dancer-femme-fatale-traitor-wwi-spy/  • ‘“I am ready”: Mata Hari faced a firing squad for spying — and refused a blindfold.’ (The Washington Post, 2017): https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/10/15/i-am-ready-mata-hari-faced-a-firing-squad-for-spying-and-refused-a-blindfold/  • ‘Buckwild Facts About Mata Hari, The Exotic Dancer Who Became A WWI Spy’ (Weird History, 2022): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Sh-fB_qMUg  This episode originally 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 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• When The Dixie Chicks Got Cancelled

  As the Dixie Chicks’ lead singer, Natalie Maines, made an off-the-cuff remark at a London concert on 12th March, 2003, she could not have known the comments would haunt her band (now known as ‘The Chicks’) for decades.  Just days before the US invasion of Iraq, and to cheers from the British crowd, she said from the stage: “We’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.” A Guardian journalist jotted it down, and when those words reached the other side of the Atlantic, all hell broke loose. Dixie Chicks CDs were steamrolled in protest, country radio stations blacklisted their songs, and the band never recovered. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly talk through the Chicks’ damage control strategy; ask whether the backlash was an organic response from Conservative Country fans, or an orchestrated, sexist campaign; and reveal how Taylor Swift has taken note of their downfall… Further Reading: • ‘The Dixie Chicks | Music’ (The Guardian, 2003): https://www.theguardian.com/music/2003/mar/12/artsfeatures.popandrock • ’The Chicks' 2003 George W. Bush Controversy: An Oral History’ (Billboard, 2022): https://www.billboard.com/music/country/chicks-radio-banned-george-bush-oral-history-1235087442/ • ‘Inside The Chicks’ SCANDAL in 2003 and Their GRAMMYs Comeback’ (Entertainment Tonight, 2022): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0C3TrCBAOA 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

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• COPS Hits TV

  Producer John Langley had been pitching a no-frills, fly-on-the-wall documentary series following US Police Officers for six years when, in the midst of a writer’s strike, Fox finally bit. COPS made its debut on 11th March, 1989, becoming one of the longest-running shows in TV history. Langley called it ‘video vérité’; the New York Times called it ‘tabloid TV’. From the beginning, concerns about its depiction of race relations in America led to criticism that eventually brought about its cancellation - before it was reinstated on a different TV network. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain how various Police departments across the States went from being resistant to being featured in COPS to actually nominating themselves for filming; consider why participants were so keen to sign release forms when they were being depicted in such a vulnerable position; and ask if the first series still seems as ‘tabloid’ as it was considered at the time…  Further Reading: • ‘Episode One: Broward County Florida - Part 2’ (Fox, 1989): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5k36VTrZcY • ‘Review/Television; 'Cops' Camera Shows the Real Thing’ (The New York Times, 1989): https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/07/arts/review-television-cops-camera-shows-the-real-thing.html • ‘John Langley: Producer who turned police work into prime reality TV’ (The Independent, 2021): https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/john-langley-cops-reality-tv-obituary-b1875648.html This episode originally aired in 2022 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

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