On the night of February 23 1820, twenty-five impoverished craftsmen assembled in an obscure stable in Cato Street, London, with a plan to massacre the whole British cabinet at its monthly dinner. The Cato Street Conspiracy was the most sensational of all plots aimed at the British state since Guy Fawkes' Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
Historian Vic Gatrell joins Dan to explore this dramatic event. They discuss how one of the most compelling episodes in British history ended in betrayal, arrest, and trial, and with five conspirators publicly hanged and decapitated for treason. Their failure would end hopes of revolution for a century.
Invented in the mid-1800s, bicycles have had enduring popularity. Across cultures, they have been embraced, promising freedom and mobility at a low price point.
Today on the show we are joined by Tim Harford, host of the podcasts Cautionary Tales and The BBC’s 50 Objects That Defined The Modern...
Please note that this episode contains mentions of racial trauma, slavery and violence.
The most feared ship in Britain’s West Africa Squadron, His Majesty’s Black Joke was one of a handful of ships tasked with patrolling the western coast of Africa in an effort to end hundreds of years of globa...
Hidden in bedside tables or proudly displayed on mantelpieces, wherever you keep them (if you do), sex toys have come a long way since the first phallic-shaped object was found around 30,000 years ago.
But before they were arriving through our post boxes in unmarked, tracked packages, what did s...
