In 1647, the new puritan government tried to cancel Christmas.

People in Canterbury protested in a peculiarly English way with a destructive game of football.

The city’s Plum Pudding Riots led to a royalist revolt and the second round of the Civil War.

Kent had escaped the worst of the slaughter and spoil. So why were its people inviting ruin by sparking a rebellion against Parliament?

VIP 01 How a game of football led to an English revolution

Maréchal Pétain’s journey from war hero to traitor was so complete that it surprised those who had not kept abreast of developments.

The result was a rather surprising encounter between Charles de Gaulle and Pétain’s former Great War colleague and American hero, General Pershing.

In this episode, we also hear about General Foch's surprisingly accurate prediction about the outbreak of the Second World War made when the ink was drying on the peace that ended the First.

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Music credits

The theme music is Newsroom by Riot.

The other music featured in this episode was Snowing by Peter Rudenko (https://www.facebook.com/rudenko.peter) and Prelude No 14 by Chris Zabriskie (http://chriszabriskie.com/).

VIP 02 An unfortunate tête-a-tête

What happened when steam engines were placed in the tunnels of the world’s first underground railway? London's Metropolitan Railway opened in 1863 and, for its first 45 years, it ran steam trains.

That is smoke and cinder belching steam trains, running underground in confined tunnels.

And you think your commute is bad?

Do you like the podcast?

Please rate or review the podcast and share it with friends. On iTunes, this takes a couple of steps but it is the best way to help me reach a wider audience.

1. Search for Vaguely Interesting History Hits on the Podcast app.

2. Tap the podcast artwork under the Podcasts heading (the red and white logo).

3. Tap reviews and leave a star rating or, even better, add a review as well!

Music credits The theme music is Newsroom by Riot.

The other music featured in this episode was The Long Goodbye by John Pazdan (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/flatwound/14476) and Awaken by gurdonark (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/gurdonark/30189.

VIP 03 A taste of Hades - commuting hell on the underground steam railway

In 1941, Adolf Hitler issued orders to Nazi Germany’s railway officials. He wanted them to develop a new type of railway. It was to be bigger, far bigger, than anything that had ever been seen.
Trains the height and width of a suburban house and the length of the Empire State Building would hurtle across the Greater German Reich, from Brest in the west to Bucharest in the east.

They would be luxurious, providing unimaginable amenities for travellers.

And, unsurprisingly, they were never built.

VIP 04 Hitler’s dreams to unify his empire with a monstrous railway

Everywhere you turn, you see the unmistakable face of Adolf Hitler. His voice echoes in your head, broadcast from a thousand loudspeakers. His wild, gesticulating speech is reaching its foam speckled crescendo.

Nazi television is everywhere. Looming over city squares, above the concourse of the railway station, on the factory floor and in every home.

It is George Orwell’s 1984 made real, and it was a dream of visionaries working in Joseph Goebbels’s Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.

In the end, only the small matter of a world war got in the way of the roll-out of a nationwide and unavoidable Nazi television network.

AH 1.01 Achtung! Achtung! Dystopian adventures with Nazi TV and radio

In 1875, Rome came close to losing its river.

In that year, the liberator of Italy, General Giuseppe Garibaldi, visited and announced plans to clean up the Eternal City.

His main target was the River Tiber. Garibaldi would solve problems from pollution to flooding by diverting the river and completely removing it from the city.

Where did this idea come from? And why wasn’t it carried out?

AH 1.02 Draining The Swamp - Garibaldi's Plan To Divert Rome's River Tiber

In 1941, Adolf Hitler issued orders to Nazi Germany’s railway officials. He wanted them to develop a new type of railway. It was to be bigger, far bigger, than anything that had ever been seen.

Trains the height and width of a suburban house and the length of the Empire State Building would hurtle across the Greater German Reich, from Brest in the west to Bucharest in the east. They would be luxurious, providing unimaginable amenities for travellers.

And, unsurprisingly, they were never built.

AH 1.03 Hitler's grandiose plans for a monster railway

Imperial Airships would bring the far flung peoples of the British Empire closer together than ever before. Every day, blimps would slip their masts near London carrying passengers and freight bound for Montreal, Cairo, Karachi, Singapore and Sydney.

Journies that had once been measured in months would breeze past in days. The Imperial Airship Service would bind Canada, Australia, South Africa, Egypt, India and New Zealand into a true global superpower.

Britannia still ruled the waves. But now, she would dominat the sky.

These dreams were dashed when the world’s largest airship ploughed into the ground in northern France on its inaugural flight to India.

Britain’s Hindenburg disaster ended an imperial flirtation with airships. Did it also deal a blow for the future of the British Empire?

AH 1.04 The British Hindenburg and the imperial dream that burst into flames

In the first half of 1940 only one question mattered in American politics. Would Franklin D. Roosevelt break with tradition and run for a third term as President of the United States? The New York Times proclaimed it as 'the all-absorbing political riddle'.
Roosevelt kept the country guessing right up until the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago in July 1940. On the second day of the convention, a message from FDR was read out.

It announced that the President had no desire to continue in office or to be nominated for election. It produced a stunned and shocked silence.

Suddenly, the quiet was shattered by a voice thundering over the loudspeakers.

'We want Roosevelt!

We want Roosevelt!'

But did the President want a third term?

AH 1.05 Roosevelt's third term and the voice from the sewers

What if ... ? 

Almost History tells the amazing true stories behind aborted missions, cancelled plans, utopian dreams and hubristic designs.

Almost History

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