January
-
1 Jan 1762: Cock Lane Ghost mystery
- This started in London first week in 1762 and includes murder allegations, a ghost and a haunted house.
Ep. #203
2 Jan 1860: Planet Vulcan
- The discovery of the planet Vulcan, orbiting between Mercury and the Sun was announced by the French Acadademy of Sciences. It later turned out not to exist.
Ep. #055
2 Jan 1920: Isaac Asimov (birth of)
- Prolific and prominent writer and science communicator
Ep. #359
4 Jan 1581: James Ussher (birth of)
- Prolific Irish scholar and church leader, famous for his chronology that sought to establish the time and date of the creation
Ep. #153
6 Jan 1920: Doris Stokes (birth of)
- Self-proclaimed psychic and ‘claireaudient’.
Ep. #204
8 Jan 1823: Alfred Russel Wallace (birth of)
- British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection.
Ep. #256
8 Jan 1981: Trans-en-Provence Case
- UFO sighting in France
Ep. #307
11 Jan 1906: Albert Hoffman (birth of)
- Swiss scientist and discoverer of LSD-25
Ep. #107
13 Jan 1404: Act Against Multipliers
- This act made it illegal to create silver or gold using alchemy
Ep. #005
15 Jan 2001: Wikipedia
- Wikipedia was launched
Ep. #360
16 Jan 1964: Massimo Pigliucci (birth of)
20 Jan 1612: Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (death of)
- Holy Roman Emperor (1576–1612), King of Hungary and Croatia (as Rudolf I, 1572–1608), King of Bohemia (1575–1608/1611) and Archduke of Austria (1576–1608). He was a member of the House of Habsburg.
Ep. #258
21 Jan 1789: Baron d’Holbach (death of)
- French-German philosopher, encyclopedist, writer, and prominent figure in the French Enlightenment
Ep. #309
21 Jan 1807: London Institute
- The London Institution gets Royal Charter
Ep. #361
21 Jan 1854: Eusapia Palladino (birth of)
- Italian spiritualist physical medium
Ep. #057
22 Jan 1561: Sir Francis Bacon (birth of)
- English philosopher and Statesman
Ep. #155
23 Jan 1943: Stanisław Burzyński (birth of)
- Founder of The Burzynski Clinic, is a controversial clinic offering an unproven cancer treatment
Ep. #109
24 Jan 1928: Desmond Morris (birth of)
- British zoologist and anthropologist. He was instrumental in popularizing the Aquatic Ape hypothesis.
Ep. #206
25 Jan 1900: Theodosius Dobzhansky (birth of)
- Ukrainian-American evolutionary biologist
Ep. #310
27 Jan 1950: Derek Acorah (birth of)
- Brittish spiritual medium
Ep. #007
28 Jan 1884: Auguste and Jean Felix Piccard (birth of)
- The Piccard twins explored both the heavens and the deep sea using the bathyscaphe
Ep. #362
29 Jan 1986: The Height 611 UFO incident
- Known as ‘Russia’s own Roswell incident’.
Ep. #207
30 Jan 1948: Edzard Ernst (birth of)
- Retired academic physician and researcher specializing in the study of complementary and alternative medicine
Ep. #156
31 Jan 1911: Grandmother (“Baba”) Vanga (birth of)
- Bulgarian mystic, clairvoyant, and herbalist.
Ep. #059
31 Jan 1951: József Gyurcsok (birth of)
- Hungarian remote energy healer and tele-evangelist
Ep. #363
31 Jan 2021: INH (Informationsnetzwerk Homöopathie, or Information Network Homeopathy)
- INH is a German association of homeopathy critics . The association is part of the GWUP (the German Skeptics).
Ep. #259
February
-
2 Feb 2010: Andrew Wakefield’s paper
- The Lancet formally retracts Andrew Wakefield’s 1998 paper
Ep. #311
3 Feb 1984: Elizabeth Holmes (birth of)
- American former biotechnology entrepreneur and convicted fraudster, known for the Theranos bluff.
Ep. #364
5 Feb 2011: 1023 Campaign
- The 1023 global homeopathy challenge happened on 5 February 2011.
Ep. #260
6 Feb 1999: Skeptics in the Pub
- The first ever skeptical pub was held this date in London
Ep. #111
8 Feb 1834: Dimitri Mendeleev (birth of)
- Russian chemist and inventor. He is best known for formulating the Periodic Law and creating a farsighted version of the periodic table of elements.
Ep. #312
8 Feb 1855: Devil’s Footprints
- A series of strange footprints was reported from around the Exe Estuary in East and South Devon, England
Ep. #110
10 Feb 1937: Anne Anderson (birth of)
- Reproductive physiologist, forerunner of evidence based medicine
Ep. #009
10 Feb 1947: Oliver Lodge‘s letters
- Oliver Lodge‘s last letter was opened, failing to prove that psychics are real
Ep. #157
12 Feb 1809: Charles Darwin (birth of)
- English naturalist, geologist and biologist.
Ep. #209
13 Feb 1923: Philippe de Cherisey (birth of)
- French writer, radio humorist, surrealist and supporting actor. He is best known for his creation of fake parchments
Ep. #158
15 Feb 1564: Galileo Galilei (birth of)
- the “father of modern science”
Ep. #061
18 Feb 1930: Pluto
- Pluto day – the descovory of Planet X
Ep. #365
19 Feb 1473: Nicolaus Copernicus (birth of)
- Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon. He formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center.
Ep. #262
22 Feb 1997: Dolly the sheep
- Presentation of Dolly to the press.
Ep. #263
22 Feb 2004: Andrew Wakefield
- Brian Deer’s landmark investigation into the Wakefield fraud was published
Ep. #113
22 Feb 2010: Homeopathy
- The British Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee published its damning Evidence Check on homeopathy
Ep. #159
23 Feb, 1455: Gutenberg Bible
- First book printed using reusable metal types
Ep. #314
24 Feb 1588: Johann Weyer (death of)
- Dutch physician, occultist and demonologist
Ep. #011
24 Feb 1871: The Descent of Man
- On this day, Charles Darwin’s groundbreaking book was published
Ep. #366
27 Feb 1971: Derren Brown (birth of)
March
-
3 Mar, 1968: Brian Cox (birth of)
- English physicist and former musician who is a professor of particle physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester and The Royal Society Professor for Public Engagement in Science.
Ep. #264
4 Mar 2002: Bankrupsy of David Irwing
- David Irving, famous holocaust denier, was declared bankrupt on 4 March 2002, after losing a libel suit against a writer who published a book about his “research”.
Ep. #212
5 Mar 1616: Decree Against Copernicanism
- The Catholic Church puts a ban on Nicolaus Copernicus’ ‘On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres’, 70 years after Copernicus’ death. The ban was not lifted until 1966, and Galileo Galilei (who defended the view of Copernicus) was not rehabilitated by the Church until 1992.
Ep. #367
9 Mar 1451: Amerigo Vespucci (birth of)
- Vespucci was a cartographer who had no idea that his name in the future would be used to refer to what he called ‘the new world’
Ep. #368
9 Mar 1847: Mary Anning (death of)
- English fossil collector, dealer, and palaeontologist
Ep. #115
9 Mar 1934: Yuri Gagarin (birth of)
10 Mar 1969: Massimo Polidoro (birth of)
- Italian psychologist, writer, journalist, television personality, co-founder and executive director of the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Pseudoscience (CICAP)
Ep. #316
14 Mar 1835: Giovanni Schiaparelli (birth of)
- Astronomer who believed he had discovered ‘canali‘ on Mars
Ep. #162
14 Mar 2018: Stephen Hawking (death of)
- English theoretical physicist, cosmologist
Ep. #117
15 Mar 1848: Hungarian Revolution of 1848
- On this day the Hungarian Revolution broke out against Habsburg absolutism. People today have many misconceptions about what happened and why.
Ep. #317
18 Mar 1981: Quark
- Premiere of Italian science program Quark hosted by skeptic Piero Angela
Ep. #163
19 Mar 1992: Hungarian Skeptic Society
- Predecessor the Hungarian Skeptic Society, Tényeket Tisztelők Társasága was founded on 19th March 1992.
Ep. #266
20 Mar 1726: Sir Isaac Newton (death of)
- English mathematician, astronomer and physicist
Ep. #065
22 Mar 1832: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (death of)
- German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic
Ep. #117
23 Mar 1907: Daniel Bovet (birth of)
- Swiss-born Italian pharmacologist who won the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Ep. #015
23 Mar 1919: Italian Fascist Party
- Benito Mussolini, an Italian World War I veteran and publisher of Socialist newspapers, breaks with the Italian Socialists and establishes the nationalist Fasci di Combattimento
Ep. #318
24 Mar 1897: Wilhelm Riech (birth of)
- Riech was the father of so-called “orgone energy” which is a made up concept
Ep. #370
26 Mar 1941: Richard Dawkins (birth of)
- British evolutionary biologist and author.
Ep. #215
27 Mar 1845: Wilhelm Röntgen (birth of)
- German mechanical engineer and physicist, who, on 8 November 1895, produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range known as X-rays or Röntgen rays, an achievement that earned him the inaugural Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.
Ep. #267
29 Mar 1824: Ludwig Büchner (birth of)
- Ludwig Büchner was a German philosopher, physiologist and physician who became one of the exponents of 19th-century scientific materialism.
Ep. #371
29 Mar 1939: UK Cancer Act of 1939
- This act was passed, most significantly to regulate advertising claims of cancer cures
Ep. #164
30 Mar 1925: Rudolf Steiner (death of)
- Founder of Anthroposophy
Ep. #067
31 Mar 1596: René Descartes (birth of)
- French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist who invented analytic geometry, linking the previously separate fields of geometry and algebra.
Ep. #268
April
-
1 Apr 2010: Simon Singh
- Simon Singh wins “fair comment” libel appeal against BCA
Ep. #319
1 Apr 2019: Internet Pranks
- We go through some examples
Ep. #165
2 Apr 2008: Rupert Sheldrake was stabbed
- The incident happened after a lecture on April 2, 2008.
Ep. #216
5 Apr 2012: Founding of ComCept
- Comunidade Céptica Portuguesa (English: Portuguese Skeptical Community), is a Portuguese project dedicated to scientific skepticism, created to promote rational and critical thinking about paranormal and pseudoscientific claims from a scientific point of view.
Ep. #269
6 Apr 1956: Chris French (birth of)
- British psychologist specialising in the psychology of paranormal beliefs and experiences, cognition and emotion. He is the head of the University of London’s anomalistic Psychology Research Unit and appears regularly in the media as an expert on testing paranormal claims.
Ep. #320
6 Apr 1961: Jules Bordet (death of)
- Belgian bacteriologist and immunologist
Ep. #017
10 Apr 1755: Samuel Hahneman (birth of)
- German physician, best known for creating homeopathy.
Ep. #166
11 Apr 1903: Gemma Galgani (death of)
- Italian mystic and saint
Ep. #069
12 Apr 1888: Premature obituary for Alfred Nobel
- 12 April 1888, a French newspaper allegedly published an obituary for Albert Nobel, inventor of dynamite, calling him “a merchant of death”, prompting Nobel to launch his esteemed award.
Ep. #217
12 Apr 1955: Polio
- Polio vaccine declared safe
Ep. #119
12 Apr 1969: Finnish Air Force UFO sighting
- Mysterious UFO sighting, still unexplained
Ep. #373
13 Apr 1949: Christopher Hitchens (birth of)
- Journalist and prominent atheist
Ep. #018
14 Apr 1629: Christiaan Huygens (birth of)
- Dutch mathematician, physicist, astronomer and inventor, who is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of all time and a major figure in the scientific revolution.
Ep. #321
14 Apr 1935: Erich von Däniken (birth of)
- Swiss author of several books which make claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, including the best-selling Chariots of the Gods?, published in 1968. Von Däniken is one of the main figures responsible for popularizing the “paleo-contact” and ancient astronauts hypotheses.
Ep. #270
19 Apr 1934: Surgeons Photograph
- The Surgeons Photograph is a famous fake photo, claiming to show the Loch Ness monster (“Nessie”)
Ep. #374
19 Apr 1943: First deliberate LSD trip
- On this day Albert Hofmann chose to deliberately ingest 250 micrograms of the Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) he had synthesized at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland. Three days earlier he had accidentally absorbed some through his skin by touching a container of the drug. From the accidental exposure he experienced restlessness, dizziness and “extreme activity of imagination.” Although he had first made it five years before, as a drug intended to relieve respiratory ailments, it was only on this day that he found the drug was a hallucinogen. The striking experience was one he chose to repeat.
Ep. #218
20 Apr 1889: Adolph Hitler (birth of)
- German dictator
Ep. #019
20 Apr 1902: Radium isolated
- Marie and Pierre Curie isolated radium for the first time on 20 April 1902.
Ep. #271
20 Apr 1959: Wim Hof (birth of)
- Wim Hof, (“the Iceman”), is extraordinarily resistant to extreme cold. His Wim Hof Method (WHM) combines breathing exercises, cold exposure, and meditation. Hyperventilation has been shown to reduce the body’s response to inflammation, but Hof’s extravagant claims of health benefits are not supported by scientific evidence.
Ep. #322
21 Apr 1932: Iván Almár (birth of)
- Hungarian astronomer and prominent figure of SETI and the Hungarian skeptic movement
Ep. #167
26 Apr 1986: Chernobyl disaster
- The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union.
Ep. #272
29 Apr 1380: Catherine of Siena (death of)
- Mystic, activist, author, and lay member of the Dominican Order
Ep. #071
30 Apr 1777: Carl Friedrich Gauss (birth of)
- Carl Friedrich Gauss was German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and science.
Ep. #375
30 Apr 1878: Germ Theory
- Louis Pasteur presents his Germ Theory
Ep. #168
May
-
1 May 1776: The Illuminati in Bavaria
- Founding of the mythical organisasion
Ep. #122
4 May 1825: Thomas Henry Huxley (birth of)
- Known as “Darwin’s Bulldog” for his persistent and relentless defence of Darwin’s theory of evolusion
Ep. #021
5 May 1813: Søren Kierkegaard (birth of)
- Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, social critic, and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher.
Ep. #273
5 May 1925: Scopes Monkey Trial – the arrest of John Scopes
- The ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ was provoked by science minded forces to demonstrate the absurdity of prohibiting the teaching of evolution in schools in Tennessee. Even though the verdict went the other way, the trial succeeded in swaying the public and the so-called ‘Butler Act’ was never again used to procecute somebody.
Ep. #376
6 May 1983: Adolf Hitler
- Stern Magazine admitted that they had spent 19 million marks on fake Hitler diaries
Ep. #169
8 May 1926: David Attenborough (birth of)
- English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author
Ep. #324
10 May 1978: UFO abduction in Poland
- An alleged alien abduction in Poland on May 10, 1978 is now commemorated with a stone memorial.
Ep. #221
12 May 1364: Jagiellonian University
- The founding of the most prestigious university of Poland, the Jagiellonian University in Kraków
Ep. #377
12 May 1820: Florence Nightingale (birth of)
- English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing
Ep. #073
13 May 1917: Apparitions of Our Lady of Fàtima
- The first of several apparitions of the virgin Mary in Fàtima, Portugal
Ep. #325
14 May 1796: First Smallpox inoculation
- On this day, Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox inoculation
Ep. #274
15 May 2009: Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij (VTDK)
- VTDK wins court case
Ep. #170
18 May 1959: Ranga Yogeshwar (birth of)
- Luxembourgish physicist and science journalist.
Ep. #275
19 May 1941: Heinz Oberhummer (birth of)
- Austrian physicist and skeptic.
Ep. #326
19 May 1962: Colin Fry (birth of)
- English television personality, entertainer and self-proclaimed medium
Ep. #124
20 May 1974: Ben Goldacre (birth of)
- Ben Goldacre is a prominent science communicator
Ep. #378
20 May 2010: Everybody Draw Mohammed Day
- Event in support of artists threatened with violence for drawing representations of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Ep. #023
21 May 1911: Peter Hurkos (birth of)
- Dutchman who allegedly manifested extrasensory perception (ESP) after recovering from a head injury and coma.
Ep. #223
22 May 1859: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (birth of)
- British writer and physician
Ep. #075
26 May 1897: Bram Stoker’s Dracula
- First publication of Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Ep. #276
28 May 1807: Louis Agassiz (birth of)
- Swiss-American biologist and geologist, founder of glaciology – and creationist.
Ep. #224
31 May 1725: Fake fossils
- Fake fossils accepted as genuine by Johann Beringer
Ep. #172
June
-
2 Jun 1739: Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
- the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences was established
Ep. #328
2 Jun 1740: Marquis de Sade (birth of)
- Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French nobleman, revolutionary politician, philosopher and writer famous for his libertine sexuality.
Ep. #277
3 Jun 1873: Otto Loewi (birth of)
- German-born pharmacologist and psychobiologist
Ep. #025
5 Jun 1921: Gérard de Sède, baron de Liéoux (birth of)
- French author, writing under the nom-de-plume of Gérard de Sède, and a member of various surrealist organizations
Ep. #225
6 Jun 1975: European Common Market
- UK referendum to join European Common Market
Ep. #173
7 Jun 1195: Ball lightning
- The first sighting of a ball lighting in England
Ep. #329
8 Jun 1916: Francis Crick (birth of)
- British molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin played crucial roles in deciphering the helical structure of the DNA molecule.
Ep. #278
9 Jun 2014: Creationism
- Teaching creationism as science was banned in public schools in the UK.
Ep. #226
10 Jun 1895: Immanuel Velikovsky (birth of)
- Russian, Israeli, and American scholar, known as the author of a number of controversial books reinterpreting the events of ancient history
Ep. #126
12 Jun 1922: Margherita Hack (birth of)
- Italian astrophysicist, activist and was also a co-founder of CICAP
Ep. #174
12 Jun 2023: Silvio Berluconi (death of)
- Italian politician
Ep. #382
15 Jun 1941: Evelyn Underhill (death of)
- English Anglo-Catholic writer and pacifist known for her numerous works on religion and spiritual practice
Ep. #077
16 Jun 1858: John Snow (death of)
- The father of modern epidemiology, died on 16 June 1858. He is famous for tracking down the source of the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak in London.
Ep. #227
16 Jun 2002: Padre Pio
- Padre Pio gets canonised. Also known as Saint Pius of Pietrelcina (Italian: Pio da Pietrelcina; 25 May 1887 – 23 September 1968), Padre Pio was an Italian Franciscan Capuchin, friar, priest, stigmatist, and mystic, now venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church.
Ep. #330
17 Jun 1603: Joseph of Cupertino (birth of)
- Italian Conventual Franciscan friar, Christian mystic and saint
Ep. #027
17 Jun, 1832: William Crookes (birth of)
- Great british chemist and physicist who attended the Royal College of Chemistry but also was a believer in spiritualism.
Ep. #175
19 Jun 1623: Blaise Pascal (birth of)
- French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, writer and Catholic theologian.
Ep. #279
19 Jun 1795: James Braid (birth of)
- Scottish surgeon and “gentleman scientist”
Ep. #128
22 Jun 1633: Galileo Galilei was forced to revoke his views on planetary motion.
- Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath
Ep. #383
24 Jun 1374: Medieval Dancing Plague
- The strange “Medieval Dancing Plague” broke out this day in Aachen, Germany
Ep. #228
25 Jun 1961: Ricky Gervais (birth of)
- Ricky Gervais is an English comedian, actor, director, and writer.
Ep. #331
26 Jun 1943: Karl Landsteiner (death of)
- Austrian biologist, physician, and immunologist.
Ep. #280
30 Jun 1860: The Oxford Evolution Debate
- Best remembered for Thomas Henry Huxley telling Bishop Samuel Wilberforce that he would not be ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor, but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used his great gifts to obscure the truth (the exact wording is debated).
Ep. #079
30 Jun 1894: Tower Bridge
- Opening by the Prince of Wales. The story about how Robert P McCulloch was conned into buying London Bridge thinking he actually paid for Tower Bridge in 1968 is just an urban myth.
Ep. #176
30 Jun 1908: The Tunguska event
- The Tunguska event is the largest meteor impact event on Earth in recorded history
Ep. #384
July
-
1 Jul 1646: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (birth of)
- Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat.
Ep. #332
1 Jul, 1818: Ignaz Semmelweis (birth of)
- Ethnic German-Hungarian physician and scientist born in the Kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire, now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. He discovered that doctors washing hands drastically drove down deaths in maternity wards.
Ep. #229
1 Jul, 1976: Anneliese Michel (death of)
- German woman killed by exorsism
Ep. #029
2 Jul 1946: Peter Popoff (birth of)
- German-born American televangelist and debunked clairvoyant and faith healer. He was exposed in 1986 for using a concealed earpiece to receive radio messages from his wife, who gave him the names, addresses, and ailments of audience members during Popoff-led religious services.
Ep. #281
5 Jul 1687: Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
- Newton’s ‘Principia’ lay the ground for much of modern science, over three hundred years ago.
Ep. #333
5 Jul 1817: Carl Vogt (birth of)
- German scientist, philosopher, popularizer of science, and politician.
Ep. #385
6 Jul 1885: Rabies vaccine
8 Jul 1857: Alfred Binet (birth of)
- French psychologist.
Ep. #178
10 Jul 1856: Nikola Tesla (birth of)
- Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.
Ep. #282
14 Jul 1933: Eugenics
- The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring in Nazi Germany was made into act
Ep. #130
14 Jul 1951: Photo of Loch Ness
- The most iconic and known supposed picture of the mythical creature
Ep. #081
15 Jul 1834: The Spanish Inquisition
- After several years of attempts to end it, it was finally abolished by Royal Decree
Ep. #031
15 Jul 1975: Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
- First international space collaboration, signifying the end of the space race
Ep. #334
17 Jul 1954: Angela Merkel (birth of)
- German politician and scientist.
Ep. #283
18 Jul 1950: György Egely (birth of)
- Hungarian engineer and self-proclaimed alternative energy solutions expert, propent of ‘life energy’, UFOs and ball lightning ‘researcher’
Ep. #387
19 Jul 1936: David Colquhoun (birth of)
- British Pharmacologist and prominent skeptic.
Ep. #179
20 Jul 1804: Sir Richard Owen (birth of)
- English biologist and comparative anatomist. Founder of the Natural History Museum in London.
Ep. #335
20 Jul 1822: Gregor Mendel (birth of)
- Meteorologist, mathematician, biologist, Augustinian friar and abbot.
Ep. #284
25 Jul 1920: Rosalind Franklin (birth of)
- British chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite.
Ep. #388
26 Jul 1875: Carl Jung (birth of)
- Carl Jung continues to be an extremely influential figure in the history of psychology despite that he got most of it wrong.
Ep. #132, Ep. #232, Ep. #285
28 Jul 1902: Karl Popper (birth of)
- Austrian philosopher of Science
Ep. #083
29 Jul 1862: Eduard Brückner (birth of)
- German geographer, meteorologist, glaciologist and climate scientist
Ep. #033
29 Jul 1951: Susan Blackmore (birth of)
- British writer, lecturer, skeptic, broadcaster, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth. Her fields of research include memetics, parapsychology, consciousness, and she is best known for her book The Meme Machine.
Ep. #233
31 Jul 1831: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (birth of)
- Russian author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875
Ep. #035
August
-
1 Aug 1744: Lamarck (birth of)
- Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, chevalier de Lamarck, or ‘Lamarck’, was born. He was a French naturalist with not entirely correct ideas about the evolution of species and although he was wrong about how it works, he still set the stage for Darwin, who was born about sixty years later.
Ep. #181
6 Aug 1881: Alexander Fleming (birth of)
- Scottish physician and microbiologist, best known for discovering the world’s first broadly effective antibiotic substance, which he named penicillin.
Ep. #389
7 Aug 1928: James ‘the Amazing’ Randi (birth of)
- ‘Grandfather of Skepticism’
Ep. #182
7 Aug 1948: Lysenkoism
- Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences announced that from that point on Lysenkoism would be taught as “the only correct theory”.
Ep. #234
7 Aug 1987: Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim (birth of)
- German chemist, science communicator, television presenter and YouTuber.
Ep. #286
10 Aug 1940: Peter Atkins (birth of)
- Professor of Physical Chemistry and outspoken atheist
Ep. #338
12 Aug 1967: Sea Org Day
- Sea Org Day marks the founding of the Sea Organization in Scientology
Ep. #390
13 – 14 Aug, 1956: The Lakenheath-Bentwaters Incident
- A series of radar and visual contacts with unidentified flying objects over airbases in eastern England
Ep. #085
15 Aug 1248: Foundation stone of Cologne Cathedral
- The foundation stone of Cologne Cathedral was laid to become the resting place of the “Three Wise Men”
Ep. #391
15 Aug 1977: the Wow! signal
- the Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal received on August 15, 1977, by Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope in the United States.
Ep. #235
17 Aug 2006: ‘Orbo’ free energy device
- The company Steorn published their claims on its ‘Orbo’ free energy device. They got financing to the tune of 23 million Euro, but strangely the device never materialized…
Ep. #183
18 Aug 1503: Pope Alexander VI (death of)
- Pope 1492 to 1503. Issued several Papal bulls that legitimized the oppression of North and South America
Ep. #339
18 Aug 1932: Luc Montagnier (birth of)
- Nobel Laureate and proponent of pseudoscience
Ep. #287
19 Aug 2001: Sylvia Millecam (death of)
- Dutch actress and comedian. Her death of breast cancer in 2001 could possibly have been avoided if she had not taken advice from Dutch healing medium Jomanda.
Ep. #134
25 Aug 1835: The Great Moon Hoax
- This series of articles has been regarded as the first modern fake news event
Ep. #392
25 Aug 1850: Charles Richet (birth of)
- French physiologist at the Collège de France, who coined the term ectoplasm
Ep. #087
26 Aug 1743: Antoine Lavoisier (birth of)
- French nobleman and chemist
Ep. #037
26 Aug 1910: Mother Teresa (birth of)
- Probably the best known modern saints of all, still in fact pretty mean and cruel
Ep. #340
29 Aug 1632: John Locke (birth of)
- English philosopher and physician and one of the first British “Empiricists”
Ep. #185
29 Aug 1967: UFO Sighting at Cussac, France
30 Aug 1797: Mary Shelley (birth of)
- Author of Frankenstein
Ep. #289
September
-
1 Sep 1964: Pontus Böckman (birth of)
- Podcaster and skeptical activist
Ep. #341
4 Sep: San Roslia Feast
- The Yearly Feast and Pilgrimage of Santa Rosalia in Palermo
Ep. #394
5 Sep 1996: Holocaust denial
- Libel suit filed concerning Deborah Lipstadt’s book ‘Denying the Holocaust’
Ep. #137
8 Sep 1774: Anne Catherine Emmerich (birth of)
- Catholic Augustinian Canoness who inspired Mel Gibson’s “the Passion of the Christ”
Ep. #089
10 Sep 1713: John Needham (birth of)
- English naturalist
Ep. #039
10 Sep 2008: Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
- At CERN in Switzerland the Large Hadron Collider (LCH) was powered up on 10 September 2008.
Ep. #239
11 Sep 1822: Heliocentrism accepted by Vatican
- College of Cardinals finally accepts heliocentrism
Ep. #342
11 Sep 2001: 9/11 attacks in the US
- Starting point for modern conspiracy theories online
Ep. #290
14 Sep 2011: Ask for Evidence campaign
- The Ask for evidence campaign was launched 14 September 2011
Ep. #187
15 Sep 1530: The portrait of Saint Dominic in Soriano
- Fake relic
Ep. #291
15 Sep 2008: International Day of Democracy
- In 2008 the UN created the International Day of Democracy, 15 September
Ep. #395
18 Sep 1819: Léon Foucault (birth of)
- French mathematician and astronomer who is best known for his invention of a pendulum which demonstrates the rotation of the earth.
Ep. #343
18 Sep 1895: Chiropractic
- The birth of chiropractic
Ep. #139
20 Sep 1863: Jacob Grimm (death of)
- Linguist and a fairy tale collector
Ep. #292
23 Sep 1939: Sigmund Freud (death of)
- Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis
Ep. #091
25 Sep 1994: ECSO
- The European Council of Skeptical Organisations (ECSO) was founded on 26 September 1994.
Ep. #241
26 Sep 1897: Pope Paul VI (birth of)
- Initiator of the Second Vatican Council, implemeting many reforms.
Ep. #041
27 Sep 1989: The Voronezh UFO incident
- UFO sighting in former Soviet Union
Ep. #345
28 Sep 1994: Estonia ship disaster
- Surrounded by many conspiracy theories
Ep. #293
October
-
2 Oct 1958: Marie Stopes (death of)
- British author, palaeobotanist and campaigner for eugenics and women’s rights
Ep. #093
2 Oct 1991: Ig Nobel Prize
- The first Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony
Ep. #141
5 Oct 1713: Denis Diderot (birth of)
- French philosopher and writer, author of ‘The Skeptic’s Walk’ and main contributor of the Enyclopedia
Ep. #346
7 Oct 1885: Niels Bohr (birth of)
- Danish physicist and Nobel Laureate
Ep. #294
9 Oct 768: Coronation of Charlemagne
- There is a myth that this never happened at all.
Ep. #243
10 Oct 1816: Sir John Simon (birth of)
- British politician
Ep. #043
13 Oct 2018: QED conference
- QED 2018 was the latest QED week and we now prepare for 2022
Ep. #347
14 Oct 1988: Shroud of Turin
- Radiocarbon date analysis revealed that the shroud is a medieval hoax
Ep. #143
14 Oct 2016: QED conference
- This week in 2016, 2017 and 2018 the QED Conference took place in Manchester.
Ep. #244
16 Oct 2002: Dark Side of the Moon
- Mockumentary release on this day.
Ep. #192
18 Oct 1922: Founding of the BBC
- The BBC is the largest public service media company in the world
Ep. #348
20 Oct 1882: Bela Lugosi (birth of)
- Hungarian-American actor best remembered for portraying Count Dracula.
Ep. #245
22 Oct 1996: Evolusion recognized by the Papacy
- Pope John Paul II famously admitted that evolution makes sense on 22 October 1996. Better late than never!
Ep. #193
24 Oct 1601: Tycho Brahe (death of)
- Danish astronomer, astrologer and alchemist
Ep. #349
24 Oct 1611: Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (birth of)
- Dutch businessman and scientist
Ep. #045
28 Oct 312: The battle of the Milvian Bridge
- The Milvian Bridge is a bridge over the Tiber in northern Rome, Italy. It was an economically and strategically important bridge in the era of the Roman Empire and was the site of the famous Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, which led to the imperial rule of Constantine.
Ep. #246
29 Oct 1813: William Benjamin Carpenter (birth of)
- English Physician, zoologist, physiologist and a skeptic. He described and named the Ideomotor Phenomenon, sometimes known as the Carpenter Effect.
Ep. #194
31 Oct 1926: Harry Houdini (death of)
- Hungarian-born American escape artist, illusionist, stunt performer and mysteriarch, noted for his escape acts
Ep. #097
31 Oct 1992: Galileo Galilei
- Vatican admits that Galileo was right
Ep. #144
November
-
5 Nov 1459: The Council of Constance
- The Council of Constance begins
Ep. #298
7 Nov 1867: Marie Curie (birth of)
- Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist
Ep. #047
9 Nov 1938: Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass)
- This was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party’s Sturmabteilung (SA) paramilitary forces along with civilians throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938.
Ep. #248
10 Nov 1895: József Öveges (birth of)
- Hungarian science educator
Ep. #351
10 Nov 2009: Glasgow Skeptics
- Glasgow Skeptics founded.
Ep. #196
14 Nov 1929: Mihály Beck (birth of)
- Hungarian chemist and skeptic, one of the founders of the skeptical movement
Ep. #352
14 Nov 1948: Prince Charles (birth of)
- Heir apparent to the British throne as the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II
Ep. #099
18 Nov 1900: George Kistiakowsky (birth of)
- Ukrainian-American physicist
Ep. #001
21 Nov 1694: Voltaire (birth of)
- French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher
Ep. #049
21 Nov 1907: Josef M. Issels (birth of)
- German physician known for promoting an alternative cancer therapy
Ep. #147
21 Nov 1953: the Piltdown Man
- The Piltdown Man, a skull regarded as one of the most important missing links between apes and man, was publicly announced to be a hoax on this day.
Ep. #197
24 Nov 1859: On the Origin of Spieces
- The first publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
Ep. #301
29 Nov 1989: Belgian UFO wave
- Beginning of several months of UFO reports. It lasted until April 1990
Ep. #101
December
-
2 Dec, 1936: Peter H. Duesberg (birth of)
- German-American molecular biologist and HIV/AIDS denialist
Ep. #002
2 Dec, 2010: Decision to build a memorial to fallen aliens
- On 2 December 2010 the Ukrainian newspaper “Бердичiв дiловий” (“Business Berdichev”) announced that group of UFOlogists decided to build a memorial to fallen aliens.
Ep. #251
3 Dec, 1933: Paul J. Crutzen (birth of)
- Dutch atmospheric chemist
Ep. #302
4 Dec, 1873: Ghost Ship Mary Celeste
- The Ghost ship Mary Celeste was found on this day, abandoned by all crew. A couple of years later a promising young author called Arthur Conan Doyle (later Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) published a fictionalized account of the event , changing the spelling of the name of the ship slightly. This was taken as a true story and was the start not only of a brilliant writing career but also a legend and a myth that has intrigued and inspired ever since.
Ep. #199
4 Dec, 1893: John Tyndall (death of)
- Prominent 19th-century Irish physicist who discovered the molecular basis of the greenhouse effect
Ep. #148
4 Dec, 1982: Vetenskap och Folkbildning
- VoF was founded! Happy 40th birthday!
Ep. #355
5 Dec, 1952: Great Smog of London
- Severe air pollution event started that affected London in December 1952
Ep. #051
9 Dec, 1979: Smallpox
- On December 9, 1979, the Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication signed their names to the statement that “smallpox has been eradicated from the world.” It was a milestone in that it was the first time a disease was eradicated by human effort.
Ep. #200
9 Dec, 2009: Norwegian Spiral Anomaly
- Mysterious sky phenomenon
Ep. #303
11 Dec, 1972: Apollo 17
- Apollo 17 lands on the moon, the last time humans walked on the moon
Ep. #150
12 Dec, 1916: Rasputin (death of)
- Russian mystic with great influence on Russian Royal house, murdered
Ep. #004
14 Dec, 1503: Nostradamus (birth of)
- French astrologer, physician and reputed seer
Ep. #103
15 Dec, 2006: Founding of Hungarian Skeptics
- The Hungarian Skeptic Society (HSS) (Hungarian: Szkeptikus Társaság Egyesület) is a skeptic organisation based in Hungary.
Ep. #253
16 Dec, 1594: Allison Balfour (death of)
- Scottish witch
Ep. #304
16 Dec, 1917: Arthur C. Clarke (birth of)
- Renowned Sci-Fi author
Ep. #003
18 Dec, 1957: Jonathan Cainer (birth of)
- British astrologer
Ep. #356
19 Dec, 1956: John Bodkin Adams
- Arrested on this day in connection with the suspicious deaths of more than 160 patients
Ep. #053
20 Dec, 1946: Uri Geller (birth of)
- Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic
Ep. #357
22 Dec, 1839: John Nevil Maskelyn (birth of)
- He was a stage magician, skeptic and the inventor of the pay toilet.
Ep. #201
22 Dec, 1928: Piero Angela (birth of)
- Italian television host, science journalist, writer and pianist.
Ep. #254
25 Dec, 1: Jesus (birth of)
- Our Lord and Saviour?
Ep. #305
25 Dec, 1642: Sir Isaac Newton (birth of)
- English mathematician, astronomer and physicist
Ep. #151
27 Dec, 1571: Johannes Kepler (birth of)
- German astronomer, mathematician and astrologer.
Ep. #202
30 Dec, 1993: The Smallpox Retention Controversy
- The last remaining samples of smallpox virus in lab environment was planned to be destryed. This was not executed
Ep. #105
31 Dec, 335: Saint Sylvester (death of)
- Bishop of Rome
Ep. #306
End of Dec 1476 (or early Jan 1477): Vlad the Impaler (Dracula) (death of)
- Cruel medieval warlord whose patronymic name Dragulya inspired the name of the fictional Count Dracula
Ep. #358