A Point In Time

A Point In Time - The Great Fire of LondonExplore the catastrophic events of September 1666, beginning with a single spark in a bakery that transformed London into a literal bonfire. This episode examines how political hesitation and a brutal summer drought combined to destroy the city's heart and its most iconic cathedral.

A Point In Time - The Night Elvis Walked Into the White HouseDecember 21, 1970: Elvis Presley arrived unannounced asking Richard Nixon to make him a federal anti-drug agent, creating one of the strangest celebrity-meets-power moments ever recorded.

A Point In Time - When Niagara Went QuietOn March 31, 1848, an ice jam upstream caused Niagara Falls to go eerily silent, revealing exposed riverbed and sparking a wave of astonishment. This episode explores the human reactions, the strange history of walking the emptied gorge, and how Niagara was both a natural wonder and vital infrastructure.

The Man Who Sold the Eiffel TowerIn 1925 Paris, Victor Lustig spotted a perfect opening: a famous landmark seen by some as an expensive nuisance. This episode unpacks how he used forged authority, urgency, and human vanity to pull off one of history’s boldest scams — and why the real lesson is as psychological as it is criminal.This episode unpacks the 1925 Paris con that convinced scrap dealers the Eiffel Tower was being sold off, and why the scam worked so well on pride, secrecy, and the look of authority. It also explores Victor Lustig’s social-engineering brilliance and the postwar tensions that made an absurd lie feel strangely believable.

A Point In Time - Vesna Vulović and the Fall From 10,160 MetresA routine Yugoslav Airlines flight turned into one of aviation’s most astonishing disasters when JAT Flight 367 broke apart over Czechoslovakia in 1972.This episode explores how Vesna Vulović survived a fall from extreme altitude, the wreckage and conditions that may have saved her, and the lingering questions around the bombing theory.

The Great Emu WarIn 1932, the Australian military declared war on emus.And lost.This episode dives into the bizarre 1932 campaign in Western Australia, where soldiers were sent to protect farmland from emus and discovered that birds in open country are remarkably hard to defeat.Beneath the absurdity is a serious story about drought, soldier-settlers, and what happens when governments try to force a simple solution onto a messy environmental problem.

The Man Who Survived Two Atomic BombsIn August 1945, Tsutomu Yamaguchi left home on a routine work trip and stepped into the heart of two cataclysms. He is the only person officially recognised as having survived both atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.This episode of A Point In Time follows Yamaguchi’s life across just a few days: from an ordinary morning in Hiroshima, through the blinding flash that changed everything, to his battered journey back to Nagasaki — only to face a second nuclear blast.Through his own documented testimony and survivor accounts, we trace his movements hour by hour: the shipyard assignment, the moment of the first detonation, the chaotic ruins and desperate search for help, the overnight train ride home, and the surreal horror of sitting in a Nagasaki office as the second bomb detonates.

The Dancing Plague of 1518In the summer of 1518, a woman in Strasbourg stepped into the street and started to dance—and couldn’t stop. Within weeks, hundreds were thrashing, leaping and collapsing beside her, some reportedly dancing themselves to death. In this episode, we zoom in on the strange "dancing plague" that gripped a Renaissance city: what witnesses said they saw, how the authorities tried to deal with it (including hiring musicians and building stages), and why so many people joined in.Along the way, we pick apart the leading theories, from cursed saints and poisoned bread to mass psychogenic illness and explore what this eerie outbreak reveals about life, belief and stress in a city on the edge.

London, 17 October 1814. In the overcrowded slum district of St Giles, a quiet Monday evening turns catastrophic when an enormous porter vat at Meux & Company’s Horse Shoe Brewery suddenly explodes. A wall of beer smashes through brick and timber, floods cellars and courts, and leaves eight people dead in one of London’s strangest industrial disasters. In this episode, we zoom in on the so‑called London Beer Flood: how industrial‑scale brewing created a “wooden cathedral of booze” above some of the city’s poorest residents, what happened when more than 300,000 gallons of porter surged into the streets, and why this bizarre tragedy reveals deeper truths about the Industrial Revolution, urban poverty, and the way extraordinary events fade into the background of everyday places. No myths, no tall tales — just a completely true, slightly unbelievable moment from the past.

In this debut episode of our podcast A Point in Time, we dive into one of history’s strangest true disasters: the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 in Boston. Yes, an actual tsunami of sticky syrup tore through a city neighbourhood.Simon walks you through the day a two‑million‑gallon storage tank burst, sending a wave of molasses up to 40 feet high rushing through the streets at around 35 mph. Along the way, we explore how cutting corners, dodgy construction, and a bit of bad luck turned an everyday industrial product into a lethal force.A Point in Time blends vivid storytelling with real history—covering what happened, why it happened, the people caught up in it, and how a sticky mess helped change safety regulations for good.