What We Did Before | A History of Everyday Life
Before modern inventions and conveniences, humans had ingenious ways of solving problems. So how exactly did humans survive before fridges, without clothes or before surnames were invented? Find out the answers to these questions and more, right here. Hosted by Ollie Guillou.
Episodes
49 episodes
Before Stand Up Comedians: What Did Medieval People Find Funny?
💬 What did Medieval people actually find funny? Very little record of Medieval comedy remains, but thanks to one 15th century priest we now have a rare glimpse into the life of a Minstrel and the types of jokes they would’ve told.⚡ In th...
Before Workers’ Rights: White Phosphorus and The East End Matchwomen
💬 The East End Matchwomen produced one of Victorian Britain’s most important everyday products - but the job could be deadly.In Victorian London, the East End was seen as the slums. High society looked down on the people who inhabited th...
Before Fire Brigades: The Strange History of Fighting Fires
💬 Firefighting hasn’t always meant red engines and professional crews. For centuries, fighting fires was much more chaotic. Even by the outbreak of the Second World War, Britain still had more than a thousand separate local authority fire briga...
Before Online Games: How “MUD” Gave Birth to a Whole New Generation of Gaming
💬 Before World of Warcraft, RuneScape or even the internet as we know it, there was MUD - the world’s first multiplayer virtual world. Created in 1978 by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw, it would help lay the foundations for an entirely new gen...
Before Religious Freedom: The Tragedy of the Guernsey Martyrs
đź’¬ Visit the site of a brutal moment in Guernsey history. At Tower Hill Steps three women faced religious persecution - and were burned alive at the stake.One of the women, Perotine Massey, was pregnant and gave birth in the flames. What ...
Before We Had Answers: When Witches Met At This Ancient Grave
💬 At this ancient monolithic burial chamber, witches were said to convene with the devil to conduct The Black Mass. This imposing Dolmen came up time and time again in the brutal witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries.⚡ Th...
Before Radar: How The Hearing of "Aircraft Listeners" Saved Lives
đź’¬ Long before radar, armies relied on people with enormous metal trumpets strapped to their heads to listen for approaching aircraft. Aircraft listeners had the bizarre but vital job of detecting the sound of enemy planes, working in exposed po...
Before Prisons: Local Justice & the World's Smallest Prison
💬 Herm island might just be home to the world’s smallest prison. And yet it’s not the world record holder - that title belongs to a very close neighbour. So why doesn’t Herm prison hold the record - and what was such a tiny jail used for? ...
Before Sewers: How Toshers Had One of Victorian Britain's Most Disgusting Jobs
💬 Toshers had one of the most disgusting jobs of Victorian Britain. Searching the sewers of 19th century London, people would sieve through human sewage looking for discarded treasures. It’s a job that made them a lot of money - but came with m...
Before Cotton Left Britain: Inside Bancroft Mill Where The Weaving Looms Still Run
đź’¬ This is the deafening noise that powered Britain's Industrial Revolution. At its peak, thousands of men and women spent their days surrounded by the relentless clatter of weaving looms - a workplace so loud that many workers gradually lost th...
Before Cushioned Shoes: The 1970s Style That Changed Footwear Forever
💬 Shoes got a massive makeover 50 years ago, thanks to a boom in interest for running. A style that first emerged in the 1970s quickly became the dominant one - cushioned soles, elevated heels, narrow toes. And it’s the style we still see today...
Before Weapons: Unearthing Ancient Wooden Tools and Spears | Dr Annemieke Milks
💬 Archaeologists have found evidence of the oldest wooden handheld tools used by humans. Discovered in Greece, these ancient tools are around 430,000 years old.⚡Dr Annemieke Milks is a palaeolithic archaeologist and part of the team whic...
Before Instagram: Why Rich People Built Fake Ruins
💬 There’s a ruined archway sitting among the trees of my local park - but what grand building did it once belong to? A castle? A church? A grand manor house?In this episode I take a trip to Worden Park in Leyland. Rich in history, this p...
The Bleach Packer: Your Questions Answered
You had lots of questions about the Victorian job of the "Bleach Packer". So I invited Judith Wilde from Catalyst museum back for a Q&A.Together we dig deeper into the fascinating history of this gruelling job, that helped build the ...
Before Tax Havens: How Islands Have Reinvented Themselves For Millenia | Jason Monaghan
💬 Many islands all over the world are known for their finance industries - and especially for being “tax havens”. But this is just the latest ways islands have reinvented themselves over thousands of years. As far back as the Stone Age, ...
The Bleach Packer: One of the Worst Jobs of Victorian Britain | WWDB Highlights
Bleach packers had one of the worst jobs of the 19th century.At Catalyst Museum in Widnes, discover the history of these workers, why they wore muzzles, and how they helped build the chemical industry.This is a highlight from a longer ep...
The Terracotta Army & The Loch Ness Monster | A History Daily Special
💬  One March 29th 1974, a Chinese farmer was working the field as he always did - when suddenly his shovel struck something hard. Little did he know he had just stumbled upon one of the most important archaeological finds in history.⚡In ...
Before Tools: How Neanderthals Used Rhino Teeth, Vulture Bones and Deer Antlers
đź’¬ Neanderthals have been shown to use many incredible tools - but none quite as surprising as this. After studying rhinoceros teeth from a cave chock full of them - researchers managed to figure out why they were covered in strange markings.
Before Social Media: How Cleopatra Turned Herself Into a Living God | Natasha Solomons
đź’¬ Much of the myth of Cleopatra was crafted by her during her lifetime. An intentional process to shape how the citizens of Egypt - and the world - saw her. But without social media, how did great rulers of the ancient world fashion their own b...
Before We Were The Last Human Species: When We Lived With Neanderthals
đź’¬ For a big portion of human history, we shared the planet with other human species. What was that world like to be part of? How often did we interact with prehistoric humans - and would we have recognised the differences between them and us?
Before Chemicals: 'Bleach Packers' and the Birth of the Chemical Industry
đź’¬ The birth of the chemical industry - one which has reshaped the course of human history - happened in a small town in England. In the 19th century, Widnes was transformed into a major centre of the chemical industry. This era saw the r...
Before Brain Science: When We Thought With Our Hearts | Matthew Cobb
💬 For thousands of years, humans believed the heart controlled the body - your thoughts, your emotions…everything. The brain was just a radiator - something to discard when preparing the dead. But why did our ancestors think this for so ...
Before Burial: When Bronze Age Homes Were FULL of Human Bones
💬 When Barry Molloy’s team started digging up an ancient Bronze Age settlement - they never expected to uncover quite so many human bones. And they weren’t found in one place - they were everywhere.Archaeologists uncover...
Britain’s Forgotten Deportees: Families Sent to Nazi Camps
⚡ In 1942, during the height of World War 2, Hitler ordered the deportation of more than a thousand islanders from Guernsey. In retaliation against the Allied Forces, innocent men, women and children were forced to leave their island homes - se...
Before Neanderthals Went Extinct: We Shaped Our Culture Together
💬 A new study is rewriting our understanding of Neanderthals and human evolution. It seems ancient Homo sapiens didn't just coexist with them - but they shared ideas, cultures and inventions.⚡ In this episode we challenge long held belie...
