LANE: Welcome back to Touring History, where we dig up the past so you don't have to explain why you know random historical facts at dinner parties. I'm Lane.
DAVE: And I'm Dave, still trying to understand how people survived before air conditioning. Like, did they just accept that summer meant being constantly miserable?
LANE: Today we're exploring July 28th, a date that's brought us world wars, architectural marvels, and some deeply personal scandals that changed the course of history.
DAVE: Speaking of July 28th, we got a voice memo from a listener. Sezso, what do you have for us?
SEZSO (as listener): [Nostalgic, warm voice] Hey Lane and Dave! July 28th, 2003, was the day I got my first job out of college - working at a tiny local newspaper in Ohio. I thought I'd be there for maybe a year before moving to somewhere "important." Twenty-one years later, I'm still here, now as editor-in-chief, married to my former sports reporter, and we've covered everything from high school football to a presidential campaign stop. Turns out "important" was right here all along. Sometimes the best adventures happen when you're not looking for them!
LANE: That's really lovely. Small-town journalism keeping democracy alive one high school football game at a time.
DAVE: And marrying your coworker! That's either the best office romance ever or a really effective way to never escape work talk at home.
LANE: Let's celebrate some July 28th birthdays! We've got Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, born in 1929, who redefined what it meant to be First Lady and somehow made pink Chanel suits iconic even after tragedy.
DAVE: Also born today: Beatrix Potter, who gave us Peter Rabbit and proved that stories about badly behaved woodland creatures could make you incredibly wealthy. And Jim Davis, creator of Garfield, continuing the tradition of badly behaved characters making people rich.
LANE: Can't forget Marcel Duchamp, born July 28th, 1887. Artist who basically said "What if I put a urinal in an art gallery?" and somehow changed art forever.
DAVE: Revolutionary concept: calling everyday objects art. Though I'm pretty sure my college dorm room was way ahead of its time by that standard.
DAVE: Time for scandal! July 28th, 1540, King Henry VIII married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard. Now, Henry had a track record with wives, but Catherine's story is particularly scandalous because she was having affairs both before AND during her marriage to the king.
LANE: Oh no. This doesn't end well, does it?
DAVE: Before marrying Henry, teenage Catherine was already sexually involved with her music teacher Henry Manox, then later with Francis Dereham, who actually considered himself engaged to her. But the really juicy part? While married to the king, she started an affair with Thomas Culpeper, a gentleman of the king's privy chamber.
LANE: So she was basically conducting a love triangle while married to one of history's most famously murderous husbands?
DAVE: More like a love pentagon! The scandal broke when a servant revealed love letters between Catherine and Culpeper. One letter included Catherine writing "It makes my heart to die to think what fortune I have that I cannot be always in your company."
LANE: That's... actually pretty romantic for someone who was about to be executed for treason.
DAVE: The affair literally changed English succession laws! Henry was so paranoid after this that he passed the Treason Act of 1542, making it illegal for anyone to marry the king without revealing their sexual history. Catherine lost her head in 1542, but her scandalous love life influenced royal marriage law for centuries.
LANE: Innovation time! July 28th, 1914, World War I officially began when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. But the innovation here was how this war completely changed warfare itself.
DAVE: That's a pretty dark kind of innovation, Lane.
LANE: WWI introduced chemical weapons, tanks, aircraft combat, and modern trench warfare. It was the first truly industrial war where technology determined outcomes more than traditional military tactics. It basically invented modern warfare.
DAVE: So the innovation was "new and more efficient ways to be terrible to each other"?
LANE: Unfortunately, yes. But also July 28th, 1945, a B-25 bomber accidentally crashed into the Empire State Building, leading to major innovations in aviation safety and skyscraper design. Sometimes disasters drive the best safety improvements.
DAVE: Nothing says "we need better flight plans" like accidentally flying into the world's most famous building.
LANE: The crash killed 14 people but the building's steel frame kept it standing, proving that smart engineering could handle even the most unexpected disasters.
LANE: Let's talk about The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills, where they've been elevating Los Angeles palates since 1967.
DAVE: They're still celebrating having Bava Brothers back on their shelves, and honestly, if you're not eating authentic Calabrian charcuterie, you're missing out on centuries of Italian food wisdom.
LANE: Bava Brothers' sopressata is made from heritage pork with the perfect blend of red chili pepper, paprika, and fennel seeds. It's aged for a month and pressed for two weeks using a 4th generation family recipe that started in Calabria.
DAVE: Their 'Nduja Calabrese spread is basically edible fire in the best possible way. Blend it with sun-dried tomatoes and garlic, and suddenly every meal becomes an event worth remembering.
LANE: Visit cheesestore.com or their Beverly Hills location. With over 600 imported cheeses plus Bava Brothers' return, your charcuterie board game is about to reach legendary status.
DAVE: The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills: Where every bite tells a story and your kitchen becomes inadequate by comparison.
LANE: Deep thoughts time. Dave, what's July 28th telling you about human nature?
DAVE: July 28th shows that humans are basically walking contradictions. We can create beautiful art, build amazing skyscrapers, and then immediately figure out new ways to destroy each other. Also, apparently even queens can't resist a good love triangle.
LANE: My deep thought is that July 28th proves that personal choices can have massive historical consequences. Catherine Howard's affairs changed English law, an archduke's assassination started a world war. Individual human drama shapes entire civilizations.
DAVE: So your deep thought is "personal drama becomes historical drama"?
LANE: Exactly. Your deep thought is "humans are beautiful disasters with really poor timing."
DAVE: And somehow we keep building civilization despite constantly undermining ourselves! It's like we're playing historical Jenga but we keep winning anyway.
LANE: That's... actually a perfect metaphor for human history.
LANE: That's July 28th - proving that history is just personal drama with really, really high stakes.
DAVE: Thanks for touring history with us! Like, subscribe, and send us your voice memos about meaningful dates. Office romances that turn into lifelong partnerships are exactly the kind of personal history we love hearing about.
LANE: Until next time, remember: history is just humans making questionable decisions and somehow building a world anyway.
DAVE: This has been Touring History. I'm Dave.
LANE: I'm Lane.
BOTH: See you in the past!