LANE: Welcome back to Touring History, where we make the past more entertaining than scrolling through social media for the hundredth time today. I'm Lane.
DAVE: And I'm Dave, still amazed that people used to navigate by looking at stars instead of yelling at GPS. Though honestly, the stars probably gave better directions than my phone does.
LANE: Today we're exploring July 29th, a date that's brought us royal weddings, space achievements, and some very public displays of romantic poor judgment.
DAVE: Speaking of July 29th, we got a voice memo from a listener. Sezso, what've you got?
SEZSO (as listener): [Sheepish, amused voice] Hey guys! July 29th, 2018, was the day I accidentally became internet famous for exactly fifteen minutes. I was at my cousin's wedding, and during the bouquet toss, I completely whiffed the catch, fell backward into the chocolate fountain, and took out half the dessert table. Someone filmed it, it went viral with 2.3 million views, and now I'm forever known as "Chocolate Fountain Guy" in my family. The bride thought it was hilarious, I got a lifetime ban from bouquet tosses, and honestly? Worth it for the story. Keep up the great work!
LANE: That's actually amazing. You're probably the only person who can say they literally fell into fame via dessert table.
DAVE: Plus you saved everyone from having to make awkward small talk about who was getting married next. True wedding hero, honestly.
LANE: Let's celebrate some July 29th birthdays! We've got Patti Scialfa, Bruce Springsteen's wife and E Street Band member, proving that marrying your bandmate can actually work out sometimes.
DAVE: Also born today: Martina McBride, country music powerhouse who proved that women could rock just as hard as anyone else. And Geddy Lee from Rush, whose voice somehow made prog rock accessible to mortals.
LANE: Can't forget Dag Hammarskjöld, born July 29th, 1905. UN Secretary-General who basically invented modern international diplomacy and somehow made bureaucracy noble.
DAVE: Plus he wrote poetry and philosophy in his spare time, because apparently some people just have to overachieve at everything.
DAVE: Scandal time! July 29th, 1981, Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in what was supposed to be a fairy tale wedding. But the salacious truth? Charles was deeply in love with someone else the entire time - Camilla Parker Bowles.
LANE: Oh boy, here we go with royal drama.
DAVE: The night before his wedding, Charles gave Camilla a bracelet engraved with "GF" - Gladys and Fred, their private pet names for each other. Diana found out about it and considered calling off the wedding, but it was too late to back out.
LANE: Wait, he gave his mistress jewelry the night before marrying someone else? That's impressively terrible timing.
DAVE: It gets worse! Charles admitted in a 1994 interview that he resumed his affair with Camilla in 1986, while Diana was struggling with bulimia and postnatal depression. Meanwhile, Diana started her own affair with James Hewitt, her riding instructor.
LANE: So the fairy tale wedding was actually a love quadrangle with international implications?
DAVE: Exactly! Their messy divorce in 1996 literally changed how the British monarchy handles marriage. Diana's famous "there were three of us in this marriage" interview exposed the whole scandal to 23 million viewers and basically forced the royal family to modernize their approach to relationships.
LANE: So one prince's inability to break up properly before getting married changed centuries of royal protocol?
DAVE: Pretty much! Charles eventually married Camilla in 2005, but only after Diana's death, a massive public relations disaster, and completely rewriting the rules about divorced royals remarrying.
LANE: Innovation time! July 29th, 1958, NASA was officially established, basically turning science fiction into a government agency with an actual budget.
DAVE: That's more "bureaucratic creation" than innovation, Lane.
LANE: But NASA immediately started innovating everything! Tang, Velcro, memory foam, water purification systems - NASA's space research accidentally improved life on Earth in ways they never planned. They were trying to get to the moon and ended up revolutionizing breakfast drinks.
DAVE: So the innovation was "aim for space, accidentally improve everything else"?
LANE: Exactly! Also July 29th, 1914, transcontinental telephone service began in the United States. Suddenly you could call someone 3,000 miles away, which must have been mind-blowing for people who were used to sending letters and hoping they arrived.
DAVE: Though I bet the first cross-country phone call was probably just someone saying "Can you hear me now?" for twenty minutes.
LANE: The first official call was actually from New York to San Francisco, and it cost about $100 in today's money for three minutes. Premium pricing for premium confusion.
LANE: Time to talk about The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills, where they've been curating culinary excellence since 1967.
DAVE: They're still celebrating the triumphant return of Bava Brothers, and honestly, once you try authentic Calabrian sopressata, regular deli meat starts tasting like cardboard with delusions of grandeur.
LANE: Bava Brothers uses all-natural heritage pork with the perfect blend of Calabrese paprika, fennel seeds, and red pepper. It's aged for a month, pressed for two weeks, and contains zero artificial ingredients - just pure Italian tradition.
DAVE: Their 'Nduja Calabrese spread is basically spicy, spreadable happiness. Mix it with their sun-dried tomatoes and suddenly your Tuesday night pasta becomes restaurant-quality without the restaurant prices.
LANE: Visit cheesestore.com or their Beverly Hills location. With over 600 imported cheese varieties plus the return of Bava Brothers, your kitchen is about to become the neighborhood's favorite destination.
DAVE: The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills: Where every meal becomes memorable and your old shopping habits become embarrassingly basic.
LANE: Deep thoughts time. Dave, what's July 29th teaching us about human nature?
DAVE: July 29th shows that humans are basically ambitious dreamers with terrible timing. We create NASA to explore space, establish transcontinental phone service, and then immediately use our innovations to make our personal drama more complicated and public.
LANE: My deep thought is that July 29th proves that the most important innovations often come from trying to solve completely different problems. NASA wanted to beat the Soviets to space and accidentally gave us memory foam mattresses.
DAVE: So your deep thought is "happy accidents drive progress"?
LANE: Pretty much. Your deep thought is "humans are great at big picture stuff but terrible at managing their personal lives."
DAVE: And somehow we keep advancing civilization despite constantly creating soap opera-level drama for ourselves! It's like we're building rockets while setting our relationships on fire.
LANE: That's... actually a perfect description of human progress.
LANE: That's July 29th - proving that humans can reach for the stars while simultaneously making questionable romantic decisions.
DAVE: Thanks for touring history with us! Like, subscribe, and send us your voice memos about meaningful dates. Chocolate fountain disasters that lead to viral fame are exactly the kind of personal history we live for.
LANE: Until next time, remember: history is just humans achieving greatness while dramatically mismanaging their love lives.
DAVE: This has been Touring History. I'm Dave.
LANE: I'm Lane.
BOTH: See you in the past!