Oh What A Time... - Ep3: New Year Extra Part Specials

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

We’re off on our Christmas / New Year break at the minute so while we’re off being festive, please enjoy two of our special 4th parts that were available for subscribers last year. In this ep you’ll hear bonus parts from:#25 Calendars#26 BlundersAnd pop it in your diary: we’ll be back with some brand new OWAT on Monday 13th January 2025!If you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before (including ALL the 4th parts from last year), why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?Up for grabs is:- two bonus episodes every month!- ad-free listening- episodes a week ahead of everyone else- And much moreSubscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.comYou can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Happy New Year to all our listeners!Chris, Elis and Tom xSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wanderi Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What A Time early and ad free. Join Wanderi Plus in the Wanderi app or on Apple podcasts. Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time. We are on our Christmas slash New Year break at the moment. So instead of just leaving the feed dormant, we are instead putting out little fourth parts that we had done early last year when we first launched the full-timer subscription package,

a little taster of a full fourth part Megasode, which contains loads and loads of extra fourth parts we did in various episodes. So this content has never been heard before on the main feed, but if you want access to loads more bonus content, including all these fourth parts, you can go to owototime.com and become a full timer. But today we have for you calendars and blunders so please do enjoy this. And welcome to this section, the extra part, which is why the UK government stole 11 days from the population in 1750. Right, I told you we were going to talk about this at the start. I didn't tell you why. Any guesses? Why they stole 11 days from us? Why did the

government... Why were they flying to Australia and then flying back and then flying back to Australia and then flying back? When was it? 1750? Why did they steal 11 days? Shall I tell you how it exactly worked? On the Wednesday the 2nd of September 1752, the following day was Thursday the 14th of September 1752. So it went from the 2nd of September 1752 to the 14th of September 1752. So it went from the 2nd of September 1752

to the 14th of September 1752. Pre-mass media and pre-social media, it would be so difficult to get that message out. People's bookkeeping would be a mess. Yep. I'm just thinking about the self-employed. Oh man, I'm going to tell you all about this. Your invoices. Oh man. We ended up for a while in the UK with an old style calendar and a new style calendar because of this. Right. The reason was that UK was on the Julian calendar and we needed

to upgrade to the Gregorian calendar and the reason why I need to explain to you now, the Julian calendar had 365 days in the year. It was introduced by Julius Caesar, as we touched on earlier. So you have the 12 months of the year, and you add on the additional leap day every four years, making an average length of 365.25 days, which I would have thought, yeah, that's right, isn't it?

Yeah, that's fine. Every four years? Yeah, that's fine. Only 34 years? Yeah. However, the actual length of a solar year is about 365.24217 days, slightly mathematically shorter than is required. Annoying. Over time, and Britain had this calendar for 1600 years.

Yep, it's building up. Over time, that discrepancy just increased and accumulated, leading to a difference between the calendar year and the solar year. And so to correct that, the Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory the 13th in 1582 to address the inaccuracies that were apparent in the two calendars. Did he do that because it was named after him? Yeah. Shall we switch to the Ellis calendar actually? Imagine if the pope now tried to were apparently named after him yeah should we switch to the Ellis calendar actually? imagine if the Pope now tried to come up with a new calendar

the Pope's the last person surely yeah fine nice one he came up with that smelly stuff in the bowl of living rooms anyone want a potpourri? it's been a continuous production week on the last leg, Thomas's after his shanty. He's dropping his potpourri. So the Gregorian calendar has 365 days in a regular year but skips leap years three

out of every four century years unless they are divisible by 400. Do you have any idea was this complicated? For instance 1700, 1800, 1900 were not leap years, but 2000 was. Right, okay. Confusing, isn't it? Sorry, which years weren't leap years? So I'll read that again. Gregorian Canada has 365 days in a regular year,

but skips leap years in three out of every four century years, unless they are divisible by 400. So 1700, 1800, 1900 not leap years, 2000 watts. So 1900 was not a leap year. Yes. That's fascinating. The adjustment reduced the average year length to approximately 365.2425 days which is much closer to the actual solar year of 365.24217 days. How did they work this out? How on earth? The Pope of all people. It's mad isn't it?

How did he have the time? Wasn't he trying to save souls or whatever the Pope does? Also, how are they clocking this after a while? It must have been a few years until they're like, hang on, spring is still freezing. Does it matter? Does it matter though? I'd be that guy. Sure, if you leave it long enough it'll just come round again

and it'll sort of right itself. In another 1600 years it'll be alright again. I'd be the does it matter guy at the Vatican. Yeah. So by 1752 in the UK, the Julian calendar had been used for 1,600 years and that resulted in a discrepancy of 11 days, causing issues with the timing of the equinoxes and the solstices.

Does it matter? So directed by this, does it matter? The British government passed the New Style Calendar Act in 1750 which declared that on Wednesday the 2nd of September in 1752 would be followed by Thursday the 14th of September, effectively skipping 11 days and bringing the UK calendar in line with the Gregorian system. Yep. Once again, we've talked about this, you'd be annoyed if your birthday was like September

the 3rd. Yeah, wouldn't you? How livid you'd be annoyed if your birthday was like September the 3rd yeah how livid you'd be. We're quite childlike as a three. Three grown-ups, adults. Well what about your birthday? You say that all the time. Genuinely, if you were booked to go bowling, 12 mates and pizza, you pre-paid for the sort of the sharing option or whatever, they've got chicken wings, all these sort of things and it's all gone. You've found a space on Jess Park, it's gone.

Exactly. Bang. So Britain had kind of resisted the move onto the Gregorian calendar because it was so associated with the papacy. But when they did move onto it, they re-enabled it the new style to try and distance themselves from it. There was a time where British calendars were in old style and new style which led to things like the advert I'm about to read you that was placed in Ipswich in 1756. Gaywood Fairs near Lynne Regis, Norfolk which used to be held on the 11th of June or the

6th of October will be held on the same day's old style and Viz new style, 22nd of June and 17th of October. Okay, so I'm never turning up to an event on the right day. If I live then I'm missing everything. I'm always choosing the wrong one. Yeah, it's gonna cause some issues, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Two different calendars. So we had this period where multiple different countries, as I've kind of touched on, were

on different calendars. And this becomes quite tricky when it comes to placing historical events. So Napoleon's famous victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, which is called the Battle of the Three Emperors because Napoleon was there, as was Alexander I and Francis II. For the Austrians, that battle took place on their Gregorian calendar on the 2nd of December 1805. The French who used the Republican calendar, it was 11th of Freymouth, 14. And for the Russians who used the Julian calendar, it was the 20th of November 1805. So an incident like that, multiple countries working to multiple calendars,

you had one battle, three armies, three three emperors and three different dates according to Wow Confusing times, but now fortunately we're on there basically we're on the Gregorian. Thank God I On a number of occasions you must have done the same turned up to gigs on the wrong days You've done that back in the day never maybe okay, right? turned up to gigs on the wrong days? You ever done that back in the day? Never. Maybe, okay, right.

I remember I turned up for a gig at I think it was Roehampton University. Went into the hall where it was supposed to be, I was supposed to be performing or thought I was about to be performing and there were just people playing bagminton in there. And when you see some people, a room full of people playing bagminton,

you think something's gone wrong here. I think. It's most likely they're right, because they've put the nets up and nobody stopped them. I once turned up in a community center to do a gig. And the community center was closed, and I thought this doesn't look great. And then it was locked, and I thought that looks worse,

because it's half an hour before show time. I thought the very, you know, the best, the best option is that there's just gonna be no punters here. Yeah. And I thought that I'd done that. And then the other two acts turned up, and I thought, okay, finally, thank God. I haven't messed up, because otherwise,

they've messed up in exactly the same way, which is very unlikely. I rang the promoter, and he went, Oh God! Sorry, sorry. I confirmed you and then I never did anything else. Did he get paid? No, he promised me some other gigs. Did they come to pass?

No. No. I said I'll give you some other gigs and then I did nothing! I did nothing about it! Oh no! Wow. There we go. So that is Calendars.

That's the end of this week's episode. There you go. Very interesting. Yeah. A lot of hassle avoidance. Yeah. Oh man. Switch into the old Gregorian.

Can we agree that that was, um, so far our most complicated episode? It was, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of information. Thank you to Darryl O, historian. But there was the French one, the post, the Republican calendar is so complicated, I thought I'm not, Google it.

It doesn't work. I'm gonna say it, it doesn't work. No. Mayan calendar as well, too complicated. If anyone's really got their head around too many of these calendars, you're beating all three of us, to be honest. Shout out to Pope Gregory for sorting it all out. Yeah, exactly.

I thank you for listening subscribers, our favourite people. Yeah, do spread the word. If you love this show, if you signed up to be a subscriber, you must do. Do spread the word. Do spread the word. Tell your friends. If you're a subscriber and you've yet to leave a lovely review, why not do that as well? Pop on, leave a five star review, write something nice in Latin underneath and then just get on with your

life really. Just get on with your day. Goodbye. Bye. We'll see you next week, next month, who knows. Until then, bye. Hello and welcome to the bonus section of this week's Oh What A Time. So big hello to the Oh What A Time full timers. You're our favourite people. Thank you so much. You're our favourite people. Yeah and we want to have more favourite people so if you know anyone else who'd also like to become one of our favourite people do recommend that they sign up as well. Okay for a final

section of this show I'm going to be talking to you about Roman military blunders. So basically, if you want to look for large scale military blunders, look to ancient history because there's so many times where thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of soldiers were wiped out in a single battle because of just stupid moronic decisions. Quick question before we get into this. Do you think if 100,000 people have died in a battle it's still okay to call it a blunder or is that too playful a word? I think you can call it a blunder if it's a thousand years ago. Yeah exactly. That's my advice. Yes. The old tragedy plus time

That's my advice. Yes. I mean, it's tragedy plus time. Absolutely. Maxim. In that case, we can continue safely with this section. So the Romans were no strangers to military blunders. Give an example. In around 100 BC, migrating Germanic tribes defeated several Roman legions in southern Gaul with one battle near Toulouse, costing the lives of some 140,000 Roman soldiers. Oh my god. That's incredible, isn't it? It's almost unimaginable. A thing that I was thinking about which is even more unbelievable is when you consider that would have been mainly hand-to-hand combat as well. Really. Obviously there's bow and arrows and

stuff like that but a lot of that is just man on man fighting. 140,000 people died, and that's just on the Roman side. That's gory, isn't it? That is a gory scene you've painted there. Yeah. I think being in the Roman army is up there with things I just really am not cut out for. I just don't have that in me. Horrendous. However, for the ultimate Roman military blunders, we have to look back into the time of their

greatest enemy, who is a Carthaginian general Hannibal. The iPhone. Exactly, because that's the real killer. The killer of time and interpersonal relationships. Exactly. That's the thing that's costing millions around the world, are essentially losing their lives if you think about it, to the iPhone. So Hannibal Shorthand is the guy with the elephants. I'm sure people will know about this, the marching the elephants through the mountains. But Rome's battles with Hannibal were basically a disaster consistently. The Battle of Trebia in northern Italy in December 218 BC alone saw Hannibal's forces kill 20,000 Roman troops,

and they just didn't know how to deal with him. They had no idea, and this caused panic in Rome and set in motion a series of just incredible, how do you describe, just terrible military decisions, real, real blunders. So I'm going to take you through those and I'm going to give you the stats at the end of this of quite how terribly all of this went. First, Gaius Flaminius, who was a high ranking Roman politician, was brought in as consul at the start of 217 BC to try and deal with Hannibal.

And Guides decided that he was going to take an aggressive military tack and push Hannibal and his army, confronting them at Lake Trotsimene in Tuscany. However, he arrived quite nicely. You forgot about that. You forgot about that anyway. Do it in Tuscany. You might see David Cameron on holiday, but it's a lovely spot. That's not where Hannibal is by the way.

We're just going to wait in Tuscany and hope that he turns up and if he does turn up we will be ready for him. If he can have a battle anywhere, have something nice. Yeah, definitely. So he heads off to Tuscany with his Roman army and he finds that Hannibal's army is twice the size of his and by the end of the battle 15,000 Romans were dead including him while a further 6,000 have been captured and thousands more and scattered into the

countryside to make their way home. I think if I turned up to find the opposition's army was twice as big as mine I would immediately turn back would you not yeah, does that not feel? Or at least negotiate that thing you have in five aside when one team hasn't got enough players you have to go Well, you have to let me know one really good player. Yeah. Well, can we have him in the second half? It all comes down to the general isn't? Like if you've got a master tactician who's got a long CV full of battles won against the odds, you're going, all right, they've got twice as many as us. This guy's a genius. I'll back him. Yeah.

Yes, that is true. But Hannibal was famously a brilliant military tactician as well. So you're facing one of the greats. So he's a brilliant military tactician and he's got twice as many soldiers as the other side. I'm bottling that. I'm 100% bottling that. So to cut a long story short, disaster. Absolute annihilation which led to more panic in Rome who elected a temporary dictator to deal with the issue. I don't think the phrase, we're electing a temporary dictator would ever inspire confidence. No, no, no. It doesn't sound good, does it?

If Rishi Sunak said, look, we're losing grip of the economy, but it's all right, we're appointing a temporary dictator, it's going to be OK. Well, yeah, we're just going to have a bastard for a month. Because if I know one thing about dictators is that they do famously short stints. They're in and out. Caretakers. Our budget bastard, that's what they call it.

So, the man they chose for this job was a man called Fabius Maximum. Would you like to guess what cool nickname this incredibly powerful man had? Er... Nutcase? It's so close to fabulous to the max. Well, it's neither of those things. It was Warty, due to a wart on his upper lip. Oh, God. Which I don't think is a nickname I'd have used around him. Well, it's neither those things it was warty due to a wart on his upper lip. Oh god I don't think his a nickname I'd have used around him I think no, it's so much so that I think I would have acted surprised when he even mentioned he had a war and I

Would have been so good Where on your where is it on your foot is it on your lip night? As the shape of the lips, I don't know. I just think that's the shape of a lip isn't it? I don't know what you're talking about. So warty proposed guerrilla warfare to defeat Hannibal, an approach which actually eventually would prove to be the right one. However... And he also proposed stopping off at a chemist to buy some blisties. You always wore a bike helmet, like a full motorcycle helmet, like one of those Zafirex adverts, that's how you know it's him. However, in this time of panic, basically, Rome decided they didn't have the patience

for guerrilla warfare, for grinding down an enemy, so warty was quickly replaced, and this time by even more aggressive consuls, who again promised victory in the removal of Hannibal once and for all. So this is kind of this is the arrogance the confidence these military generals however once again this approach would fail spectacularly in 216 BC at the Battle of Cannae and Rome rocked up with nearly 90,000 troops which this time was double Hannibal's 50,000 men and everyone obviously thought well this time we're going to win it right but no despite the odds Hannibal once again outwitted them, outflanked the Romans, encircled them and by the end of this battle a further 70,000

Romans have been killed. Okay. Warty's going if you're gonna stab me to death can you take my lip off first and then at least when they're doing my bust they can sort of guess that I had nice lips. Well warty wasn't there, warty had been fired you see, so these are the aggressive, these are the replacement consoles. To give you some stats from this entire period of blunder, by the time the bodies had been counted one fifth of the male population of Rome had been killed and almost an entire generation of leaders wiped out and that's in just three years so a fifth of the male population of Rome had been killed and almost an entire generation of leaders wiped out and that's in just three years so a fifth of the entire male population of Rome had been killed in these failed battles but you know who had the last laugh it was old warty who was eventually

brought back in and whose approach of targeting the enemy supply lines accepting only smaller engagements on favorable ground rather than risking his entire army on direct confrontation with Hannibal himself, did eventually defeat Hannibal. And it's an approach that went on to be copied by numerous generals throughout history, including George Washington, John Adams, the Russian general tasked with beating Napoleon in 1812. It's a tactic that has been used but at the point he suggested it, Rome just wasn't willing to embrace it because they were so desperate for this victory, this idea of crushing Hannibal and led by these leaders who were so sure of themselves. But that's

it really. I mean in three years a fifth of the entire male population of Rome was wiped out due to these repeated failed endeavors. Can you imagine what that would do to Roman confidence? Yeah, absolutely. A wipeout of that magnitude. You're singing sack the board, aren't you? Well, it did.

It completely changed the way Roman hierarchy worked, the way the army was viewed. It had fundamental effects on the shape of Rome and kind of shaped Rome to the sort of Rome that we understand it in later years basically. It had a real impact on the way that it approached war, battle and expansion basically. Wow! Yeah, there you are. There is a period of blunder for you. Three years of absolute disaster. Let's definitely do an episode on generals. I love generals. We should definitely do an episode on Hannibal. I don't know him. I don't really know about the

elephants. Yeah. He sounds like a fascinating character. We could do the three, I can think of two Hannibals. That guy and Hannibal Lecter. Yes, I know more about Hannibal Lecter. I can think of two Hannibals, that guy and Hannibal Lecter. Yes, I know more about Hannibal Lecter. If we can get one more Hannibal, we've got Hannibal. Hannibal from the A-Team. Yes, three Hannibals. That's it for this episode today. Just a reminder, we are on our Christmas slash New Year break

and we'll be back on Monday the 13th of January with more brand new Oh What A Time. But don't forget, if you want brand new episodes of Oh What A Time that you've never heard before, two bonus episodes every month, you can become an Oh What A Time full-timer. For all the links, go to owhatatime.com. Otherwise, we'll see you again very soon bye

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