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Podcast: Today In History with The Retrospectors
Episode: Fan-Dancing, Dwarfism and Microwaves
Description: Microwave cookery was first demonstrated by Ross Kilgore of Westinghouse at the Chicago World’s Fair, which opened on 27th May, 1933. But the event was deemed to be a side-show of little scientific significance, and was forgotten until microwaves were ‘discovered’ two decades later.
Incredibly also on display at the Chicago World’s Fair were incubated premature babies; people with dwarfism paraded in ‘midget’s village’; and, most attention-grabbingly of all, a provocative fan dancer called Sally Rand. Different times.
In this episode, Arion, Olly and Rebecca compare the Fair’s SkyRide to its ‘coal mine’; question th...