The 25 Strangest days of Christmas Day 5 - “Boom! The Explosive Birth of Christmas Crackers”

0:00 Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to the Strange History Podcast and

0:03 Speaker 1: day four of our Victorian Christmas countdown the twenty five

0:07 Speaker 1: Strangest Days of Christmas. Today we celebrate the invention of

0:11 Speaker 1: the Christmas cracker, the festive table ornament containing tiny gifts,

0:16 Speaker 1: bad jokes, and the ever popular controlled explosion. Invented by

0:20 Speaker 1: London confectioner Tom Smith in the eighteen forties, crackers included

0:25 Speaker 1: a small gunpowder snap. Victorians adored the surprise and danger combination.

0:31 Speaker 1: By eighteen seventy five, newspapers reported injuries ranging from singed

0:35 Speaker 1: whiskers to startled fainting episodes. Yet the tradition only grew

0:41 Speaker 1: because nothing says peace on Earth like small scale detonation

0:45 Speaker 1: during dessert.

0:46 Speaker 2: Today's sponsor is Snapbang Luxury Crackers, the only cracker guaranteed

0:51 Speaker 2: to scare at least one in law back to their carriage.

0:55 Speaker 1: Snap Responsibly five days down, twenty more peculiar tradition to go. Tomorrow,

1:01 Speaker 1: we explore the tradition of hiding pickles in Christmas trees.

1:05 Speaker 1: No seriously see you then,