Hosts, Gill Smith and Pete Moor look into the history books finding the lesser known stories behind the characters we all learned about at school.
In each episode Gill and Pete tackle a different subject from famous monarchs, world changing leaders to characters and stories that have gone under the radar.
What The Factual? tells the interesting or funny stories from history with fun facts and strange tales sprinkled along the way.
From December 2024, each Friday, spin off series "Facts The Way I Like It!" sees new weekly episodes where Gill and Pete share lesser known facts and mad stories in a short, fun, pre-weekend fact sharing mission!
These episodes will appear on your What The Factual? Timeline.
Follow us, and episodes will appear in your timeline automatically!!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
54 - Facts The Way I Like Christmas (A WTF? Flashback!)
So to stave off the cold winter nights with no Facts The Way I Like it (only for a few weeks!) we have put together a little condensed version of our classic What The Factual? Christmas episode from 2023 where Gill and Pete share some truly terrifying historic Christmas traditions and a few explainers of why we do Christmas things the way we do... Namely why so many people end up in A+E on Christmas Eve.
We hope you enjoy this little re-visit of our yuletide episode!!
Happy Holidays everyone and be careful playing Snapdragon and waking the dead guys called Thomas... (This is all explained in the episode. I haven't gone mad... well...)
Right we're off to buy a load of fireproof clothing. See you next year!!
Follow us on Social Media:
Threads: @WhatTheFactualpod (https://soundcloud.com/WhatTheFactualpod)
Instagram: @whatthefactualpod (https://soundcloud.com/whatthefactualpod)
Email us..: whatthefactualpod@gmail.com (mailto:whatthefactualpod@gmail.com)
Youtube...: www.youtube.com/@whatthefactualpod (https://gate.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2F%40whatthefactualpod&token=b37f30-1-1766066736380)
Facts The Way I Like It! is written and presented by Gill Smith & Pete Moor.
Subjects & Research by Gill Smith & Pete Moor.
Sound, Editing & Music by Pete Moor.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
12 Dec 2025
53 - Mária Telkes, Pet Ocelots, and Agatha Christie's New Life
It's Gill and Pete's 1 year anniversary since the first ever Facts The Way I Like it so in a celebratory episode they surprise everyone by sharing more facts. Ok, no surprise exactly but still...
This Friday, Gill brings us the stpry of how Agatha Christie found inspiration and a new life in the Middle East, then she tells us of how Christian Dior was inspired by his sister Catherine's wartime resistance to eventually name one of his most iconic fragrances after her.
Pete shares some bizarre facts about the legendary artist Salvador Dali and also tells the inspirational story of Mária Telkes who almost single handedly developed early solar power technology and created the Solar Still which saved countless lives during WWII. She finally left a legacy without which our solar technology may well not be where it is today.
To finish the episode we have a birthday quiz based around famous people and famous quotes which itself ends with Pete dragging out his Beatles impressions again.
After this episode there will be a small hiatus over Christmas.
There may be some "greatest hits" episodes and maybe some re-issues to tide you over the Christmas period but Gill and Pete will be back in January!
So with that, we're off to tour America with a pet Ocelot.
Follow us on Social Media:
Threads: @WhatTheFactualpod
Instagram: @whatthefactualpod
Email us..: whatthefactualpod@gmail.com
Youtube...: https://www.youtube.com/@whatthefactualpod
Facts The Way I Like It! is written and presented by Gill Smith & Pete Moor.
Subjects & Research by Gill Smith & Pete Moor.
Sound, Editing & Music by Pete Moor.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
5 Dec 2025
52 - Stuart Little's Stolen Artwork, Clouting & Being Caught by a Sandwich
More fact-based festive frivolity for a Friday morning! This week Gill has a story of the female-led London gang known as the Forty Elephants who were generally up to no good but specialised in "clouting" (the act of steeling goods by hiding them within their clothing) and robbing well to do men in the Elephant and Castle area!
Gill also tells us of the coincidental recovery of a lost priceless artwork which came about simply because a Hungarian art historian was watching an age-inappropriate movie.
Finally, she tells us of the insanely unlikely romantic story of two lovers who were brought together by a message in a bottle. So there is hope for anyone still relying on internet dating.
Pete has a pedantic story of why we are all using the word "decimated" wrongly. It turns out that it has a very disturbing historic definition which you wouldn't want to be a part of. He also tells us the ancient historic reason why we have 360 degrees in a circle and why we have never needed to decimalise that part of our mathematical system!
Finally he has a story that can provide some real inspiration to any budding Diamond thieves with a story of how a crew of the best of the best fell at a very simple but fatal hurdle.
Right, we're off to half-eat a sanwich and see what we can hide in a cummerbund...
Follow us on Social Media:
Threads: @WhatTheFactualpod
Instagram: @whatthefactualpod
Email us..: whatthefactualpod@gmail.com
Youtube...: https://www.youtube.com/@whatthefactualpod
Facts The Way I Like It! is written and presented by Gill Smith & Pete Moor.
Subjects & Research by Gill Smith & Pete Moor.
Sound, Editing & Music by Pete Moor.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
658
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Spotify
5.0 / 5
9 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 49 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
60
Social presence
0
YouTube
64
Engagement
32
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