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 day four of our Victorian Christmas countdown the twenty five Strangest Days of Christmas. Today we celebrate the invention of the Christmas cracker, the festive table ornament containing tiny gifts, bad jokes, and the ever popular controlled explosion. Invented by London confectioner Tom Smith in the eighteen forties, crackers included a small gunpowder snap. Victorians adored the surprise and danger combination. By eighteen seventy five, newspapers reported injuries ranging from singed whiskers to startled fainting episodes.

0:38 Speaker 1: Yet the tradition only grew because nothing says peace on Earth like small scale detonation during dessert.

0:46 Speaker 2: Today's sponsor is Snapbang Luxury Crackers, the only cracker guaranteed 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, we explore the tradition of hiding pickles in Christmas trees. No seriously see you then,