On 23 October 1812, General Claude François de Malet walked into the heart of Paris with forged documents claiming Napoleon had died in Russia. For twelve hours, his audacious coup succeeded. Soldiers believed him. Officials obeyed. The Prefect of Police was arrested. The Military Governor was detained. Then someone asked about Napoleon’s heir, and the whole conspiracy unravelled. Clara Vale examines why it worked at all, what it revealed about the fragility of Napoleon’s empire, and why the emperor never forgot it. Also this episode: England’s most violent tornado on record, which struck Lincolnshire in 1666 with F4 intensity. Swatch’s 1998 attempt to abolish time zones with Internet Time, a single global clock measured in beats. And Archbishop James Ussher’s 1654 calculation that the world was created on this exact date in 4004 BC, a figure printed in Bibles for over a century.

• Intro What would you do if someone showed you official documents claiming the most powerful man in the country had died? In 1812, one man tested that exact question in Paris.
• The Man Who Killed Napoleon (Without a Weapon) General Claude François de Malet, a republican imprisoned in a Parisian nursing home, forged documents claiming Napoleon had died in Russia. On 23 October 1812, he walked into military barracks, arrested senior officials, and nearly seized control of Paris before someone asked about Napoleon’s heir. The coup lasted twelve hours. What haunted Napoleon afterwards was not the attempt, but why so many officials had believed it without questioning the succession.
• England’s Most Violent Tornado On 23 October 1666, Lincolnshire experienced the most intense tornado in recorded English history. Classified retrospectively as F4 on the Fujita scale and T8 on the TORRO scale, with wind speeds exceeding 213 miles per hour, it struck during an already catastrophic year that included the Great Fire of London and ongoing plague.
• Swatch and the Dream of Internet Time On 23 October 1998, Swiss watchmaker Swatch launched Internet Time with MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte. The system proposed abolishing time zones entirely, dividing the day into 1000 beats with midnight in Biel, Switzerland as zero. Despite real coverage and dedicated watches, the system faded as people preferred time aligned with the sun.
• The Date the World Began (According to One Very Specific Bishop) Archbishop James Ussher of Armagh calculated through biblical chronology that the world was created on the evening of 23 October 4004 BC. Published in 1654, his date was printed in King James Bible margins for over a century and represented the intellectual consensus of his era, before modern geology and astronomy arrived at rather different figures.
• Outro Four stories from one date explore human certainty and its limits, from a general who forged his way to the edge of history to a bishop absolutely certain about the universe’s birthday.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Fran%C3%A7ois_de_Malet
• https://www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-the-two-empires/articles/the-malet-conspiracy-1812/
• https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2241/the-malet-coup-of-1812/
• https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/warnings-and-advice/uk-storm-centre/index
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tornadoes_and_tornado_outbreaks_in_Europe
• https://www.torro.org.uk/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time
• https://www.wired.com/1999/02/swatch-2/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Ussher

On 23 October 1812, General Claude François de Malet walked out of a Paris prison with forged documents claiming Napoleon had died in Russia. For several extraordinary hours, senior officials believed him. Troops were mobilised. Ministers were arrested. The machinery of Empire ran on a lie. What stopped the conspiracy wasn’t loyalty or planning, it was a single sceptical question. The Malet affair revealed something Napoleon found more disturbing than the coup itself: remove him, even fictitiously, and the entire structure wobbled. Also on this date: England’s most powerful tornado tore through Lincolnshire in 1666 with winds exceeding 213 miles per hour. Swatch launched Internet Time in 1998, attempting to abolish time zones in favour of decimal beats. And according to Archbishop James Ussher’s 17th-century calculations, God created the universe on the evening before 23 October 4004 BC. Four stories about extraordinary confidence in the face of complexity, and what happens when someone finally asks to see the paperwork.

• Intro What do you need to overthrow an empire? An army, money, allies. Or, alternatively, one forged document and staggering confidence. On 23 October 1812, a man walked out of a Paris prison and nearly dismantled Napoleon’s empire before breakfast.
• The General Who Faked a Revolution With Napoleon deep in Russia and communication delayed, General Claude François de Malet escaped La Force prison with forged Senate documents declaring the Emperor dead. For hours, his invented provisional government actually functioned. Senior officials handed over troops, ministers were arrested, and the Prefect of Police was locked up. What finally stopped it was not loyalty but a single sceptical general asking to see proper authorisation. Malet was executed six days later. The conspiracy revealed something more troubling than rebellion: when told Napoleon was dead, officials did not think of succession or dynasty, they simply tried to work out what happened next.
• England’s Worst Tornado, 1666 On 23 October 1666, Lincolnshire experienced the most intense tornado ever recorded in English history. Classified as F4 on the Fujita scale, with winds exceeding 213 miles per hour, it remains the most powerful on record. This came just weeks after the Great Fire of London, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, and shortly after the Great Plague. A reminder that the past was frequently terrifying.
• Swatch Internet Time, 1998 On 23 October 1998, Swatch launched Internet Time: a proposal to abolish time zones and divide the day into 1,000 decimal beats, with midnight in Biel, Switzerland, as the starting point. Backed by MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte, it was marketed with genuine enthusiasm and integrated into some software. Then everyone quietly stopped using it. The world was not ready to reorganise time around a Swiss watchmaker’s commercial interests.
• James Ussher’s Creation Date According to 17th-century Archbishop James Ussher’s biblical calculations, God created the world on the evening before 23 October 4004 BC. A Sunday. Ussher’s methodology was careful and internally consistent by the standards of his time, and his Annals of the World remained a respected text for over a century. Modern science places the universe at roughly 13.8 billion years old, but Ussher did what careful scholars do: committed to an answer and showed his working.
• Outro Four stories from 23 October across different centuries, united by a certain confidence in the face of enormous complexity. Malet believed conviction could reshape an empire. Ussher believed careful reading could date creation. Swatch believed they could fix time zones. History does not always arrive with trumpets. Sometimes it turns up holding forged documents and making a very strong case before anyone thinks to check.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Fran%C3%A7ois_de_Malet
• https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/types-of-weather/tornadoes/uk-tornadoes
• https://www.torro.org.uk/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology

On 22 October, across four millennia, humanity has watched the sky with varying degrees of success and consequence. In 2137 BC, two Chinese court astronomers reportedly paid with their lives for failing to predict a solar eclipse under Emperor Zhong Kang, an event that may represent one of the earliest dated astronomical records in history. In 1739, British forces attacked the Venezuelan port of La Guaira in the opening salvo of the improbably named War of Jenkins’ Ear, a conflict sparked by colonial trade tensions and a preserved body part presented to Parliament. In 1797, André-Jacques Garnerin became the first person to make a recorded parachute jump, descending violently but successfully from 1,000 metres above Paris in a frameless silk canopy. And in 2024, asteroid 2024 UQ became only the tenth space rock detected before atmospheric entry, burning up harmlessly over the Pacific. From ancient celestial divination to modern near-Earth object tracking, 22 October offers a peculiar thread through human attempts to understand, survive, and occasionally fall through the sky above us.

• Introduction Clara Vale introduces the episode’s theme: humanity’s relationship with watching the sky, opening with the consequences faced by ancient Chinese astronomers who missed a crucial solar eclipse.
• The Eclipse That Cost Two Men Everything The story of Hsi and Ho, two royal astronomers in 2137 BC China who were reportedly executed for failing to predict a solar eclipse during the reign of Emperor Zhong Kang. The episode explores the Mandate of Heaven, ancient Chinese astronomical sophistication, and the historical verification of this early recorded eclipse.
• Call to Action Clara invites listeners to follow the show and share it with others who enjoy unusual historical stories.
• The War of Jenkins’ Ear On 22 October 1739, British forces attacked La Guaira, Venezuela, in the opening engagement of the War of Jenkins’ Ear. The conflict stemmed from colonial trade tensions between Britain and Spain, famously catalysed when Captain Robert Jenkins presented his preserved severed ear to Parliament as evidence of Spanish brutality.
• André-Jacques Garnerin Falls With Style On 22 October 1797, French aeronaut André-Jacques Garnerin made the first recorded parachute jump, descending approximately 1,000 metres from a hydrogen balloon over Paris. Despite violent oscillation caused by the canopy’s design, he landed safely and pioneered the practical parachute.
• The Asteroid That Said Hello From California On 22 October 2024, asteroid 2024 UQ disintegrated harmlessly over the Pacific Ocean, becoming only the tenth asteroid in history to be detected and tracked before atmospheric entry, demonstrating advances in near-Earth object detection.
• Outro Clara reflects on four thousand years of humanity watching the sky, from ancient omen interpretation to modern asteroid tracking, and closes the episode.

• https://www.britannica.com/event/Xia-dynasty
• https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhistory/SEhistory.html
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shujing
• https://www.britannica.com/event/War-of-Jenkins-Ear
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Andre-Jacques-Garnerin
• https://www.nasa.gov/asteroid-watch/
• https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/