I Had No Idea

On December 9, 1951, an interesting mevlid was being prayed at the Şişli Mosque. The prayers prayed for Eva Peron, the wife of Argentine President Juan Peron, to recover from throat cancer soon became a subject of controversy...

When TRT achieved a certain success with the first literary adaptation in its history, it turned its attention to another great work, Kemal Tahir's novel Yorgun Savaşçı. But the process was not as easy as expected...

The most famous executioner in the history of the Republic was Kara Ali. By the 1950s, he was one of the most famous figures in the country. He traveled to executions all over Türkiye and told newspapers about his execution memories.

During the Cold War, the fierce rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union extended into space, and it was the Soviets who took the lead after launching the Sputnik I satellite.

By the mid-1940s, doping and match-fixing had begun to creep into horse racing. It came to the point where the track and the hyprodrome were set on fire.

Our first Winter Olympics experience was not a great one. The main problem occurred in the flag relay. One of our athletes got lost. The reflections of the incident in the Turkish press were quite harsh.

Türkiye's most skillful safecracker of all time was Fantoma Mehmet, who was active in the 1920s and 30s.

One of the sculptures placed in twenty different locations in Istanbul as part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Republic was Gürdal Duyar's sculpture of a naked woman named "GÜZEL İSTANBUL". It became the subject of controversy.

Moda Beach was experiencing one of its historic days on August 24, 1971, because the beach, where water sports competitions had been held until then, was going to host the first Miss Leg contest in Türkiye.

One of the most famous criminals of the 1950s was Şehabettin Fırat, a robber whom the newspapers called “the truck rat”. He specialized in jumping into freight trucks on roads while they were in motion and stealing the goods from the crates.

In the 50s, the country was facing a huge housefly problem.

In March 1987, Nokta Magazine published a cover story entitled “GODLESS” and featured the views of well-known atheists. The newspaper also interviewed Hans von Aiberg, a professor of nuclear physics at the University of The Hague.

Akis magazine, which selects the “Man of the Year” from among the most talked about people in Türkiye every year, chose Nuh the Barber as the “Man of the Year” in 1967 with the votes of its readers.

In May 1931, the arrival of Europe's most famous circus Ben Amar in Istanbul was a big event.

In 1950, one of the most interesting practices of the Demokrat Parti that came to power was to lower the status of the places where they could not get enough votes. On the other hand, they raised the status of the places they saw as vote depots.

52 years ago, a small claim like “I can shave better than you even with my eyes closed” soon took the whole country under its influence. After 2 months of challenges and handstand shaving, the Chamber of Barbers took over the situation.

Relations between landlords and tenants in Türkiye were at their most strained between 1955 and 1965. A law enacted during the Second World War to protect tenants set a rent cap.

In 1936, Ali Baba, nicknamed “The Fearsome Turk”, won the fifth world championship of the sport known as American Wrestling.

Becoming famous without having any meaningful talent used to be a common phenomenon in Türkiye. One of the first examples of this category was Sevtap Çetinkale, nicknamed “Imam's Wife”...

On April 23rd, the first attempts to sit children into positions of authority did not go well. One-day administrators who wanted to promote their fathers to better positions, who extended the school vacation to six months, were making a big mess...

In 1933, the results of a beauty contest caused a scene. A fight between the fans of the first two runners-up broke out. When the press exaggerated the incident, it ended up in court...

Striptease, brought to Türkiye by French dancers in the 1950s, quickly became a very popular entertainment.

Experiencing one of the worst periods of its history in the 1930s, Galatasaray started to decline after winning the Istanbul League Championship in 1931.

The relationship between people and stray dogs, one of the oldest inhabitants of Istanbul, began to deteriorate in the 19th century.

Ayten Akturan, who worked at the Izmir long distance telephone switchboard, was one of the switchboard attendants who enabled Izmir subscribers to talk to out-of-town callers. It was the Yassiada trials that made her known to the whole of Turkey...

In 1949, Indian Prime Minister Nehru gave an elephant as a gift to Japanese children. The event had an impact beyond expectations and was reported in the world press.

One of the leaders who left his mark on Turkish politics in the 1970s was Necmettin Erbakan, the leader of the Milli Selamet Partisi, which appealed to religious and conservative voters.

Dallas made a rapid entry into Türkiye's daily life. Entertainment venues were named after Dallas and the dishes on the menus were named after characters from the series. Newspapers were filled with Dallas news and comments for years.

Being a lawyer with a fake diploma was a common crime in the 60s. But some took it too far and became fake judges. The most famous of them is Kayabey.

What was the truth behind the Biberiye Cult that appeared in and around Adana? Was it that its followers worshipped hot peppers or that they went through an ordeal by eating the hottest peppers?

An interesting adventure that started in the 1960s when hippies started to settle in Istanbul. Those who ended up in police stations, those who gave up being hippies because they had lice, those who passed exams because they were Turkish girls...

On November 3, 1996 at 19:25, a traffic accident at Çatalceviz in Susurluk led to the biggest scandal in the history of the Republic of Türkiye.

In 1985, Müslüm Gündüz, leader of the Aczmendi group in Elazığ, was raided with Fadime Şahin by the police and journalists. What seems like an extraordinary tabloid incident takes on a completely different dimension with Fadime Şahin's statements.