October 5, 1969 –
The British Empire had been on a long slow decline for many years. The last flourish of that dying world power happened on this date – Monty Python’s Flying Circus made its debut on BBC-TV.
The Pythons did almost all of their own stunts, including Graham Chapman (a qualified mountaineer) reading a sketch while hanging upside-down on a rope, and Michael Palin plummetting fifteen feet into a canal in “The Fish-Slapping Dance” after John Cleese smacked him in the head with a trout.
The Haus of Dcaligari 