Hello, I'm Basha Cummings and I'm the host of a weekly investigative show called the

Sloan Newscast from Tautas.

As our name suggests, we are a newsroom with a different approach to journalism.

We take the news slowly and each week the team brings you one investigation that really

matters and helps you make sense of the world, from the inside stories of politics to true

crime and injustice to real life mysteries.

Subscribe to the Sloan Newscast feed wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Ellie Corthon.

In today's episode, we consider an event that happened on this day 850 years ago.

On the 29th of December 1170, Thomas Beckett, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was brutally

murdered within Canterbury Cathedral.

His assailants fled and almost immediately a saintly cult grew up around the man.

Dr Emily Gary, senior lecturer in medieval history at the University of Kent, explains

the story to our content director, Dr Dave Musgrove.

Please be aware that the murder itself was pretty gruesome and there's a graphic description

of what happened in this podcast.

So Thomas Beckett was murdered this day, 29th December 850 years ago.

There were to be all manner of events and commemorations around the anniversary, but

Corona has consigned most of them to history.

Nevertheless, it's still very much worth talking about him and finding out what happened.

So Emily, first of all, can you just drop us into the Beckett story a little bit?

I know we don't know a huge amount perhaps about his early years, but what is his backstory?

...