October 12, 2026: One Wedding, Two Hundred Years of Beer

A brand-new king's son threw open his wedding to an entire city, and the gesture never really stopped.

On October 12, 1810, Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria married Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen, and rather than keep the celebration confined to the royal court, officials invited ordinary Munich residents to join days of public feasting and a closing horse race that drew forty thousand spectators. The crowd's reaction was strong enough that the city repeated the event the next year without a wedding to justify it, and by 1819 Munich had taken over permanent management of what had become Oktoberfest, the tradition that now draws more than six million visitors to the city every year and has spread to German heritage communities across the world, including Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

This is bsnsHistory, the daily podcast about the moments when business quietly reshaped the world.

Written and hosted by Ron Trucks. Research and editing by Rodney Russ. Sound design by Angela Cahoy. Music by Cody Martin and Soundstripe.

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